The Patriot
is not surprised. Racism, America’s original sin, staged a coup this election,
aided and abetted by the upper middle-class, who decided that aligning themselves
with the KKK was preferable to the unseemliness of confronting their own complicity
in the subjugation of women and minorities. In all fairness, it should be noted that 53%
of well-educated white women also cast their votes for President Pussygrabber,
thereby demonstrating that privilege and class trump, (ahem), gender and
feminism as motivation for selecting a president.
Of course,
there is plenty of blame to go around. The Patriot reserves special ire for the
DNC and the feckless moderate democrats, who talk a good game when it comes to
matters of freedom in the bedroom, but reveal themselves to be fairly conservative
when provided with an actually progressive candidate like Bernie Sanders. Whether Bernie would have won against Trump
is an open question. I believe he would have, others think not, but I sure
would have preferred to go down swinging rather than have the hopes of my
children dashed on the rocks of a bland, mediocre candidate like Hillary
Clinton.
The magnitude
of this loss is still seeping in. This morning I contemplated an FBI under the
control of a paranoid, demented Rudy Giuliani, and a Department of Justice under
the control of Chris Christie. To say nothing of the fate of a Supreme Court to
which Trump may have up to four appointments. What else? He has
already named prominent climate change denier Myron Ebell of the
Competitive Enterprise Institute to lead his transition work at the EPA and
fossil fuel lobbyist Mike McKenna for the Department of Energy. Worse to come,
I’m sure.
While backlash
racism accounted for a large part of
that heretofore hidden Trump vote, (really a latent anti-Obama vote),
additional blame can be laid at the feet of the Democratic Party, who long ago
abandoned the interests of the white working class (hell, the entire working
class), to focus on cultivating their
relationships with Goldman Sachs and Wall Street. As Thomas Frank wrote in an
excellent article
in the Guardian this morning, “Maybe
it’s time to consider whether there’s something about shrill
self-righteousness, shouted from a position of high social status, that turns
people away.” Yes, do look into that, Democratic leaders.
Bernie knew.
He so clearly defined the problem and offered a real solution that the party
elites couldn’t possibly accept. Turn away from elitism and embrace the working
class. They couldn’t swallow it and that’s why they destroyed him. Red-baited
him from the left. Clinton couldn’t even bring herself to support a $15 an hour
minimum wage for Christ’s sake. There was more anti-Bernie rhetoric coming from
moderate Democrats than there was from Republicans. I spoke to more than one
Trump voter who said if Bernie was running they would have voted for him. He
understood them. He cared about them. She cared about getting elected. The
general election was over the minute she became the nominee.
I don’t know
what’s in store for us over the next four years. My hope is that the turgid
nature of our political system will wear Trump down like it does to everyone
else who takes office with grand ideas, only to be confronted with the reality
that governing is really, really hard. Running a country is not like running a
corporation. You need to be able to forge consensus to get anything done. Maybe he decides after one term that his
talents are better used elsewhere. We can only hope.
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