Well, didn’t see that coming. Like a lot of people, I simply underestimated Trump, and it looks like that was a mistake.
But honestly, people. You’d think you woke up to hell on earth or something. Let me clue you in – this ‘how could this happen’ feeling? Yeah, it is how conservatives felt in 2008. And 2012. And we didn’t riot. Unlike leftists in Oakland. So, well played. Check your post history, and reread any ‘cope and move on’ posts you or others might have directed at us, and apply to yourselves. This not some end of history moment. It is a message. A loud one.
Hillary Clinton ran as the establishment candidate. Honestly, she couldn’t do otherwise, regardless of her desires. She has been in the inner halls of power since 1992. She has been #3 in line for the White House. She was the first overtly consulted First Lady. She was presented as the heir to Obama, and the guardian of his legacy.
And that is why she failed. Seriously. How do the Democrats not get this? Did they not see the kinds of focus Sanders received? Did they not need their rigged system to ensure the establishment candidate won the nomination in the face of the most anti-establishment electorate in US history? And yes, the superdelegate system is rigged for the insider candidate – just because Sanders chose to play in that system does not make it less rigged. Trump is the most outsider candidate ever – having never held any elected office before. This was the year of the outsider, which we should have seen in the massive rallies and crowds Trump and Sanders drew. Especially in comparison to the anemic crowds Clinton drew (especially in the primaries).
Despite the usual 20/20 hindsight, I figured that his support would not overcome the leftist fear-mongering about him. I was wrong.
To those who see this as the beginning of the inevitable revocation of whatever civil issue you hold dear, please, for the sake of everyone, take a civics course. That isn’t how this works. Never has been. Look to FDR – insane popularity, and when he tried to ram things through to do what he thought would help the most, he was blocked. Trump? Even his notional party doesn’t like him. Do you honestly think that he will somehow break Democrat resistance, GOP dislike, and popular opinion to magically deport everyone who isn’t white? Revoke every equality law in every state? End abortion?
Grow. Up.
- Most of those are state laws, and the federal authority does not extend to state laws. See literally every state that has legalized marijuana. It is still illegal at the federal level, but holy crap, states can write their own laws! So if your state has passed any kind of equality law, nothing Trump does can change that.
- If the President could handwavium laws away, don’t you think Obama would have done so? He hasn’t. As much as I think he was at best a sub-par President, even at his most arrogant (and he is absurdly arrogant “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.” -New Yorker, 11/17/08) never managed that. It isn’t how the system works.
- Pence may have religious objections to gay rights (ok, flat out does as far as I can tell). Trump has been accused of that, but a search of WikiQuote doesn’t show a single quote indicating any animosity. Not one. No use of the common slurs. A few about defending the LGBT community from Islamic terrorists / Islamists (where being gay is a death sentence – and that sentence is enforced in the modern world). But no slurs. So, again, relax. Your rights won’t be stripped away by a Trump administration. Also, see above on state laws.
- No one is coming for your daughters, for Muslims, for illegal immigrants. Maybe we will finally join the rest of the world in enforcing our own border laws. But even that is doubtful – again, states like California simply don’t have the will to do so, and will continue to ignore border laws. But don’t expect any changes there.
- And if you are upset about Trump’s comments about women (and wow, even a hostile media dropped those assault claims like they were made against Bill Clinton or something), remember who you supported as VP for eight years…‘Gropin’ Joe Biden.
Basically, it will be a challenge for four years, yes. So this is the left’s chance to show that they actually believe all the stuff they keep saying – I don’t think they do for a second. Leftists in my experience are more bigoted, hateful, spiteful, racist, and generally nasty than anyone else. So prove me, and millions of other conservatives, wrong. Act like you believe all that shit you keep saying. Work together, work across the party lines, be kind, be helpful, don’t hate.
I honestly don’t see it happening. The political left1 is founded on hate, built with spite, and rife with unrestrained bigotry. But the rules changed last night. So anything might happen…
- [sta_anchor id=”Note”]As a whole – I know may liberals who are not like this, but the movement writ large…very much so.