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 very late to this. I’ve been so numb since this happened, and I didn’t even have any idea how to react.
I never, ever, for a moment considered that that monster of a man might actually win. Never in my wildest nightmares did I think it possible.
And then the impossible, somehow, happened.
So I stayed away from the gloating of the Trumpsters and away from the furious grieving of my own liberal people for a few days. I just, didn’t even know what to do. Every morning I woke up and remembered with a sickening drop in my stomach that this is real. This monster is really the President of the United States. How am I ever going to cope for 4 years?
But slowly, I’ve talked to some friends. We’re coming out of it, out of the shocked grief. I don’t know how much aggression I truly have in me – not a lot, and that’s not my way of fighting.
But I will be a safe person for others. I will call out racism, sexism, xenophobia, ableism, and just plain assholishness when I see it. I will try to be polite within reason, but I am no longer just going to be quiet and not rock the boat.
The niece of a friend of mine posted this essay, I am leaving her name off but people like her have helped me a lot today, in figuring out how to cope with this. I hope you will find some inspiration in it, as I have.
November 09, 2016
You Can Stay with Me
I know a lot of you are angry today. If you’re like me, you’ve been alternating between tearful and terrified, looking for that one tiny thread of hope that can console you.
For many, that thread is anger. How could so many people be convinced so easily that their feelings are worth more than facts? How do we not scream at the third-party voters who allowed their principles to supersede their reality? How do I continue to live in a country that sees me as worth less—lesser than a man, lesser than my attacker, lesser than my own reproductive parts?
If you have thought these things, you are lucky. You have the luxury of despair.
While your feelings are completely valid, many people are going to suffer in the next four years—and some much, much more than others. Our next president has risen to power on a tide of hate, and if history has taught us anything, it is that the people who are suffering the most are the first against the wall. You may be afraid for your future, others are in very real danger of losing their lives.
The thread of hope that I am clinging to today is not anger, nor fear. It is that feeling I felt after Obama was first elected into office, the potential to change things for the better, that feeling of love for my country and all the people who are living in it—whether they love me back or not. I will continue to help others even though it is not my job, to support the rights of all humans whether I directly benefit or not, to understand those who are different than me instead of dismissing or fearing them.
I extend this invitation to everyone: if the worst happens, if your world catches fire, you can stay with me. If you are thrown out of your home or lost your job because you are different, you can stay with me. If you need help, you can stay with me. If you voted for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, or even Donald Trump, you can stay with me. I will be the America that I believe in, and I know that I cannot do it without you. I need all of you to make it real.
And to the people who are going to be unable to lift their arms today, who fought so hard throughout the election, made it to the finish line, and still lost—I saved you a seat. I know it’s hard not to give up. So, go ahead. Give up. Take five minutes, take the whole morning—if you can, take the day. Tomorrow, we get up, because our work is not over. Our work has just begun.
This is my pledge as well. You can stay with me.
@Fabe
Maybe the mods are working overtime at the moment. I don’t blame them.
@Jessica
Stop it right there. Just stop it. That naive optimism is not helping considering there are PLENTY of reasons to not be calm.
Yes that it a good thing that more people get IUDs. A better thing would be Trump NOT restricting birth control/abortions.
It’s not a “luxury.” We live in a plutocracy.
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
We don’t get much of a say in anything because the rich have all the power and we don’t because the rich pay the politicians and their campaigns, making it so the politicians are beholden to the rich. It’s for that reason why alot of faith in the US government is on decline because the grievances of the 99, are ignored to cater to the 1%. The media gives us the “luxury” of never even addressing this point because they too are beholden to corporate masters.
You are damn right alot of people wanted change for a long time, mostly because the idea of letting literal neonazis try to make everyone not them extinct is appalling.
How the literal fuck is it not right and unfair? It is unfair to be against a person that will give to the rich and fuck over everyone else just like Reagan and Bush? It’s not right to be against a person that will distract the people from poverty with war? It’s not right to be against a person backed by fascists, racists, sexists, homophobic, ablest, transphobic, and much more? How the fuck is impeachment, which is a legal method of removing presidents, unfair? Tell me, I would really like to know.
Of course we are against the electoral college and the winner take all system and how the entire country hinges on the whims of 7 states. I really do not appreciate you trying to pull blood from a stone here because I really am taking you for a concern troll.
After dreemr’s powerful post this seems a little silly, but…
Zoe Quinn and Chuck Tingle’s game is currently being kickstarted. I didn’t know about it, so I thought I would share in case someone else wanted a little bright spot in their day.
It is an FMV (full motion video) game, and looks amazing.
(omg I want to pledge 30$ and get a ‘VERY HANDSOME TRUE BUCKAROO’ mug. I will use it at work!)
I am amusing myself by translating a German-language website on the “Bielefeld conspiracy” (a mockery of conspiracy theories written as though the author actually believed in it, saying that Bielefeld, a city of over 300 000 inhabitants, does not exist) and writing an introduction to my translation, expanding on the conspiracy.
I haven’t fully caught up with the whole thread yet, so sincere apologies if someone has already noted this. Leonard Cohen died on the same day Trump was elected. Cohen’s ‘Democracy‘ seems fitting right about now.
@Weatherwax and any other STP fans – please never stop sharing DW quotes! My STP Facebook group is the only thing keeping me smiling this week!
I hope everyone is doing ok; off to read rest of thread now xxx
Hey y’all. I know it’s been ages since I last commented on here, but I just wanted to drop by to say…
WOW! This has been a agonizing week already. It’s bad enough that the election turned out the way it did, but seeing the screenshots on Skiriki’s post made me emotionally ill. And this is after spending all day in bed yesterday with an upset stomach.
I really don’t know what to say other than I wish things turned out differently.
Oh, hey, @Jessica, from way back on page 6. Hi, Jessica. You, uh, well. Yeah. See above for a thorough reply. I’ll be brief.
I admire the ambition of wanting to find the good in something, and there will be good things found here, but they’ll be in spite of a Trump administration, not from it. Might seem nitpicky, but it’s not.
Those women are pretty much a big reason Trump won. White, middle-class women tipped the scales.
Again, admirable, but remember. This is on the backs of the broken and vulnerable. They’re the front line. Job number one is helping them to keep them safe and well…
… which is what the protests are about. It’s not about “my side lost” or “I don’t like your side”. It’s about the people who are going to die from losing medical coverage in six months, and about the women being grabbed, and the black people being told to get their fucking slave numbers, the beatings and the ceaseless harassment.
Protesting the electoral college needs to happen too, but that’s small potatoes compared to the actual human lives.
We brought that up too! Now is a great time to call your representatives. And in a week. And every week. All the time. Make sure they know – you aren’t gonna take this sitting down.
I quail to call anything coming from the death of liberty “good”. I see your point, but be careful. Tread carefully, for you tread on dreams.
@dreemr, thank you for that. It was a wonderful sentiment. Take the time you need to recover your calm. We’ll be here!
@ all:
We will overcome. We will NOT go away. We are the unbreakable links in the chain.
@ Bina
Thank you
@ dreemr
Thank you
Leonard Cohen is dead?
Oh, FUCK this entire year.
Yeah, I know, Bina. It’s been a bad year.
@ Weatherwax
Nothing to add, I just loved that comment. As usual the quotes were very welcome.
@ all/thread
So many of my Facebook pals, most of whom are also not living in America right now, seem to have moved on to the liberal cop out of ‘lets not play identity politics/poor white working class just groped towards the first outlet they saw/we must unite and reach out to poor misinformed Trump voters’ and I JUST. CAN’T. with that shit right now. When already we KNOW people are being attacked by emboldened Trump voters, the last thing we need is to keep reaching out and rolling over in good faith instead of actually realising that lets the bigots win. We need to fight, not play nice. I’m just so upset people I thought were really very strongly not-arseholes are giving in to the kind of wishy-washy liberal rhetoric that lets those targeted know basically their lives mean less than someone else’s comfort.
/End rant
Tl;dr I’m really grateful for this comment section right now.
*clap, clap* Good rant, Headologist!
I’ll be nice when they go first. We need to stop being Charlie Brown and realize that Lucy will ALWAYS pull the football out from under us.
I’m just doing the thing in Pokemon Go where you stand around and let GPS coordinate jitter rack up distance for you. (It’s past curfew, so I couldn’t do it properly even if I wanted to.)
I just had to school someone who basically posted that the people protesting Trump should ‘grow up’. I gave him a link to the Day 1 tweets, with a note as to why I’m with the protesters. *sigh* We’ll see if it took….
Does anyone know how to find out who the electors for a state are?
It’s probably obvious what I’m considering. No, I don’t expect it to work. I’m still working on it regardless.
How fucked is this situation that I consider myself lucky because I’m just going to lose my health insurance?
@NumberSequence
Here’s the source of those names. Don’t know how accurate but googling the names should work to double check.
I’ve tried looking for a list of people yesterday but I couldn’t find any. I live in California, anyway, so my state needn’t change.
Fingie is very disappointed with Americats.
Either that or some combination of terminally stupid and willfully ignorant.
Weatherwax, I wish I had the time, it’s why I offer here and to my irl friends. Between work and being a care partner I can only work my social services/procurement mojo in short intense bursts. Y’all have become part of my little online family, so I can always make time to help you guys however I can.
concern trolls…. concern trolls everywhere…
I’m definitely going to have to peace out of here for a while. Maybe a month, maybe a year, maybe four years. I’m no good to anyone if I don’t take care of myself.
Some of the best and brightest people I know are in this comments section. I’ve enjoyed my time here, and it heartens me to know you’re all still out there. Take care of yourselves, and each other.
@IP
Fingie is trolling you. He knows that cats didn’t do this!
I was sorry to read about your health issue. I hope that everything is resolved soon.
http://www.theonion.com/article/nations-optimists-need-shut-fuck-right-now-54658