November 8, 2016

I'm writing this more for myself than for an audience, so feel free to not comment if you don't want to. I feel like history is made and it passes us by and we forget about it--and this is particularly true of Americans, the country in which I was born, the country in which my father was born, the country where my mother immigrated; Americans are stereotypically not very good with geography, other countries, or history.

Just to note: November 9th, today, is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, which happened in 1938. And not to equate a democratic American election with the Night of Broken Glass which ushered in the Holocaust, but just a note there.

Nazi Germany started with an election, too. You think it can't happen in America?

We've had an arduous election cycle--something on the order or two years of yammering, inane politicians, attack ads, ridiculous rhetoric, and far more disturbing, large rallies of rural, working class, not-terribly-well-educated, mostly white people gathering in large numbers to hear a blowhard asshole with no class talk about banning Muslims, building walls on the Mexican border, repealing Obamacare, stuffing the Supreme Court with heavily conservative--if not downright so-far-to-the-right judges that they might as well be living in 1930s Germany.

I'm a 30-year-old biracial New Yorker. I went to college in Boston. So yeah, I'm Northeast, East Coast liberal. I'm a registered independent who switched to Democrat this autumn. I have gone to school and interacted with people of all races, ethnicities, religions, and sexual orientations my entire life. Yes, sometimes it can be a mess, trying to harness people of disparate origins, but I strongly feel that my life experience has been the richer for it.

I'm sorry for those for who don't feel that way: people who've never met people who don't look like them, sound like them, go to church like them, or whose sexual orientations or gender expectations don't fall precisely in line. I'm sorry for those who aren't curious about the wider world or the past or who are clinging to outdated beliefs. Because this goes beyond a little sideye to the unfamiliar--this is unadulterated hatred for all the things I thought America stood for and was still developing and standing for.

We're a nation of immigrants. I know where my family comes from. Do you? White people didn't just spring up out of the ground in Carolina, you know. Y'all came from somewhere.

Freedom of religion. Apparently, that only applies to Christians. I'm afraid for the Muslims among my friends and acquaintances.

Cooperation and leadership in the world. NATO, everyone? How's that going to go? How are our allies going to respond to this election? How are our cooperation skills going to work?

Basic human decency. How about not making fun of people with disabilities, people of different races, not trying to fucking "convert" LGBT kids, acknowledging that women are people capable of making decisions about our bodies and futures and that we deserve respect?

After 2008, when Barack Obama was elected, there was talk about a "post-racial America," which was utter bullshit then and has been shattered in a million pieces now. The president-elect (I refuse to use his name. You know it. It's written in giant gold letters on the sides of all his buildings) was endorsed by the KKK.

The K-fucking-KK.

In 2016.

When John Kerry lost in 2004, I was disappointed. That was first election I voted it. I thought I abhorred McCain and Romney. But this? This has gone beyond disappointment, guys. This election and its result has acutally caused me to have real fears. It's made me see my country in a completely different way and I'm so incredibly sad, depressed, disappointed, scared, and angry that this is where we are as a nation.

I'm actually devastated.

Some people are like, "Well--we still have Congress to block things. We have laws to block things he wants to do. And we can vote out a lot of Congress in 2018!"

That's not making me feel better, guys. A lot of damage can be done in 2 years.

Still, to quote from "Hamilton": "Rise up. Rise up. Eyes up."


  1. Unfortunately, there are a lot of republicans who force themselves to vote for incompetent people over one issue. They don't think for themselves. And frankly, that one issue is a load of crap. The same people who think caring about babies make them a good person could literally not care less about anyone else. That makes them assholes.

    I grew up growing to church, but maybe I just got lucky that I'm black and my parents didn't teach me to hate people because they grew up in segregation and intergration. I didn't even think racism and religious bigotry still existed until my parents moved back to their home county and dragged us with them. It was culture shock, to put it mildly.

    I'm a registered independent, but I've always voted democrat because I don't believe in throwing my vote away, and republicans have been some of the most hateful people I've ever met. Even the ones you think are nice. Usher in politics, and they get so nasty and irrational. And here I was taught that God loves everyone, not just people who look and think like you. And now I have a Pocahontas song stuck in my head.

    So, here is a book for your comment section. I'm not scared, but I don't think this was a good idea, and I'm angry that so many "christians" and so many country loving riff-rafts would rather put a sad excuse for a man in office over a competent woman. So much for progress.

    My father thinks things have gone backwards. My sister thinks he'll reinstate segregation. And my brother's white & Native American fiancé is scared their pending marriage will be ruled illegal.

    I can only hope that mr. crap is not who his fans think he is, and that he disappoints them all in the biggest way. Everything else aside, the fact that someone so hot headed and sexist and immature and so willing to say terrible things for votes, whether he actually believes them or not, the very fact that he could win this easily: that is really depressing and disgusting. I had too much faith in my country. But I really do think it will be okay. Somehow.

    1. So well written and expressed, Krystal. We can only hope it'll come out right--and that we invoke our rights and watch his every move over the next four years. You won't take away our gains and rights easily. And we will limit you to one term.

  2. Very well written. I wish I had something better to say, but I still feel like this is all a bad dream right now.

    1. Yesterday, I felt like I was grieving--like someone had died or something. It wasn't that I was the biggest Hillary Clinton supporter, but the idea that someone like him could be seen fit to be President.

  3. I'm so sorry, Michelle. Being a Canadian that's all I dare say. :-)

    Anna from elements of emaginette

    1. You're not the only one to get that idea. The Canadian tourism site crashed on the night of the US election because so many people were trying to view it.

  4. Here's the sad truth. I think it was the media and Democrats who pushed Trump into the election (and yes, they do have that much power), positioning him as the only candidate Hilary might be able to win against. We have very different views of the world, but I lived in NYC. I did. I have friends of all nationalities and backgrounds there, even many who live in the Projects, and that's what I see the government on its current track doing to the American people--throwing us into entitlement, then dependence, and finally, socialism. It's totally a history/track record I'm looking at, and it terrifies me. That's not the nation I want to live in. So no, I didn't vote for a woman who will continue us on that path. I voted for a different evil, and hated every moment of it, but if it can correct the demolition of capitalism, it may have been the right move. This wasn't an election of progression for me. It was an election of hopefully saving the economy so my children will have something to inherit.


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