When I finally went to bed late last night, there was a small part of me that hoped I would wake up this morning to find that Donald Trump’s improbable victory had been nothing more than a very bad dream.
Barring that, which I knew was a bit of a long shot, I hoped that I would at least wake up with the inklings of a plan for what to do about this catastrophe. I hoped I could write a rousing blog post sketching out my thoughts on the road ahead– for this blog and for the anti-Trump movement as a whole.
Alas, that didn’t happen either. I’m still processing the bad news, emotionally and intellectually. And I know a lot of you are doing the same.
And that’s ok. Trump will not take office until the end of January. There will be plenty of time to come up with ways to fight back against the orange one.
Right now the important thing is to take care of ourselves and those around us. Give yourself however much time you need. Avoid stress. Don’t beat yourself up for what happened, and don’t take out your anger on others on our side. Turn off the news if need be. Do whatever you need to do to clear your head and keep yourself safe.
In the comments here, feel free to continue the discussion that started in the “VOTE” post yesterday. And please share any self-help and self-care strategies you have — even if all you’ve got at the moment is pictures of cats and videos of hedgehogs.
If trolls show up, or if there is anything else that pops up in the thread that I should know about, please send me an email about it.
We can fight this thing. We can beat this thing. But first we need to get ourselves centered.
I’m looking at the news and what sticks to my eye is how eagerly Republicans want to gut or make ACA go away.
This is monstrous. Their replacement plans are worse. Even worse, morons in my country think that Republican way is the way we should do with our healthcare.
At the same time I think of a guy friend in Indiana, and his brother; they’re Latino, they were born there, their parents and grandparents were born there, their father served as a police and died in line of duty. My friend and his brother both have neurodegenerative disease, but nobody can’t quite figure out what it is. They’re going blind, slowly. They’re deaf. Their lives depend on disability benefits, right to have assistance at home and ACA. Right after election results were more or less declared, he logged in to Skype and wrote “my life is over”.
There are reports that trans youth are committing suicides explicitly over this election.
The fuck you’re gonna tell all LGBT+ youth that people told it is safe to come out of the closet, with Mike “electrocuter” Pence being VP and Trump being a gross nurgling-spawner squatting in White House and stroking his ego and going through his enemies list and most likely looting money into his pockets via graft and insider deals?
Fuck you, assholes. Fuck you for making sure that my friend and his brother are gonna suffer.
@Skiriki
Nurgle and his nurglings would be offended by Trump.
Papa Nurgle’s love is unconditional, regardless of background, gender, criminal history, ideology, species, and so on.
BUT HEY, AT LEAST THERE ARE NO ESTABLISHMENT PEOPLE ON UPCOMING LIST OF FUTURE STAFF.
That, btw, is sarcasm so thick, yet flowing and in massive amounts, that you might try and stop a lava flow with bare hands. Get a mop, it’ll burst out of your monitors any moment now.
Any Trumpettes lurking or thinking of trying to convince us of the error of our ways:
Thanks to the US election results, I am (more) afraid for my Muslim cousins, my LGBT friends (including myself), my POC friends and family, and I’m white and I LIVE IN FUCKING CANADA!!
And if you think I’m overreacting, we’ve already had one Canadian politician crow about how we need to import Drumpf’s message up here. That was yesterday. (Apparently he’s ‘gotten rid of the elites’ in Washington) We don’t need your fucking delusional crap. Trump is anti-establishment?? He’s PART of the establishment!!
@kokoda, for all the noise you make about how you wish you could argue with someone who doesn’t make personal attacks, that’s all your candidate did for two years. His primary opponents were stupid, and their wives were unfuckable, and Clinton was a “nasty woman.”
Your candidate can’t handle Twitter to the extent that his own campaign took his Twitter account away from him for a few days.
He can’t just say, “I disagree with this person because of reason Y,” he is compelled to grind their faces into the dirt and label them “sad,” “low-energy,” a “loser,” or worse.
He’s like a Randian counterpart to the name-it-and-claim-it Prosperity Gospel folks.
He’s not going to bring jobs back; he’s not going to stop pay for play; his charitable foundation has only himself as a beneficiary; he’s not going to stop DAPL.
If he does spend money on infrastructure, that’d be great, but I expect more no-bid contracts. Hell, Don Jr. might just incorporate a contractor company and do all the infrastructure work with imported Chinese workers.
The Clintons ain’t got nothing on this guy.
EDIT: And on top of all that, haters are gonna feel like the country is going to stand at their shoulders when they make themselves feel big by terrorizing others.
White terrorism? We ain’t seen nothin’ yet. They used to fear the police.
@littlelurker I feel similarly.
Greece has a lot of problems as it is. The economy continues its journey towards hell, immigration is a major issue that just isn’t getting dealt with and I don’t think I’m the only one losing their last slivers of faith in “the system”.
And worst of all, literal neonazi party Golden Dawn is still around, and Trump’s victory can only encourage them. They reached 13% vote at some point, and though they’ve quieted down I can’t not fear a comeback, especially since they shared Trump’s xenophobic and nationalistic rhetoric. I don’t want to live in a country where these people have any degree of power, but the way things are going there may very well be a miniature replica of this horrible election occuring here quite soon.
This is less a reply and more me whining. Sorry.
@Falconer — Trump has already considered his children for various important roles. But nepotism is no sign of being a part of “Establishment”!
(Sarcasm, again.)
@Epicurus Hog I think we might need to vent a little every now and then. *huuuugs* Sadly Drumpf’s victory has now emboldened assholes of all stripes around the world. I’m done with being ‘nice’.
@Falconer No shit.
@Imaginary Petal
I am sorry. I did not intend disrespect. I wish you well.
hmmm… did I get kicked out?
I can’t be the only one who wants to pull a Patrick-in-the-theater, right?
LOOK AT IT! LOOK AT IT! YOURE NOT LEAVING UNTIL YOU LOOK AT IT!
Scildfreja Unnýðnes
Thanks so much.
And Kokoda,
Eat s*** you ignorant pr***. And everything else here said to you.
@Skiriki
It’s kind of hilarious, in that “I must laugh or I will cry” kind of way, that the same people who were decrying “dynastic” politics with HRC seem to be just fine with Trump installing his own progeny into the Cabinet.
If nothing else, we can attempt to minimize the fallout in our own communities if at all possible.
Everything “they” do is wrong, and everything “we” do is right.
If it’s the same thing, see (above)….
We’re going to have to listen to this orange man’s nasal voice and look at his terrible hairpiece for years to come.
I’m not okay.
A Trump cabinet is going to almost definitely include Rudy Giuliani, and most likely will include Newt “On His Third Wife” Gingrich.
“Drain the Swamp” my ass.
Secretary of Family “Affairs”, no doubt
@HawkAtreides
I know, that’s what enrages me so much. But then again, that’s a regular feature of Republicans (and right-wing authoritarian types overall): it’s the “little” people who need to obey the law, their “betters” are allowed to break the rules, that’s the perk of being “better”.
Consider all the eagerness of “little people” exposed doing something awful, and sure enough, there’s a cry for their head on the block to be chopped off. Then, when one of the “betters” gets caught doing the same, it is all “shush, he had a rough childhood, we all should move on and forgive”.
Donald Trump’s going to have to work for the first time in his life.
He’s going to be miserable because he’s going to have to read so many things, and we all know he’s a poor reader.
If we can buckle down and fight him and keep enough of his campaign promises from coming true, then when he leaves the White House, he’s never going to get that TV show he was angling for. He’s never going to get to go on Fox News every week and brag that he would have done it better.
Longtime reader, but I don’t comment much. If you all are still seeking naming suggestions for PET, I’ve been using Dump since the primaries. I was using Cheeto Benito, but I like Cheetos, and he already ruined Tic Tacs for me.
Also, for the poster who claimed Trump was an outsider, Christie of Bridgegate fame is still going to be head of his transition team. Dump is no outsider.
The Cheeto’s entire advisory staff is like a Who’s Who of Republican Scandals
And now there are reports of Drumpf voters being beaten up. 🙁
http://patch.com/illinois/chicago/trump-supporter-beaten-chicago-street-recorded-video
I just listened to what Trump had to say after his first White House meeting. I think he was trying for conciliatory and statesman-like (does he get points for knowing what he’s supposed to be doing? I don’t think so, but it’s such a departure from past practice). Unfortunately he just sounded like an idiot; it sounded like Obama actually tried to explain some of the differences between being CEO and being President, and Trump took from this that Obama was going to hand-hold him through the process of unpicking an 8 year legacy.
Pillock.
I was in the Denial stage until the Pennsylvania results came in. Then I moved rapidly through the stages of grief until I got to Anger. I think I’m going to stay here for a while.
The world doesn’t need more angry white guys. Sigh.