In 2016, we all lost

We all lost. Only some of us know it more than others.

First, congratulations to Donald Trump for becoming the forty-fifth president of the United States. Against seemingly insurmountable odds, the man won by a reasonable margin in the electorate, but considering what much of America predicted, it was a huge margin. He definitively won, however, and to the chagrin of some of my colleagues and friends, I am hereby publicly announcing my support of his presidency.

The reason why is not because I have even a minute modicum of faith that he will execute his newly acquired duties with anything resembling the best interest of Americans as a whole, but rather because I respect the office he holds and I know that the only way to implement change in our country, meaningful change that is, is to abide the precepts laid out in our founding documents.

He ran. The people voted. He won. I accept that.

Second, thank you, Secretary Clinton, for your nearly three-decade service to our country. In spite of the outcome of this election, the weight of your life in service to this country is paralleled by few, if any and I share with my fellow Americans an attitude of gratitude for anyone who steps up in such a lifelong manner. No one can intelligently argue that such an impressive and diverse resume comes from anything other than an exceptional person.

I have to admit that going into November 8, I was reasonably sure that the following morning I would awaken to a country whereby one major party would have some hard work to do and the other would have some reinventing to do from a place of relative obscurity. As it happens, I was right. Only I had the two reversed.

My friend Bruce Bennet wrote, “After years of this the American electorate retaliated and they are left to continue to misunderstand the result: It was about anger. It was a revolt vote, aimed not just at liberal elite Democrats but promise-breaking Republicans.”

I think to the detriment of the country, he was right. While some maintain that the outcome of the election was a rejection of the liberal mandate in its entirety, the popular vote indicates otherwise.

However, in hindsight it is becoming increasingly clear that while a small percentage of those who voted for Trump may have aligned themselves with his abhorrent traits of bigotry, sexism, and complete disregard for decency, many of the people who voted for him were simply desperate for something to change. (Don’t get me wrong here. A vote for Trump by default aligned people with these things whether they meant to our not.)

If there could be one phrase that sums up why the Democrats lost this election in totality, it would be, “It was the middle class, stupid.”

The middle class was once the backbone our economy and in the wake of things like the derivatives scandal green-lighted by the repealing of the Glass Steagall Act, among several other factors, the people in this epitome of the American dream, lost everything. And they are pissed.

I can only say now, forgive them for they know not what they have done.

H.L. Mencken wrote, “For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

Because the fact is that in the name of restoring middle-class America, the people who voted for Trump just voted for the very people who fucked them over the first time and will fuck them over again.

Trump will likely overturn the Frank Dodd law, Elizabeth Warren’s attempt to bring back accountability in banking by prohibiting commercial banks from using private bank money for venture capital.

I believe in earnest that much if not all of Donald Trump is premised on a narcissistic, bigoted, misogynistic, racist, abhorrent mindset that should never have been green-lighted for what he is about to do.

But, it is quite something to watch the narrative of people who supported Trump’s presidency as it rolls forward with each new betrayal to what they had thought was a Hail Mary to save them from a Clinton presidency. As if violating the core principles of their faith and the Constitution was somehow a viable way to restore it. Republicans don’t give a shit about the Constitution. If they did, they would not have allowed a vacant seat on the Supreme Court when the Constitution clearly mandated otherwise. They blocked an appointment illegally and the outcome of the election has shown them that obstructionism worked. The entire strategy of the Republicans has been obstructionism, and it worked.

For now.

The disillusioned, disenfranchised backbone of the nation’s economy was doing the one thing they could do, perhaps the only thing. They threw a proverbial grenade in the room by voting for Trump in the hopes that the unorthodoxy of it all would reset the system. Instead, our system of checks and balances will be replaced by a system of no checks and no balances. This is the worst possible thing for our democracy regardless of which party holds such a majority.

Mencken also almost prophetically wrote, “On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

That day has come.

I said I respect the office. But the man. You’ve got to be out of your mind if you think this man is respectable.

One final takeaway, for the time being, is a side note of sorts. The religious folks of our country have driven the final nail into the credibility that they in any sense separate church from state — religion from politics. Their politics by their own credos should be dictated by their morality, but they have proven it to be the opposite. Their morality is dictated by their politics. One can only hope that this is the beginning of the end for religion being a credible discussion point in future elections.

To those with whom I share the weight of grief with the outcome of this election, I will tell you that this has not been a setback as much as it has been a catapulting of sorts into unforeseen and uncharted territory. We will need to do more than regroup. We will need to reinvent ourselves. Perhaps engage in some obstructionism of our own but not in the form of breaking the law like Republicans so gleefully have done. But rather in the form of aggressively applying the law.

NGO’s, are you listening?

Thankfully, there are still enough votes in the Senate to stop some of the devastating policies and the systematic gutting of much of the progress our country has made. But it will take an active and aggressively participatory citizenry to begin to hold this new administration’s feet to the constitutional fire.

And it will take sincere humility to shed whatever it is that leads to the perception of elitism in our ranks and earn the trust of the disenfranchised middle class who sadly felt they had no alternative but to gamble on Trump.

But to those who are set to capitalize upon this audacious transfer of power, I will tell you that you might have done better to have been careful what you wished for and your ends justify the means manner of acquiring it. Only the Sith deal in absolutes.

See you out there.

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