It's not an enlightened political climate

I am barely through the front door before my coworkers are reciting bumper stickers to one another while giggling.

"Drill, baby, drill!"

"Close the border!"

"Drill, baby, drill!"

"Close the border!"

I cannot peer inside the black box of their minds, but I sense they are single-issue voters, and that issue is "Fuck liberals." I would not go to either of them for nuanced political perspectives, as they would not process them from more than one source, at that source would have clickbait headlines to shame the Weekly World News.

This entry is not intended to be a polemic against Republicanism or Conservatism--though I cannot pretend the tensions are not high at the moment or that frustrated anguish has not entered the lexicon of my emotions. I do not believe Republicanism or Conservativism in their elements have much to do with Trumpism. They have been coopted by Trump, yes, but matching up what Trump actually wants to either school of political thought does not produce enough overlaps to call his philosophy its descendent. A classic Republican from thirty years ago presented Donald Trump would think you were insulting them by claiming he was president once, to say nothing of being reelected. You can't possibly mean Donald Trump, that execrable real estate fraud? What does the serially philandering, convicted sexual assaulter (though in a civil trial, after which he owed E. Jean Carroll staggering millions for defamation), and boastful felon with golden toilet who was besties with a child sex trafficker--a man who ordered protesters gassed just so he could hold a Bible upside down outside a church--have to do with small government or family values?

But you've heard this all; hearing it again will not move you. Either you know Trump for what he is, or no force on earth will dissuade you. Surely there are moderates among his voters, but they are keeping to themselves for the moment--reportedly, searches for "how do I change my vote" skyrocketed after Trump's reelection was announced, but that may simply be a rumor. At this point, I have no confidence there is anything I could name that would shake the certainty of his ardent supporters.

I heard several people in the waning days of the campaign say that they would never in a million years vote for Trump, but they would absolutely vote against Kamala Harris by dint of her being a last-minute substitution for a doddering man. That is disingenuous and ignores that Trump is 78, the same age Biden was when elected. There may have been other reasons Harris did not get elected, ones voters would not have mentioned in mixed company last week, but shout as slurs this one. Because they "won," the country must now become as intolerant as they are. I know someone who said he would no longer use his son's pronouns or chosen name because "Trump won, so I don't have to," as though Biden had legally mandated it, and it isn't just the polite thing to do.

Last Saturday, there were Trump rallies in my town, which I supported as a right guaranteed by the First Amendment. I even considered walking by and taking pictures of them--there were sure to be some worthwhile photographs of slogans and rude gestures--but Amber implied they might beat me to death. The woman who posted about it on one of the local groups is notorious for leaping on any unrelated comment as an excuse to attack minorities--queer and people of color especially--so I suspect her vote was not based on fiscal conservatism.

Though Amber and I live on the edge of a red county, we are surrounded by blue. The obnoxious woman's vote would only be a protest--though one she cast because she would prefer a cishet white citizenry, and is aghast anyone in the town is permitted to be Hispanic or trans. When she saw a Black Lives Matter decal in a shop window, she vented her conniption fit on the local groups, claiming there are no racists here, and so Black people should shut up. The Patriot Front stickers scraped from light posts might wish to have a word about that. (Amber suggested covering these hate group stickers with our preponderance of Ezerd ones, fighting fascism with weird art.)

I do not want to rage against a machine that has swallowed the blows of so many that it should be nothing but dents but endures unblemished.

Debbie, one of my friends from BeckHook Pride, asked for Amber's and my numbers in case a mournful gathering became necessary. We grimaced, wanting to think this would be avoided, but fearing it would not.

I have a niece in Lebanon, whom I worry will catch shrapnel, something Trump's policies will possibly exacerbate. I cannot say he will be Ayannah's murderer, but he will say she deserves it should it happen.

Amber and I are trying to buy a house, something Trump's policies will complicate. Though I have friends who suggest they are seeking expatriation--which is the reaction of either side when the opposing leader is elected--we are taking this massive step to put down roots (in the town where we have lived for over a decade, granted).

I cannot fall into useless despair. Too many may need me in the coming several years.

In days, things proceed with the predictable doom. Men and boys shout, "Your body, my choice" at women, parroting a whiny, incel, far right, antisemitic white supremacist with an inexplicable following (he embraces all these descriptors, so I do not hesitate to use them). Black people receive texts telling them to report to the nearest plantations. A coworker crows that the migrant horde massing at the Southern border evaporated overnight, seeing this as Trump's power to frighten them away and not that there was never a horde, just as there has not been before every time the Republicans fearmonger before an election. It's a transparent ruse, and I struggle to believe people believe it genuinely and not out of cynical opportunism, like Trump's claiming migrants are eating housepets. My coworker then says Trump has already shut down every sanctuary city, even though he is not president and has no power--and won't when he is president, as it is a ludicrous thing to say. What would "shut down" even mean in this context? Did he lock the gates? But she doesn't think about that. She guffaws because she "won," and Trump will now punish her enemies. It's unclear why these strawmen she never met get her blood boiling, but they do. If I were a little politically lippier at work, I would be on that enemies list. I don't happen to love either party and won't play politics like I am waving pom-pom at the sidelines, so my coworkers don't understand my alignment.

"Emboldened" is the best word for it, the hate encouraged by a man who would say anything for continued media attention. Any one of his gaffes and rambles would have been enough to sink the careers of previous politicians, but he floods the zone with erratic rhetoric so one barely has time to process his sexual assault before he is talking about sharks to pivot into a golfer's penis then to how migrants are dirtying the pure American blood. It does not matter. His most eager voters like the worst things about him. You know this. It has been true as long as these people have known him, and repeating it is redundant. His voters made a choice, and it likely had little to do with small government--especially as he wants nothing of the sort, unless it is firing the people investigating him for the insurrection, attempt to extort fraudulent Georgian votes, financial crimes, and sexual assault--or the midlevel bureaucrats whom he can make sacrificial goats in his culture war (which he does not believe it; you are just so cute when you commit atrocities based on a 3 am toilet tweet). Otherwise, he wants to begin as a dictator and spend masses of our tax money on ridiculous policies and projects. He said as much. Trump is nothing if not completely obvious. Oddly, people don't believe it.

I don't forgive the Democrats for constantly bungling what should have been an easy election. They did it in 2016 and learned nothing from being trounced. After all, leaks showed that Democrats intentionally "elevated" Trump the the "leader of the pack" in their "pied piper" strategy. They also considered Ted Cruz and Ben Carson. However you feel about them--and I cannot feel positively--one used to be an assertive politician who stood up to Trump (before becoming a mewling toadie), and the other was the director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, even if he is not exactly a sparkling or enlightened rhetorician. Either could have posed a threat to Clinton, even if the Democrats considered them understudies in a clown show. If it weren't for the Democratic Nation Committee working on Trump's behalf during those Republican primaries, he would have been again treated as the joke candidate he was meant to be. Instead, the Democrats intentionally fomented extremist demagoguery "as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right" because they wanted this to become the new mainstream Republican party, sure that a violent behemoth would be easier for Hillary Clinton to beat. They hoped "to make whomever the Republicans nominate unpalatable to a majority of the electorate." Good job. You sure did a good job of degrading Bernie Sanders--also part of the memos--because the electorate found him more charismatic and principled than Clinton, inspiring a massive grassroots movement. Polls showed that Sanders would have a solid chance of beating Trump in the general election by a considerable margin. The DNC definitely had their fingers on the pulse of Americans, some Tea Partiers who shaped their politics on claiming that the first Black president was a secret Kenyan Muslim Marxist--prominently Donald Trump, one of the least popular major-party candidates (along with Clinton). If the Democrats had allowed the democratic process to actually work in the Republican primaries--and if they embraced the groundswell for Sanders in their own primary--they might have had to work to combat a competent candidate, but the DNC expected to pump up fascist opponents so they could take it easy in their queen-making. Trump should have sent them a fruit basket for putting him in office since the Republicans couldn't have done it without the DNC.

If Democrats want the confidence of the American people, they must act like public servants and not milquetoast mice bending the knee when they are not throwing their spineless backs out pushing the Overton window as far to the right as they can in hopes of appealing to right-leaning voters who would rather swallow lye than cast a vote for them. Democrats ignore and outright disparage their constituents in hopes the Bad Kids will invite them to sit at their table. Wile E. Coyote is cannier about the obvious traps than the average Democrat politician. Now they huff and send out fundraising emails, saying someone should do something, apparently unaware they are the "someone" and the "something" is actually fighting back with coherent policies that are sterner than saying, "Nu-uh, Repugnicans! Resist!" as the right jerks the football out of reach for the hundredth time. Don't tell us to vote when you don't want to do anything progressive or productive before telling us we should have voted harder when you are elected.

I ruefully laugh when anyone suggests the Democrats are the far-left party. They most closely align with Eisenhower Republicans, or would if they cared to have consistent and confident ethics. Instead, President Biden said he would be okay losing to Trump because he would know he did the best he could. You do not get a good sportsman award at graduation. You instead ushered in a man who publicly adores fascism, but I'm sure he'll shake your hand and tell you that you played a good game, Joe. I'm sure going back on your campaign promise of being a one-term president, lingering so long that Harris had to be appointed rather than democratically selected, had nothing to do with the up-ticket Democrats being drubbed even as down-ticket Democrats and Democratic ballot measures did well. America likes the Democrats they know in person and wants some Democratic policies. They just don't like any Democrat too close to Washington.

Will we endure? Yes, likely. Will we be unblemished? Almost surely not.

I can only work small with my spouse and my community. I doubt I could have effected a grand change had millions of votes gone another way, but I would have felt safer trying. We have our people to combat how roused the worst elements of our town become overnight. If Trump isn't aligned with them, it bears considering why the bigots and fascists think he is. It's been a good sixty years since the Klan endorsed Democrats, just before the parties flipped over the Civil Rights Act, but my coworkers will not shut up about it, even though they proudly embrace Strom Thurmond, and some are unsubtly racist. The people who think David Duke makes many salient points do not get to pull that card--especially as Duke said voting for anyone but Trump was "really treason to your heritage;" in his limited defense, Trump said Duke is a "bad person," which may be why Duke backed Tulsi Gabbard's campaign in 2020 until she was defeated, then shifted to Jill Stein for 2024 because he thought Trump was too wedded to "the Jewish lobby." (Both Gabbard and Stein more strongly decried Duke's endorsement.) If you would be a torch bearer for the Alt-Right while they scream "The Jews will not replace us!" in Charlottesville, maybe your opinion should not bend the ear of the president.

We are not safe, but we can protect each other and the children around us. I can cosset the Queer Kiddies I see at board game night. I can oppose the apparent Neonazis that cheer beside (within?) the Trumpers at rallies in this county, even if I can do nothing for the country at large.

last watched: Archer
reading: The Witching Hour