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 have a question about how to treat Trump supporters.
Like everyone here, I’m disappointed, angry and disgusted about the results of the election and worried about the future and what will happen to vulnerable segments of the population.
It’s all well and good to talk about resistance, treating them with scorn and giving them the cold shoulder. But as a resident of a rural military community in a deep red state where almost 60% of the voting population picked Cheeto Jesus, if I did that my friend count would drop to near 0 and I would never leave my house. So far I have avoided talking about the election and my feelings with anyone other than that one close friend and my family (most of whom share my views but are not local.)
So I’m kind of lost on what I should do to express my dissatisfaction without becoming a hermit.
I hate to say it . . .
Leonard Cohen: RIP
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/leonard-cohen-dead-at-82-w449792
KPFA, my local Pacifica network radio station, is playing his songs and covers of his songs right now.
Here’s hoping that any faithless Trump electors don’t play “principled” and vote for Bernie, etc. I honestly wanted a Sanders presidency as much as any Bernout, but this is not the time to put candidate loyalty above fighting the enemy of every bit of progress this country had to fight tooth and claw to gain in the last eight years. Yes, taking votes away from Trump is good, but we need enough of them to go to Clinton or else it’s all meaningless – if there’s no 270 winner, Trump wins anyway.
So the electoral vote is still up in the air?
@Laugher at Bigots
Yes there’s still time for them to change their minds. I hope enough of them do for Hillary to win. But 2000 tells me otherwise. Will history repeat itself an nth time? I wish I knew.
Scildfreja Unnýðnes:
According to my sister who specializes in refugee affairs, this isn’t quite right, on two grounds:
1. Immigrating on humanitarian grounds is basically a way for the Canadian immigration system to sound like there isn’t an ad hoc system that you can beg your way into, while maintaining an ad hoc system that you can beg your way into. It’s there because Canada recognizes the reality that justice is not necessarily served by rigidly applying the laws — but still wants to be a nation ruled by law.
2. To be a refugee you have to have a well-founded fear for your safety *and* the state in which you live can’t or won’t protect you *and* you can’t be guilty of war crimes or terrorism.
War typically proves both fear and inability of your state to protect you, so that’s a common claim. But persecution (not necessarily by the state) or even a private threat against you can be good foundations for fear. You just have a higher bar of official skepticism to clear. You probably are going to need expert help with this: the task is to recall all the traumatic incidents that convinced you that you needed to flee, then for each one work out exactly what clause of the refugee convention it relates to, ideally with a citation of jurisprudence on the issue even if it’s blatantly obvious.
The second bit is what’s more likely to be the problem for US refugee claimants. In the US, the legal system generally works. If it doesn’t in your city, you can generally move to another city (you just fled to another country — why didn’t you flee to another city?). It’s going to be very hard to prove that the state won’t protect you until there’s official policy, or legislation, that directly persecutes you (or a group of which you’re a member). The bar to clear for a country to be considered safe is very low; the US is miles above it, as imperfect as its legal system is. Once again you need to document why you reasonably fear that the state won’t be able to protect you.
The third bit, typically the issue is people who are fleeing after being conscripted into a terrorist group. So for example ISIS shows up, tells you to join them or die, and you accept in hopes of fleeing later. It’s a controversial clause, but not likely to apply for people fleeing the US.
Finally, if you claim refugee status from a country, you can’t really go back. Once you go back, you lose refugee status: you just proved you no longer have the fear that drove you to flee. For example, if you’re from Syria, you pretty much automatically qualify for refugee status, but lots of Syrians don’t want that: they want to be outside the country, but be able to visit their relatives back home once in a while.
Post-finally: the process can take a couple years, during which you generally aren’t allowed to work. And you might be marooned in a camp (which is effectively a jail) for that time.
Meanwhile: optimism: Jackson County, MO for the County Executive voted:
Stacey is awesome people, I’ve known her longer than 15 years. She and her husband are working their asses off to establish the Green Party in Missouri. And to raise the baby she had about three weeks ago.
Full results: https://jcebmo.org/wp-content/uploads/112_PALL_Election_Summary-8.pdf
Darth Vader met with President Obama today at the White House.
Welp.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/12/politics/florida-election-hack/index.html
Wow. That’s amazing.
Just heard a couple explosions, and shouting on megaphones. Streets full of flashing lights, sky full of choppers. Sounds like the protests have made it to our neighborhood.
Okay, for fucking real, this Russian shit is fucking pass grating my nerves. I’m fucking tired of Russia fucking messing with us.
@kupo
Welp indeed. Even assuming no actual vote rigging happened, it’s still… fuck
@Dali
It’s officially designated a riot now. Whatever that means. You keep safe. Anyone else in the area too. Take care of yourselves, OK?
Echoing Axe – stay safe, Dalillama and anyone else who’s affected. Wish there was more I could do than saying that, but…
I’ll add my voice to those wishing for the safety of those affected by the riots. Had I the ability to do anything else, I would.
@ Handsome “Punkle Stan” Jack
Why are we always told to make amends with dictators, especially a country that for decades never, once ever had anything close to a stable government that wasn’t rank with death and corruption? I makes no sense especially with a guy who wants to recreate the Russian Empire before he dies and inevitable civil war comes around.
If this goes down like my CIA agent novels, maybe it’ll make it so Trump is now considered a Traitor of the state (yes I know it just makes it official), he gets jailed, Clinton becomes president, mid term we kick out the GOP, the Supreme Court is filled with anti-Scalia types and we’ll all look back at this and laugh in terror of what could have been.
But that’s too good to be true.
@Dalillama
Stay safe friend. Hopefully there won’t be any news of “courageous brown shirts quell riots, police are proud.”
@Ooglyboggles
I have a conspiracy theory that the Republicans are just using Trump as a fall-guy for Pence to become president. Between the court dates and the Russian connection, there’s no way Trump is gonna be jail-free for long. Trump is gonna be used as a fall-guy for something, being used to make Pence look good in comparison, or, like, something like that. Release all the worst laws while Trump is still in office before he’s kicked out so that way Pence has a smoother presidency. That’s why they’ve all been “renouncing” Trump, so people will think they’ll get a real leader when he’s impeached or whatever.
It doesn’t make a lick of sense, I know. I’m not sure why Trump would even be considered otherwise.
@Handsome “Punkle Stan” Jack
Well from what we’ve seen apparently alot of the politicians are stuck in their echo chambers and believe themselves to be Heralds of Tzeentch with these stupid plans they make up. Well I can give you a pretty good one. There is a civil war between the true believers of the right wing rhetoric and there are those who use it as a tool for their personal gain. The true believers were with Trump and grew too powerful, over taking the GOP like how a rabid animal turns on its owner. They tried to quell him by any excuse, but it just made everyone dig their heels and the ones running the show lost the reins. Trump is the personification of what the right wing propaganda machine and what the GOP is told is right and just and good. They’re bigoted anti government spiel lead them to this.
The animals run the house now. I won’t be surprised if some horrendous string of incidents and infighting causes both parties to dissolve into a four way clusterfuck between the Progressives, the Establishment Dems and GOP and Fuhrer Trump’s group.
[sarc] Hey, good news everyone! The increase in racist attacks and sexual harassment is a lie! Any evidence you see is staged! How do we know this? Many Trump supporters say so! [/sarc]
I thought they’d be proud of it.
@Axe
Apparently it means some broken store windows and some damaged cars at a dealership. So, you know, about ‘my football team won’ level damage.
@Handsome “Punkle Stan” Jack, RE: hacks.
At this point, I merely throw my hands, and go “what I’ve said before”. I got zero trust in Russian politicians/oligarchs, especially those that are stinking leftovers of KGB.
@Dalillama
But I imagine that’s going to be more then enough for the authorities to declare it a riot and start taking action.
*snort* There are times I think they just need to see ‘enough’ brown people to classify it as a ‘riot’.
Take care, Bill.