Second, I am not okay yet; I am not near okay; I am not even on the road to okay. I am still in table-flipping anger mode. But when the day comes that I am okay again, or I'm learning to be or trying to be, I will give some consideration to these two quotes.
Optimism isn't principally an analysis of present reality. It's an ethic. It is not based on denial or rosy thinking. It is a moral posture toward the world we find ourselves in.
Josh Marshall
It was tribal warfare between Trump's us-against-them nation and Clinton's we're-all-in-this-together coalition.
David Corn
The first one because I can choose to take a "moral posture" even when it doesn't seem warranted. The second because I have been feeling so "us-against-them" and I don't want their way to define my thinking, if that makes sense. (For the record, TODAY I feel hella us-vs.-them. But I can see myself working back to stronger-together. Maybe. Someday.)
Thanks to my loving Sweetie for sending me that first one.
I have had some interesting conversations lately. You know, I didn't, prior to Tuesday, think that we lived in a post-racial society. But I honestly thought that a lot of America's race issues over the last couple years were a sort of "extinction burst," that people were becoming more accepting and racism was dying off. The election highlighted for me (and for my husband and best friend) that America (or nearly half of it) really DOESN'T want foreigners, brown people, immigrants. But I was chatting with a Black colleague who has become a friend, and she was not as surprised as I was. She said her grandma probably wasn't surprised either. She said America has NEVER wanted her. And I think I knew that intellectually, but I hadn't felt it before Tuesday.
Another coworker said that for the two sides in this election, we just had different values. The other side was more concerned about the economy and their jobs. They may care about race issues, too, but it's like priority #4 for them. Okay, okay, sure, I said, without flipping a table and setting the room on fire. But first of all, the economy isn't actually a value. I'm not giving them some sort of moral points for that. Second, what are they, brain-damaged? If we are largely talking about rural white Americans who once had manufacturing jobs, there is not a single iota of a position Trump has taken that will improve their lot. In fact, it will probably make it worse. They have probably, to put it indelicately, fucked themselves in the ass. Micro-version? Look at Kansas. The economic policy there, like Trump's proposed policy, is to cut taxes to increase job growth. It doesn't work. It hasn't worked. It's a failed idea.
I've been kind of cycling through best- and worst- case scenarios for myself, my friends and family.
The best case for me is this: although Trump does get a lot of bad stuff done, we are insulated from it because California. Sure, I have to go back to paying for birth control (it's not much with my employer-provided insurance), but most of what I'm sure he can get done (repeal ACA, deport undocumented people who have committed crimes) doesn't affect me and mine directly. Even some of the things my students are most worried about -- losing ACA, cutting food stamps -- will be mitigated because of Medical and CalFresh.
Unfortunately, that best-case scenario is pretty shitty for a lot of people not in California, and even though part of me wants to look at those red-state folks and be like "HOW DO YOU LIKE IT NOW?!!!" I also know that there are lots of good people there who don't deserve that.
The worst-case-but-still-entirely-likely scenario for the U.S. is something like: the economy tanks, unemployment rises, relationships with former allies sours, we engage in war in the middle East (or elsewhere), he guts environmental protections, they manage to overturn Roe v Wade and defund Planned Parenthood, and income inequality grows.
The worst-case scenario for me personally goes something like this: he starts a war in Iran. Anti-Iranian sentiment grows. The kids are bullied. My husband feels unsafe. People call for (but probably can't enact) a new WWII-style internment for people of Iranian descent. Maybe bricks through the window. Who knows? (Also, if the economy tanks, my retirement fund goes to hell, which would suck.)
My students were asking me all sorts of questions yesterday, and because they are 14, I tried to reassure them, comfort them, and be honest with them all at the same time. Which is a challenge! One asked if Trump had the power to use nuclear weapons. Reassurance and the truth are not on the same page. Yes, I said, he has that power. I believe and I hope that he would have level-headed advisors who would counsel him not to use them, and the threat of mutually assured destruction would probably give anyone pause. Can he really deport illegal immigrants? Well, he can probably pass a law like that, but it would take a lot of time and money and manpower to make it happen. It's not going to happen in January of 2017, I can tell you that!
The entire class period was basically "Can he do this FUCKING HORRIBLE THING he has basically promised to do?" "Well, you know, yeah, but not like immediately and not without some push-back, and it might not hurt you that badly."
One quote that I read this morning that isn't in the old knapsack of useful shit to pull out later is from Michael Moore's "five point plan to save America." Citing the fact that Clinton won the popular vote, he writes:
You live in a country where a majority of its citizens have said they believe there’s climate change, they believe women should be paid the same as men, they want a debt-free college education, they don’t want us invading countries, they want a raise in the minimum wage and they want a single-payer true universal health care system. None of that has changed...We live in a country where the majority agree with the ‘liberal’ position.
Yeah, a tiny, tiny, infinitesimal not-good-enough majority. If half of your co-workers were dickheads, your life would suck. If half your parents were abusive... If half your boyfriends had cheated... If half your food was poisoned... "The special today," says your waiter, "is a grilled cheese sandwich, and only 47% of it is gorilla feces."
That's one of the main things that is hurting me so much. I believed that Americans suffered from racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia... You'd have to be an idiot not to. But I still thought that most people were good, most people were allies, most people could look at a presidential candidate with an endorsement by the KKK and say to themselves, "yeah, that's just crazy. I may want change, but I also need to have some empathy and care for others." And I was proven remarkably, indisputably wrong.
Until Tuesday night, if you had asked me whether I thought people were basically good, I'd have answered in the affirmative without hesitation. My worldview is shaken.
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