The End is Not Here… Yet.

Frequent visitors to my blog will know something very important about how I run things: I try to stay apolitical.  I am a very tolerant man, by birth and upbringing, and as I was a middle child I like to play peacemaker far more than I should.  I have great love for the Islamic community, the African-American community, the Latino-American community, the LGBTQ community, and everything in-between.  I love engaging in conversations on religion, even though I myself am atheist.  I have studied the bible very deeply over the years, as well as the koran.  I try to keep my mind open to new ideas, to new ways of looking at things.  More importantly, I want to build a readership which encourages these ideas.  My writing encourages these ideas.  Most of my protagonists are female, and will most likely always be female.  I love strong female characters.  I married one exactly for that reason.

Last night, the American people voted Donald Trump as our president-elect.  Although this blog has remained political Switzerland as much as possible, I cannot begin to describe how much I had hoped we would make a different choice.  I knew going into the general election that the Democratic candidate was flawed.  During the primary I was pulling for Bernie Sanders with all the strength I could muster.  It didn’t turn out that it was his time, and I am pragmatic enough to realize we live in a two party system.  So I threw my support behind Hillary.  With all her flaws, she was ready to lead a progressive agenda.  She would see to it that we further cemented the civil rights gains which we have been making over the last few generations.  She would continue to press the Clean Energy agenda, and try to have America lead the way in making sure that my son has a world he can inherit.  She would make sure that we had a Supreme Court that cared about the rights already enshrined in the constitution, and try to roll back some of the corporate ownership of government interests.

All of that is basically gone now, and it’s been the hardest thing in my adult life to come to grips with just how thoroughly things have taken a turn for the worse.  I cannot sit here and claim that Donald Trump is the anti-Christ or anything so melodramatic, but if Hillary had a few flaws, Donald Trump is a walking disaster.  Sexual predation, bullying tactics better suited to a childhood playground than for a man wanting to become president, and more scandals than you can shake a stick at.  He’s just completely vacuous, unable to offer any firm stance on anything other than how “bigly” his policies will be or how amazing he is.  Not to mention he’s the single most dishonest politician in recent memory, by enormous leaps and bounds.  I honestly thought there was no way that America, land of acceptance, tolerance, and inclusion would vote in a man so completely and thoroughly steeped in views of Xenophobia, Misogyny, and Bigotry.  I was wrong.  Lots and lots of people were also wrong, but more specifically I had no clue that this could or would happen.  I had thought better of people.

Today has been spent consoling and reassuring many of my friends directly at risk with a Trump election.  Minorities, LGBTQ members, and teachers (trust me, this hurts them badly) have all expressed their fears and anxieties at what this vote means to them and their daily livelihoods.  Not to mention the host of issues that this election has presented to the female electorate.  The degree to which these groups, already marginalized by society, were essentially told by the Trump vote that they don’t matter.  That their views, their wants, their needs, their struggles, are completely and utterly unimportant to Americans as a whole.  I cried more last night than I have in a long time, knowing that at some point, I would have to explain to my son how we got here, and why this happened.  How do I do that?  How do I look at him and explain that a lot of angry adults gave in to their fears, and voted with their pessimism?  That’s a nightmare conversation, but it’s one that I will have to engage in one day.  I don’t know that I will ever be prepared for that moment.

I know, first and foremost, that not all of the men and women who voted for Trump are bigots, misogynists, or xenophobes.  Most of them are hard working men and women, their lives impacted severely by modernization, international trade, and the decay of the American pact between employer and employee.  Hit hard with opioid addiction, which turns to hard drug use, taken advantage of by drug companies desperate to turn as much profit at their expense as they are able.  I feel for these men and women.  I feel for their struggles.  Their pain is my pain.  I struggle two.  I live in a two income household, where my wife is a teacher and I have a very steady job which pays more than twice the minimum wage of our state.  We struggle to stay in front of our bills, and deal with crippling expenses for our college educations.  Their struggle is my struggle.  Yet these men and women, so desperate for immediate change, turned to the man who promised them the moon and stars.  Who could blame them for believing him?  Who could blame them for abandoning the political realities of incremental change when their lives were crumbling around them now. 

In the end, the votes for Trump didn’t just put him in the Whitehouse.  It’s also put Republicans in charge of both the Congress and Senate, with an (illegally) open supreme court seat available to be filled.  Unless things change between now and his installment as President, Republicans give less than a shit about the poor.  Social safety nets, minimum wage, affordable health care, bottom friendly tax structure.  None of these are things that they care about.  None of them are things, barring monstrous shifts in current Republican think tanks, that will be addressed.  If you feel that a hands off, top friendly tax structure is the way to go, please direct your gaze to my home state of Kansas.  OUR REVENUE IS SO BAD BROWNBACK HAD TO STOP REPORTING IT.  Let that sink in for a moment.  Our tax structure is so atrocious, and so ill-equipped to handle the necessities of government, that he mandated that we are no longer informed of just how bad it’s getting.  That’s some next level nonsense.  That’s what you’re in for.  My state doesn’t care about middle class workers.  My state doesn’t care about the poor.  My state doesn’t care about the under-employed, the unemployed, or the un-educated among us.  Brownback couldn’t give less of a shit about “The Common Man” if he actively tried to.

I know the rage, the despair, and the pessimism that has driven Trump into the Oval office.  I can see it, but I will never be able to identify with it.  I’m not about to preach sedition, or civil war, or further identity politics.  I’m going to try with every breath I can muster to preach more inclusion.  I will do everything in my power to confront racism, sexism, and xenophobia anytime it’s encountered.  My friends and readers deserve nothing less from me.  I just wish that the desire to see change in how things are run doesn’t end up breaking the country of my birth.  I hope that those who wanted so desperately to be heard aren’t punished most severely for their decision.  I don’t have any real belief that Republicans will change their tune, but I was wrong about Trump being elected.  It’s a sad and desperate hope, but it’s what I have to work with, and what I have to bring me through today.  And that’s just going to have to be good enough for now.

Respectfully,
Justin