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 tried to edit, but it did not work. Argh. In any case, the wonky word, which my Kindle screwed up, that is m k Nye is supposed to be “money.” Sorry about that.
@Samantha, regarding the DAPL, I was watching stuff on that yesterday. Dunno where you are on the media on it, but the Army Core of Engineers and the court has made it very clear that it is illegal for DAPL to do any drilling, as they don’t have permissions to do so. DAPL is building the drill site – and the government has no observers to ensure that they aren’t drilling right now.
DAPL issued a statement saying that they were going to be ready to drill in 2 weeks, and that they’re confident that the permissions were going to be given within that time – basically rubbing our noses in the bribes they’re handing out like candy. And sadly? They’re probably right. They’ll put a million into a few pockets and the permissions will appear out of nowhere, and they’ll start drilling with the cordon of police protecting them.
I don’t know if you can, but if you can do so, don’t wait. I don’t know who needs to be contacted, but whoever is responsible for giving those permissions needs to know in no uncertain terms that there will be a backlash against them if DAPL is given permission to drill. There’s a two week window before money gets stuffed into pockets and it’s a done deal.
Ain’t no time like showtime!
Also, festivities was supposed to be creativities, which said Kindle refused to allow. I think I will stop writing now.
Fuck the media if they’re going to try and cast these protests in a negative light. For weeks now we’ve heard about how trump supporters are going to “take up arms” and “start a revolution”.
And fuck the media again for not having 10 different headlines titled “hate crimes and sexual assault on the rise following Trump presidential victory”.
@ Skildfreya
You are right, which is why I believe that there will be, unfortunately, blood in the streets. Sadly, Obama has been profoundly unresponsive to the rightful issues, here, and should be held to account, though I have no clue how to move him to do the right thing.
The next year is going to define who we, as a nation, are and are going to be. It is time for a united progressive movement, something that seems to be very difficult. Why is it that the regressive, greedy and authoritarian seem to be able to organize, while we don’t – at least, not easily?
My biggest fear is that most of us will wait too long, until the planet is too far gone or until they come for us in the night, as they have done before. Regardless, we have to find a way to stand, even if that means we go down fighting.
@Scildfreya
Just a short add-on. This progressive movement we are hoping to create/be part of can no longer be national. It has to be a world movement, since, as you pointed out, no matter where we live, we are one step away from the same repressive, regressive possibility. We can no longer afford, for the sake of life on Earth, to fool ourselves into believing that what affects you does not affect me and vice versa.
Perhaps, if many of us want it, David could be persuaded to open an area for us to explore the ways in which we could effectively do this?
DITTO!!
Wow. Just wow. I got why people squashed the troll who said he or she voted for Trump, but Jessica?
I didn’t get where Jessica was coming from with the not fair comment, but finding it therapeutic to hope it might be a wake up call to young women who think the battle for feminism is won is something I do get. In much the way addicts usually have to hit rock bottom to change. It doesn’t make the rock bottom any less horrible, but the fact that rock bottom was utterly horrible doesn’t negate the fact that the change may help in the end.
If trying to find something to hope for for a minute is more therapeutic for her than fanning her anger, it doesn’t make her terminally stupid. People have different coping mechanisms. It doesn’t mean it’s remotely okay that the most vulnerable people in society may pay for this change. It doesn’t mean any of what we may be facing in the next four years is remotely okay. But hoping that at least one good thing could happen, despite all of that, just might be okay.
But if nothing else, possibly you’ve given our young friend better insight into why so many of her friends may be afraid to try and join the feminist movement, even if they do sympathize with it. After all, people with any passing dissenting thought may just get flayed alive, at least online. I’m typically not afraid to tell non-feminists I am a feminist. But I am often afraid to try and speak to feminists online. In other words, I’m not afraid of the “enemy” since I don’t expect any support from them, anyway. It’s really only my supposed allies who have the power to hurt me.
I mean there’s only one form of feminism, right? We all agree about 100% of things 100% of the time, and if anyone has a sliver of doubt about anything or questions any idea, she’s not a real feminist. She’s a concern troll. Or she’s terminally stupid.
I do get that people are really angry right now, too, but comments like this are why WHTM never quite feels like a safe place to me (although it feels like it’s better than it used to be). To be fair, it was only two people, as well, which is why I would like to really, really thank all of you who provided an almost safe place to grieve communally for a while. Special thanks to Skildfreja for not treating Jessica even remotely like this.
Considering that maybe 3 people directly responded to Jessica, and the rest just ignored it, perhaps you’re making a mountain of text out of a molehill. Very little good will come from a Trump presidency, unless you’re a rich white person with orange hair.
“Maybe we’ll get the Electoral college disbanded because of Trump” requires a constitutional amendment, which is a very high bar to clear right now.
@Skiriki
Thanks for your reply. I hate to say it but am a BIT shocked by the new you posted (i guess everyone has standards).
I agree that my participation can be EASILY confused with trolling, and no, i’m not bothering to write out of spite.
First, the topic of constitutional rights.
As many of you clearly stated, 90 PRECENT of people agree on background checks for firearms and many want more sensible gun legislation. Obama did his best to implement this, or at least the foundations to do so in the future. Guess what? he couldn’t, IN EIGHT YEARS. Granted, the N.R.A. it’s a FREAKING MONSTER, i mean no offense but people of color or LGBTQ people can only WISH they had this kind of colossal lobby.
If MERELY touching the second amendment (considered a crappy amendement by many Constitutional Law proffesors in my country) was such an eight years futile fight, what makes you thin he can get away with restricting free speech or religious freedom? do you think he can overturn Brown vs Board of education or Roe vs Wade?
On another topic, my first response in this thread was deleted, i admit y reacted in a very crass way, but i felt indignated, i mean @amused was vasically calling for a witch hunt against EVERYONE (granted, the FBI dropped the ball on this one, i’ll give you that) which is clearly not standard for a group of people that taked pride in being tolerant.
I reflected on this and now i think i understand, the problem is, you don’t understand the people who voted for Trump.
Thay voted for him out of spite for a sistem that failed them, i mean it’s not something new! Elliot killed people out of spite for not getting female attraction. Did you think he was an isolated case? NO! many (too many) people felt this way, tired of “PC bullshit” or “privilege”, i mean do you really believe that white men are THAT succesful? do you think white people don’t deal with unemployment and such issues? yes i know, minorities have it worst even, but, speaking as a (currently) unsuccesful white male, when someone tells me to “check my privilege” i thought “are they trolling me or what?” I HAVE NO F*CKING PRIVILEGES!!! to add insult to injury some feminist seem to be hellbent on depriving men of their constitutional rights (like due process). Wednesday my Criminal Law professor told that he visited Sweden and he learned that many men refuse to take an ELEVATOR alone with a woman in fear that they might be accused of sexual assault or something, just the accusation of the woman is enought to, at least, put him in trouble, and no, my professor is not right wing, quite the opposite in fact, he works providing poor people with legal assistance because, according to him “everyone deserves a fair trial”.
Well, everyone except white heterosexual men, it seems.
I couldn’t stomach that. I dont hate women but some policies that feminism implement are unforgivable, completely and utterly unforgivable.
Let’s not think that fairies made Trump win, someone sow the seeds of HATRED, and now it’s reaping time.
I won’t suggest to try to reach them, it’s just too late for that, and frankly, many of you don’t feel particularly understanding (again i understand, i would do the same).
I hope this comment doesn’t get deleted, beacuse it’s important to give this message, i’m sorry for offending people here.
@Joaquin
You really shouldn’t continue to ask the question after you just finished answering it
Of? Finish the sentence. Tolerant of what? Of whom?
Yeah, I do! Entitled bigots. You even say so yourself. The system apparently failed them, yet they, on average, make more money and are less likely to be unemployed or destitute than Clinton voters. Fuck em
Read a book
1)bullshit
2)Sweden isn’t Murica
3)bullshit
There it is! It’s usually ‘I’m not a sexist, but’. Then again, this seems more raw. More honest somehow…
Deleted, no. Mocked, yes.
@JS
I undoubtedly did make a mountain of text out of a molehill. Unless you happened to be Jessica and still, by some miracle, be reading this thread and saw that at least one person didn’t approve of automatically assuming you were a concern troll, terminally stupid, or willfully uneducated. If she is an ally, and she read it, and it helped her feel better, it doesn’t matter much to me if you think I made too much of it.
As for the rest of your comment, hello preacher, I’m the choir. I just don’t happen to think that making yourself feel better by hoping some kind of long-term good could happen makes you stupid. Then again, maybe it does. Maybe hope is stupid. But hey, if it keeps me from being suicidal, I’ll take stupid.
Now I’ll get out of the way of JoaquinRL1’s well-deserved flaming.
People need to understand that comments very rarely get deleted because if it’s obtuse and offensive, people tear it apart. It’s the whole schtick of the website.
Yeah, first time comments get moderated, and David chooses whether or to let them get seen publicly. Some of the comments are posted for people to tear into, some of them get their very own posts for us to mock, and I’m sure a very small amount never see the light of day considering it seems every week we get at least one troll that shits over everything for pages and pages.
Also, you’re not sorry for offending anyone. If you think what you’re posting might be offensive and you’re truly sorry for it, you wouldn’t have posted it. You’re preemptively saying sorry as if that will absolve you, as if somehow that will convince us you had no control over what you’re saying. It’s the internet, and it requires a lot more to say something than talking, so everything posted is deliberate and purposeful, so fuck off with that “I’m sorry for offending people” shit.
@The Adjunct, go get’em! Make it uncomfortable!
@JoaquinRL1, I don’t think you’re trolling. I do think you’re wrong, though.
By the letters,
You answer your own question. Guns have a massive lobby of gun manufacturers. LGBTQ folks don’t. Case in point – the American government has been illegally monitoring phone lines and communication mediums ever since the Patriot Act was enforced. Against the constitution. Torture in Guantanamo, arrest and detainment with warrant or trial.
The Constitution only matters when the powers-that-be want to enforce it.
Mike Pence is the VP and in charge of transition, and was hired on the pretense of being in charge of “foreign and domestic policy”. He’s a theocrat that believes abortion should be illegal under all circumstances. Alabama has made abortion all but unavailable through restricting clinics with incredibly unrealistic regulations (so much for small government). He also wants to force women to pay for funerals for any abortions they may have.
Go ask women from Alabama whether those things can be overturned.
Now let’s move to the big rambly paragraph in the middle. There’s not really a coherent thread of thought there, it’s more a grab-bag. So I’ll slice it into appropriate pieces.
Two things for this:
1) Most poor people voted for Clinton. The more income a white person makes, the more likely they’re a Trump voter. Check the exit polls and stats on the election.
2) Barring that, you’re right – the system failed poor people. It has failed everyone, left and right.
The leftists blame large corporations, and have math, statistics, studies and science backing them up. They recognize that immigrants and muslims aren’t the culprits.
The rightists… do not recognize these things.
So now we’ve come to “You’re at fault for this violent outbursts because you women don’t want to fuck me”?
Yeah, we know all too fucking well that there’s an army of Elliot Rogers out there. Should we start giving out free hand jobs to keep the fucking peace?
Of course we know that white people have problems. No shit. You say
and can’t put together two and two? Yes, they have it worse. The difference between their position and yours? That’s the width of privilege.
You… you do realize that our argument so far is “you need to stop saying I’m privileged because it makes me feel bad,” right?
I’m gonna be gentle here.
Yes, you do have privileges. They’re invisible, but they’re there. Are you stopped several times a month to be frisked by the police on the side of the road? Are you ignored when speaking, or if you do speak you’re told to stop being shrill and annoying? Do you spend your time outside worrying whether the guy passing by you is going to grab you by the pussy?
We all have problems. White, cis, straight men included. That’s not what privilege is about. I don’t want you to have troubles in life, I want you to succeed. But I don’t want you to do that at the expense of someone else.
[Citation Needed]
I’ll certainly agree that there are terrible women out there that are utter shits, though. That’s certainly not part of feminism, though, just a shitty woman.
I’ll let the swedes in the chat deal with that one. I have no doubt they’ll come down harder than I do, so do brace yourself.
Cite some for us, please? Do be specific.
So before it was spite at a broken system, now it’s feminists?
Feminists believe the ‘system’ is patriarchal. We call it the Patriarchy, remember? That includes the government that’s failed us all.
We aren’t the ones marching with white hoods on, we aren’t the ones spraying swastikas on mosques, we aren’t the ones murdering people of colour.
Tell me again how we’re the purveyors of hate here.
“I don’t actually want to have a discussion, so I’m going to say that no one here wants to understand the truth, so that I don’t have to defend my position.”
Do I have that right?
You aren’t sorry for offending people, firstly. There’d be less shouty bits in your text if that were true.
And I have an important message for you, @JoaquinRL1.
You won’t break us.
We won’t be giving out hand-jobs to placate Elliot-Rogers clones. We won’t be cutting off our compassion and support for minorities, for women, for muslims, for the poor, for the disposessed. Even you, Joaquin, poor and unaccomplished. The system’s broken, and you’ve suffered because of it. We’re fighting for you too.
You won’t break us, Joaquin. Equality, Peace, Prosperity, Compassion. Those are our guiding stars, not yours.
When LGBT folks won the right to marry in the US in the face of right-wing opposition, we celebrated with marriages and cheering and hope for peace and happiness for everyone.
When the Alt-Right folks won the 2016 Election, they celebrated with beatings, harassment, hate and fear-mongering for their opponents and victims.
That alone should tell you who’s in the right of things.
@Belladonna, <3.
I know the ambivalence you're feeling. Unfortunately, there's really no way to control that. People react in a number of ways to situations, and we can't really filter or aggression without heavy, heavy moderation – which goes against the spirit of the site.
There are a few possible ways to help, though. David might be able to include a page on "So you're afraid to comment…" with advice for people who feel intimidated, and a reassurance that he can be emailed for help if needed?
One I also like is a "Welcome New Readers" thread that's linked at the top of the page, where we can all agree to be more gentle with new commenters – with the caveat that no trolls are allowed and that no arguments should be held here. A place to get the proverbial feet wet.
Neither are perfect. Progressive spaces aren't very safe, generally, since we all argue about the right path to take. That comes with the territory. I do hope that she comes back, though.
@JoaquinRL1, you are getting well into “not even wrong” territory.
To pick just one example, you have just given a pretty good demonstration of what it looks like when a person has absolutely zero understanding of the meaning of “privilege”.
It does not mean that you necessarily have a nice life, or a comfortable life, or that you are rich. It simply means that you enjoy certain privileges that other demographics don’t.
You might like to take a look at this pdf: http://www.sap.mit.edu/content/pdf/male_privilege.pdf
It won’t take you long, it’s only a couple of pages. You may hate it, you may dismiss it, you may feel none of these things apply to you. But if you’re honest with yourself, in the privacy of your own room, you may notice that there are certain things where you most probably have the advantage over a woman, other things being equal (a woman with the same education, money, social skills, connections or lack of them, etc etc etc as you).
Let me give you an example of white privilege that I enjoyed a while ago (and yes, I didn’t realise it was white privilege until I thought about it several days later. Being able to take it for granted and not think about it and not realise it is part of the privilege): I was driving across country with my family to get to a place we’d never been before, and about 20 miles or so from our destination we got lost. No problem, we stopped on the street of a tiny town, I got out and asked someone at the door of their house (they were moving stuff out into a vehicle) if they could tell me the way. They could, and they did. As I was about to go and get back in the car, I stopped and rather shamefacedly asked if I could – yes, just like in the clichés – use their bathroom, because I was bursting for a pee (I didn’t phrase it like that at the time). They said, yes, no problem; I went into their house, used the loo, thanked them for their kindness, and left.
That was my godsdamned privilege, of the white and probably the class varieties. Because I am white and possibly because I have a “nice” accent, the chances of my getting that friendly reception from a total stranger were much, much higher than if I had been black or asian or visibly or audibly a foreigner. Not a certainty, not a guarantee, not a free pass to a life of luxury but a better chance than someone else who happens to have a different skin colour or a different accent.
Now take that better chance and multiply it by the infinite number of interactions a person has in their life, multiply it when I go into a shop, when I go into the bank, when I speak to an official in an office or on the phone, when I interact with people for my job. Multiply it across an entire population. Try to get your head round what privilege actually means, because your utter and complete misunderstanding of it is very common.
Privilege doesn’t mean your path is strewn with rose-petals; it just means that by no merit or effort of your own it does not have some of the pitfalls and barriers and traps on the path of the (equally unsuccessful) guy next to you who is not white, or the (equally unsuccessful) human being next to you who is not a guy.
It’s not rocket surgery.
That was put really nicely, @opposablethumbs. Thanks.
SWEDISH FACT CHECKER HERE
This is absolute bullshit. You should call your professor out on being a dirty liar. There is no legal support for the idea that an accusation from a woman is enough to put a man “in trouble”. This is fear mongering garbage. You should ask your lying liar of a professor to quote the relevant legal passage(s) and specific cases of this actually happening outside of his paranoid fever dreams.
I’m waiting.
@Imaginary Petal
I don’t understand why would he lie, considering that he is as progressive as can be, in fact he reprimands me constantly for being a fascist. I don’t see why he would go out of character THAT hard.
Besides it’s not hard for me to believe him, i’ve checked VAWA (violence against women act) and it’s horribly flawed as well.
Altought it may be the case of a law with good intentions but horribly flawed in it’s implementation.
I got into trouble once for defending a woman from an attacker, and the bastard called the cops on ME, and I had to explain to the police. And you know what was the worst part? i had to thank him for dropping the charges.
So forgive me, but the possibility of having my day/life ruined by a hysterical woman is too real, in my opinion.
COOL STORY, BRO.
Now here’s an ugly truth which you have the very male privilege of being too blinkered to admit:
If men don’t sexually assault women in elevators, women won’t be afraid to get into elevators with men (and not the other way around, as your probably-fictional prof insists, because false rape accusations are like false robbery accusations: rare to the point of negligibility). But since men DO sexually assault women in elevators, all the damn time, women are DEATHLY afraid to get on one with them, especially if it’s just the two of them. I can’t tell you the number of elevators I’ve refused to take because some dude was the only other person taking it.
And no, that’s not a supposed excess of feminism talking. That’s my lived, real experience of being sexually assaulted while alone with men in moving vehicles. I was once assaulted in a moving car by the man driving it — an older man I’d trusted until then and regarded as a friend. The fact that he knew where I lived because he drove me there regularly TERRIFIED me. To make matters worse, I lived in a basement apartment, alone. The building was small and had no security. The place would have been childishly easy for him to break into if he wanted to press his luck any further. From then on, I never let him get me alone, or in his car, again.
You say you have no privilege? Fuck that noise, you do SO have privilege. You have the privilege of being able to walk through life unmolested, thanks to your gender. If you ever got accused of rape, even if you did it and the prosecutor had ironclad proof that you were guilty, you’d most likely get off and your life would be the furthest thing from ruined. You could be elected president and no one would care! And you want to whine about hypothetical false rape accusations in Sweden? Where, in fact, the law takes rape seriously in ways most other countries don’t?
Yeah, tell me again that you’re not a troll. COOL STORY, BRO.
@IP
See, it’s that kinda shit like I was saying in the other thread. People make up shit about people from other cultures and people automatically believe it for no reason other than to, I guess, justify that the other people are weird and foreign or that ideas they don’t like don’t work. I makes no sense.
I mean, I guess I’m not immune to it, what with the confusion between Stalinism and communism and all, but, like, still.
Question, @Joaquin.
When your professor was talking about this, what did he say specifically? What were his specific reasons for not getting into that elevator with women?
Because some men understand that women feel frightened of men, because so many women are harassed and assaulted. So they are compassionate, and don’t put themselves into confined spaces with women they don’t know.
I’m willing to bet that, if your prof is actually progressive, he said something along the lines of not wanting to go into an elevator because there was a woman in there, and confirmation bias added in the “lawsuit” part in your head.
Also, the typical “an anecdote is not data” statement applies here.
If you honestly want to come to grips with this and are interested in changing your mind, give that some thought. If you’re not interested in changing your mind and just want to shout at women for being afraid of being harassed, that’s apparently what Twitter is for.
@Bina, oh, no question he’s a troll. The shotgun-spray of dissociated confrontations and aggression that was his first post makes that all too clear.
@Scildfreja
Thank you! It has been a very, very long time since I commented here and I probably should revisit the welcome packet, etc. And to be honest, I don’t lurk well, so not commenting usually means I’m not reading, either. I seem to have no capacity for moderation, so I just have to substitute being extremely sporadic.
I also know that it’s not really this site’s purpose to be a safe place (I know it used to be in the disclaimer). I don’t blame anyone for an aggressive reaction, especially right now. And I get how parts of Jessica’s post may have seemed a bit suspicious. But if she is an ally, I wanted to make sure she heard another supportive voice.
I should have left off the end of my comment, though. It’s based on very old feelings that overall seems to have no relevance here anymore.
I don’t remember you from when I was here before. I really admire your commentary!
Thank you to all of you who manage to patiently explain the same concepts over and over and over again to people like Joaquin. I know how very hard it is to remember, when you’re explaining something for the 150th time, that it’s possible that it is the first time the listener is hearing it.
@Joaquin
I think Scildfreja already brought up confirmation bias, but you should seriously look up what this means.