I was hoping we'd have a sane response to an insane election year.
Instead the madness will get worse as the LEAST QUALIFIED HUMAN BEING to ever run for President will take control of the steering wheel and drive this bus over the cliff.
I'm watching another replay of the disasters I've seen here in Florida since 2010 and 2014: where a depressed Democratic voter turnout - all because the Far Left were having their hissy fits about centrist candidates - led to the Republican candidates winning key elections leading to a goddamn Medicare Fraud in Rick Scott becoming governor and wrecking our state in some form or another. Only now I watched it happen to the entire nation as Trump - a far bigger and more destructive crook - wins on Election Night.
All I can do is look at the polling results and come to the unavoidable conclusion that too many of my fellow Whites are a bunch of racist sexist assholes who sided with a racist sexist asshole to be their President.
This election cycle, we as a nation did not answer to the better angels of our nature.
As a result, everything that Barack Obama did the last eight years gets erased.
His signature attempt to curb health care costs with Obamacare will die on Day One in Trumpland.
Obama's foreign policy efforts to end Iran's nuke deal will get shredded, most likely by a return of harsh sanctions that will drive Iran back into their WMD program, thus ensuring the neocons get their nice little invasion plan going for 2017. Depending on whether Trump gets to drop a nuke or three on Syria and Iraq to show them who's boss. Not to mention every early attempt to open Cuba back up will get shut down. In the end, EVERY effort Obama made to repair our nation's standing with our NATO and Asian allies will take a huge blow. We'll end up siding with Russia, God help us.
Obama's efforts to improve equal pay for women? Gone. Obama's efforts to protect women's health? Gone.
Obama's efforts to grant gays equal rights under the law when it comes to serving in the military, and with gay marriage? I am expecting the Far Right to be especially gleeful about bringing down the hammer on this.
Business regulations that Obama got signed? Everything gets deregulated on the Republican platform, remember?
All that effort to repair the economy, to bring down unemployment below 5 percent? I guarantee you the coming slash-and-burn Ryan budget is going to do exactly the same thing the slash-and-burn budgets in 1981 and 2001 did: ruin job growth and lead to MORE unemployment.
I had hoped, I wanted to believe, that every person who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 realized that his legacy was at stake with this election, that voting for Hillary at the least would have ensured Obama's administration would have a more lasting impact. Instead, voter turnout dropped. And some of it was more than just the Republicans' efforts at voter suppression. Despite all the early voting returns suggesting an uptick in overall turnout, instead we got a wet blanket.
Just enough Dems and Indys and Moderate-leaning Republicans were so put out by Hillary that they ignored the virtues of having her as President and ruined everything.
If there is any bright spot to this dark week, it's that certain things are now unavoidable.
For one thing: Trump will self-destruct. He always does.
The second thing: The Republicans will self-destruct. They are repeating the same mistakes they've made in 1981 and 2001 with their god-awful budget plans and deregulation desires. Each time they created massive economic upheaval, scandal, and self-immolation. There's a reason why I'm still sticking to the argument that the Republican Party is dead even though they've just won a major election. The Republicans are dead because they keep falling back onto the same zombie ideology that never worked, and they can't break free of that extremism to where they will evolve and survive. This will not really end well for the Republicans.
Sadly, here's why this week is one of the bleakest our nation's ever seen: The Republicans win the long game of securing the federal courts, especially with filling the Supreme Court vacancies. Mitch McConnell deserves a special place in Hell for his obstruction this past year, denying Obama's nomination for the vacancy, but McConnell got what he wanted: there is no chance now of the Democrats filling the top legal bench with Left-leaning jurists, and the Republicans can easily fill this ninth seat and any other vacancy that pops up during the next 2-4 years. Clarence Thomas is reportedly keen on retiring: Anthony Kennedy (key swing vote) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are both well past retirement age. Trump can well fill three seats maybe four if he makes it to one term, and do so in a way to affect the Court for another 30 years.
It pisses me off not enough Democratic or Moderate voters realized that was at stake.
It pisses me off that too many Americans eagerly backed a racist sexist con artist like Trump, seemingly out of sheer spite for the entire nation.
What the hell, America.
What.
The.
Hell.
/deep sorrowful mood swing
2 comments:
I think its worse than that. The Democratic party has lost pretty much every state in the country. I live in Texas and the party here is dead. If the Republicans continue to hold most state legislatures, the house will be even more gerrymandered than it already is. I just don't see how democrats will ever pick up any white voters any more. My initial reaction was for Dems to appeal to the New Deal, since ending the social programs it created has been a pet dream of the Republicans for years. I wonder if any of those voters even care at this point. If Democrats want to remain competitive on a national stage on any level, they have to pick up some white voters and hold state houses and more seats in the House of Representatives. I just don't see how they can possibly appeal to them any more. Unions have no power. Those factory jobs won't come back. They started closing in the 80s, not just after NAFTA.
The progressives keep siting the popularity of Sanders, but i just don't see someone who calls himself a socialist being able to compete on a national level. We are going to need supposedly conservative Democrats or moderate Democrats with emphasis on different issues. I'm not saying that Democrats should back of their platforms in support of social justice, but should discuss other things instead. Sort of like how there's a Republican governors in relatively liberal states like NJ.
Anyway, I think the path is to hold the executive again will be there in 4 yrs if he blows it up spectacularly. But other then that the Democrats have no future other than that of the minority party.
But, I read your blog a lot and thought I would post because you actually talk about your local government in Florida. Probably one of the best moderate voices I think. :)
thank you Alexandra. I'm sorry about what our nation's about to go through.
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