i had three dreams about Hillary Clinton
Nov. 9th, 2016 10:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironic
Well, that was a first: choosing to miss my bus and be late for work because I was too upset to leave the house this morning.
I need to get this out so I can concentrate on my job for a few hours.
I was afraid, I was afraid, but I had hoped; even at midnight last night when red spread across so much of the electoral map, there was a sliver of hope; until the headlines announced the dreaded result this morning.
Three main emotions are warring for dominance:
DISAPPOINTMENT
That so much of this country felt empowered to express its bigotry.
That the rest of us didn’t outnumber them.
Or that we did, but too many people were prevented from speaking because of unnecessarily and maliciously difficult voting processes.
ANGER
How can major news outlets be shocked that Trump could win? Anyone who didn’t believe it was possible was deluding themselves.
How can they interpret a Republican victory as a clarion call for change? It couldn’t be any clearer that supporters are pushing with all their might against change. That is the definition of conservatism.
How could news anchors, commentators, statisticians and pollsters, even on NPR, boggle at the disjuncture between poll predictions and election night results without once mentioning the effects of voter suppression? As one swing state after another swung red, these people scratched their heads and said, “People must have changed their minds,” “Polls must not have captured working class whites,” ugh.
That a majority of our country voted for misogyny. For racism. For xenophobia. For anti-LGBT, anti-everything that’s not straight white wealthy Christian men.
That Trump’s slim victory margins in certain states wouldn’t have existed had tens to hundreds of thousands of people not voted for third-party candidates. This was not the election for third-party/protest voting. That people somehow thought—still think—the two major-party candidates were equivalently unfit for office.
That conservatives and the media alike fixated on this @%*! ridiculous email “scandal” for months as if it were a thing that actually made Clinton’s suitability for office comparable to Trump’s.
FEAR
That women’s rights will be turned back decades.
That there will be (even more of) a war on black people, and for that matter anyone who’s not white, and religious minorities and immigrants and people who look or sound different even if their families have lived in this country for generations.
That recent, tentative steps to embrace gay and lesbian and bi and trans and queer and genderqueer (and and and) people will be trampled on. That intolerance, violence and internal turmoil will take yet more lives.
That giant swathes of our country were never taught about the rise in fascism and the National Socialist Party in Europe, and so now here we are, doomed to repeat history. That we continue to witness a variation on 1930s Germany. (I can’t shake the parallels. Can’t stop thinking about the crystallization of them in that Michiko Kakutani book review.) That we are about to live a remix of the Japanese-American internment camps of the ’40s. That I feel like now, more than ever, those of us in any position of privilege are going to have the opportunity to put our money where our mouths are when we say we wouldn’t have stood idly by while our countrymen were persecuted.
That the economy will tank.
That broad health care insurance and other social services will disappear.
That people will be hurt. That people will be killed. That some of those people will be my friends and family. That I could be affected as a woman and as a Jew, although right now I’m less afraid for myself than for others.
That, generally, we have bad human beings as president and vice president, we have a Republican Congress that will not oppose them, and we’re about to have a conservative-majority Supreme Court for even longer.
That there are things to be afraid of that haven’t occurred to me yet.
...
The administrator of my old graduate school program said last month that she hopes what we’re witnessing is the extinction burst of the white supremacist portion of America: one last desperate grasp for the power they’ve enjoyed for so long. I hope that’s true—that after this, things will trend steadily better. But I wanted it to be true without Trump getting elected. How many people will get hurt now before things improve?
…
I hope I’m wrong. I hope this all turns out to be overblown. It’s possible Trump will prove to be a more reasonable leader than his past behavior and presidential campaign suggested. But right now this is what I’m feeling and what I needed to express.
Note to self: thedeadparrot, musesfool, anatsuno, kate-nepveu, astolat, laurashapiro, no_detective, jadelennox, [locked], stultiloquentia
I need to get this out so I can concentrate on my job for a few hours.
I was afraid, I was afraid, but I had hoped; even at midnight last night when red spread across so much of the electoral map, there was a sliver of hope; until the headlines announced the dreaded result this morning.
Three main emotions are warring for dominance:
DISAPPOINTMENT
That so much of this country felt empowered to express its bigotry.
That the rest of us didn’t outnumber them.
Or that we did, but too many people were prevented from speaking because of unnecessarily and maliciously difficult voting processes.
ANGER
How can major news outlets be shocked that Trump could win? Anyone who didn’t believe it was possible was deluding themselves.
How can they interpret a Republican victory as a clarion call for change? It couldn’t be any clearer that supporters are pushing with all their might against change. That is the definition of conservatism.
How could news anchors, commentators, statisticians and pollsters, even on NPR, boggle at the disjuncture between poll predictions and election night results without once mentioning the effects of voter suppression? As one swing state after another swung red, these people scratched their heads and said, “People must have changed their minds,” “Polls must not have captured working class whites,” ugh.
That a majority of our country voted for misogyny. For racism. For xenophobia. For anti-LGBT, anti-everything that’s not straight white wealthy Christian men.
That Trump’s slim victory margins in certain states wouldn’t have existed had tens to hundreds of thousands of people not voted for third-party candidates. This was not the election for third-party/protest voting. That people somehow thought—still think—the two major-party candidates were equivalently unfit for office.
That conservatives and the media alike fixated on this @%*! ridiculous email “scandal” for months as if it were a thing that actually made Clinton’s suitability for office comparable to Trump’s.
FEAR
That women’s rights will be turned back decades.
That there will be (even more of) a war on black people, and for that matter anyone who’s not white, and religious minorities and immigrants and people who look or sound different even if their families have lived in this country for generations.
That recent, tentative steps to embrace gay and lesbian and bi and trans and queer and genderqueer (and and and) people will be trampled on. That intolerance, violence and internal turmoil will take yet more lives.
That giant swathes of our country were never taught about the rise in fascism and the National Socialist Party in Europe, and so now here we are, doomed to repeat history. That we continue to witness a variation on 1930s Germany. (I can’t shake the parallels. Can’t stop thinking about the crystallization of them in that Michiko Kakutani book review.) That we are about to live a remix of the Japanese-American internment camps of the ’40s. That I feel like now, more than ever, those of us in any position of privilege are going to have the opportunity to put our money where our mouths are when we say we wouldn’t have stood idly by while our countrymen were persecuted.
I'm not religious but I ask the universe: Let me have the courage of the righteous among the nations, to work for love amid hate.
— Naomi Novik (@naominovik) November 9, 2016
That the economy will tank.
That broad health care insurance and other social services will disappear.
That people will be hurt. That people will be killed. That some of those people will be my friends and family. That I could be affected as a woman and as a Jew, although right now I’m less afraid for myself than for others.
That, generally, we have bad human beings as president and vice president, we have a Republican Congress that will not oppose them, and we’re about to have a conservative-majority Supreme Court for even longer.
That there are things to be afraid of that haven’t occurred to me yet.
...
The administrator of my old graduate school program said last month that she hopes what we’re witnessing is the extinction burst of the white supremacist portion of America: one last desperate grasp for the power they’ve enjoyed for so long. I hope that’s true—that after this, things will trend steadily better. But I wanted it to be true without Trump getting elected. How many people will get hurt now before things improve?
…
I hope I’m wrong. I hope this all turns out to be overblown. It’s possible Trump will prove to be a more reasonable leader than his past behavior and presidential campaign suggested. But right now this is what I’m feeling and what I needed to express.
Note to self: thedeadparrot, musesfool, anatsuno, kate-nepveu, astolat, laurashapiro, no_detective, jadelennox, [locked], stultiloquentia
