Edit: This is a personal impression. I'm not trying to convince anyone who wasn't convinced after a long campaign.
Let me tell you a story. You enter a charming little restaurant. The door handle flies away and roosts on the ceiling. People dressed in Halloween costumes are eating potted plants, including the soil. A swordfish on rollerskates comes up to you and says: "Now I understand why your mother did it". It turns into a player piano that sounds like a machine gun. Suddenly you feel the floor melting away, and the next moment you're standing in a gold-plated elevator. A boorish orange-skinned old man in a business suit says: "I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."
That's where we are now. That's how it feels to have a psychotic episode. We're living in a nightmare where anything could happen. Something went wrong and we ended up in an alternative universe that wasn't supposed to exist. President-elect Donald Trump just appointed an antisemite who used to work for Goldman Sachs as his chief strategist, while his Jewish son-in-law pushed out the power-abusing governor who'd prosecuted his father years ago. The same son-in-law was surprised to learn that Team Trump was expected to replace all of the political staff in the West Wing.
We saw how stunned and depressed Trump looked during his visit to the White House. Obama recognized that his successor was clueless and decided he'd need to contact him more often, to prepare him for the most stressful job on Earth. The Wall Street Journal reported that, I'm not making this up. Meanwhile, Trump supporters are sharing fake news reports claiming he did win the popular vote after all. Just like they shared reports about satanic rituals and secret murders in the days before the election.
Before we get used to it, before I join the pundits pontificating about policy or polling or persuasion, I want to remind everybody how absurd this situation is. Not that you wouldn't have noticed. But people who lived in a dictatorship are now warning Americans how easy it is to accept repression, how the unpredictability of a dictatorship makes you avoid getting into trouble. By the way, those precious 'checks and balances' are as weak as wet toilet paper if one party controls all branches of government.
Let me tell you where I'm coming from, in case someone other than my friends will read this. Politics has become so tribal, you probably wouldn't listen to me if you didn't know where I stand. To be honest, I wouldn't have read this far down if I suspected this was written by a butthurt librul.
I think Hillary Clinton lost because she was a terrible candidate with a terrible platform and a terrible strategy. When the result is so close, you can point to any number of details that would've changed the outcome, but that's meaningless. It shouldn't have been so close. When she announced her candidacy, I thought she would lose. Then the debates changed my mind. But there was obviously more enthusiasm for Trump. And we got to read one candidate's emails, while the other didn't release his tax returns. I supported Gary Johnson, although looking back, Austin Petersen would have been a better candidate for the Libertarian Party. I think Bernie Sanders would have been a harmless president compared to Trump.
I don't need to go on an anthropological expedition to understand how the white working class feels. I know better than to listen to people who think race and the economy are separate issues. I'm not going to read any more explanations from the media that predicted a Clinton win with 99% certainty. I understand people who voted against Hillary because of smug celebrities like Lena Dunham or John Oliver.
Confession: I've voted all over the map, and sometimes for a populist party. Usually the politically correct variety. Once for Geert Wilders' Freedom Party in regional elections, but the candidate I voted for killed himself, so that doesn't count. Please don't unfollow me.
This is more serious than a difference of opinion. More serious than debates between left and right. In fact, I'm accusing some of my Facebook friends of crying wolf during the Bush years. Clinton's foreign policy would have been just as aggressive as Bush's. And you know what Dubya's been doing the past weeks? He's been painting portraits of veterans that were wounded under his command, and he's going to sell them for charity. He's taking responsibility for his actions in a way that Trump never would.
As a European, I'm not going to tell Americans what kind of immigration policy they need. Clearly, the US is better at integrating Muslim immigrants than European countries. But I find it weird how illegal immigration has been normalized in the US. This system lets rich white liberals in the blue states profit from the cheap labor of second-class citizens, while they feel good about allowing them to exist.
I'm against trade agreements because I want 100% free trade in everything except weapons of mass destruction, but I realize that's easy for me to say, making a living as a pilot on digital streams of commerce. I think bankers should have been punished and banks broken up. I think a basic income is inevitable, but how does that help those men who derived their self-worth from a factory job?
My religion is Discordianism. We believe in a healthy mixture of chaos and order. Nine times of ten, we suspect there's too much order and harmony in the world. And disorder is often the result of trying to impose order. That's why I defended the Arab Spring - which started on my birthday, January 25 - and I still think it was necessary. I used to visit 4chan and 8chan because there wasn't enough uncensored hateful anonymous debate in my life. Until it became ideological and boring during the Gamergate affair. The final straw was when a moderator removed one of my comments on 8chan's fitness board, because I'd given fitness advice to a trans girl instead of telling her to kill herself. Anyway, if I'm saying there's too much chaos, you can bet that the shit's hitting the fan.
I'm not on a jury. I'm not a journalist (I used to play one on the internet). I need more evidence than the Pizzagate crowd, but I don't need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to be sure of this, and you don't have to believe me: Donald Trump raped a 13 year old girl, and used death threats to silence her. It fits with his character, doesn't it? We know he violently raped his wife Ivana when they were divorcing. We know he'd date Ivanka if she wasn't his daughter. When I asked Republican voters what they thought about this on Quora, their reply was "Bill Clinton Bill Clinton Bill Clinton".
I believe Trump never expected to win. I'm not sure whether he wanted to win. For all his talk about winning and his obsession with fame and status, he's never been ashamed to go bankrupt if he could turn a profit from it. The one thing he hates more than losing is responsibility. When he was behind in the polls, it was the fault of the liberal media that gave him unlimited free publicity.
When he lost the debates, it was the fault of bad microphones and partisan moderators. When contractors he stiffed spoke up, he said they did a lousy job. Now this narcissistic bully who will blame every failure on other people, who wants to punish everybody who opposes him, has tens of millions of followers who hate urban elites and (((globalists))) even more than immigrants, and a top advisor who runs the favorite news site of the 'alt-right', a neonazi-light army of memelords who kept posting "Hitler did nothing wrong" for fun until they started believing it.
Six weeks from now, he'll be able to do anything to the US and the world.
Original version posted on Facebook on November 15, 2016. Slightly updated for the passage of time and a different audience. Image sources unknown, unless displayed on the image.
"I understand people who voted against Hillary because of smug celebrities like Lena Dunham or John Oliver." Man, that feels good to read. I will read the rest in a bit but so far, I like your writing and I think we agree on many things. Following!
Thanks!
If that's how you're really feeling, might as well make this number your Song of the Day:
And so on and such forth. :)
Thanks, hippie :)
You lost, We won
Congratulations!
"Clearly, the US is better at integrating Muslim immigrants than European countries" This is not immigration, this is an INVASION. And your trying to teach Americans is so utterly ridiculous
Although I was glad about the victory of Trump, I gave you an upvote.
Here is my opionion (I hope you can understand a litte bit german):
https://steemit.com/deutsch/@freiheit50/trump-versetzt-die-deutschen-eliten-in-schockstarre-und-mich-in-freudige-stimmung