It is 4:56 AM. I stayed up past my 8:30 PM bedtime last night watching the election results come in. At 8:45 PM I decided it was time to start drinking and by 10:30 I had enough beer, saw the future was bleak and went to bed.
Now, on a peaceful morning on November 9th, 2016 here I am drinking coffee, reading through social media and the news; I see a world in complete shock and disbelief. In a normal election I’d say that the Republicans took a clean sweep, but it wasn’t them: it was Donald Trump who grabbed the Republican party by the pussy, threw them around, beat them up, made them behave and then gave them victory.
I’m making this post a LTMD as I’d like to mark this moment with a post and have something to look back on four, 10, 40 years from now. This is the moment when America changed and can no longer believe itself to be ‘exceptional,’ and hold itself in higher regard to the rest of the world. It has taken a huge step back and should be very ashamed. The pendulum that swung so far to the left with ‘hope and change’ has now forcefully swung the other way with ‘hate and fear.’
Nobody knows what is going to happen now. If Trump were to actually follow through on his campaign promises it could wreak the economy, start World War Three and the minorities of the USA should be fearful. Trump’s victory is like throwing a very large stone in a pond, there is the big splash which has just occurred and then so many ripples that will spread throughout the pond, causing disturbances and movement everywhere. Nobody knows what is going to happen from here on out and people are scared. This will embolden the hate groups and people will get beaten up. European right wing groups will feed off this energy and could win their own elections overseas. It feels like we’ve taken the first step into a very dark time.
Looking at my social feeds all of my most intelligent friends throughout the world are completely aghast. It is the slower, less sophisticated ones that supported Trump and we’ll see the level of boasting they do today.
One of my reoccurring thoughts in this blog is how ironic it is that we have so many universities, so much knowledge and a level of education unparalleled with any time in human history and yet enormous percentages of populations can remain so stupid? This fact now stares us right in the face with Trump’s victory.
I also blame the unbounded ambition for power of Hillary Clinton. Last night showed the world how disliked she really is; it is this extreme dislike that gave Trump a huge boost and history should record that she bears an enormous amount of blame for what occurs over the next four years. And if Trump follows through with his promises Hillary will soon be in jail.
The Republican party is also to blame. They’ve spent the past eight years whipping up the craziest of their base and now the ultra-right has taken over. The election shows a victory for Republicans but it is not the party we know; that party was against Trump and has been completely shattered with their traditional leadership running for cover.
The next four years are going to be a very bumpy ride and everyone needs to buckle up.
