This is actually my first blog entry. I have been around this site for a few years, finally registered one day, but never actually wrote anything more than the occasional comment. Tonight’s loss is absolutely devastating. In 2008, I was big on Hillary as she was my senator, and I felt she did quite a good job. On some things I disagreed with her, but overall, she was a very accomplished public servant. But once he got the nomination, I backed and voted for Obama twice. I have also watched Bernie for quite a few years, donating to his campaigns when he was in the House, and then on to the Senate.
This time around, I backed Bernie over Hillary. Although I thought she did a great job restoring respect for the USA, and was a vocal and effective advocate for improvement in the lives of women and girls around the world, I had some things that troubled me about her. It’s not really important to delve into those here; I am not here to re-litigate her strengths and flaws, only to write what I feel. Suffice to say, when she became the nominee, I was for her fully. But on this site, I felt like an outcast. I saw Hillary supporters basically say “who needs Bernie supporters?” Well that dismissive hubris may have precipitated tonight's demise. Yes, Bernie went full in for her. Yes, Elizabeth Warren was full in for her. But who needed those alienated Bernie voters? She did. We did. If you subtract a significant number of them from Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, and give them to Hillary, we would be much happier tonight. I can understand her selection of Tim Kaine from a personal and electoral perspective—trying to win Virginia. But aside from Bernie going all in supporting her, which some of his supporters saw as a surrender, she didn’t really do much to effectively reach out to those people, in any effective manner. What might have worked? Offering Sanders the veep spot. Or better yet, Elizabeth Warren. I wouldn’t want to lose either of them in the Senate, but if either one of them held the second spot on the ticket, it would have given her much needed credibility with the disaffected Democrats, as Trump did with the disaffected Republicans.
Something deeper has rattled me though. As a person who was born Jewish, and grew up seeing pictures of many relatives, and being told at a young age that they “died in the camps,” I was always curious and sensitive as to how a cultured and advanced people such as the Germans could fall so easily to Nazi promises. I came to a conclusion a long time ago that such brutality could happen anywhere, at any time, when people are insecure about their futures, feel disaffected about their conditions, and need someone to blame. In Germany, and truthfully in a lot of other countries at that time, it was the Jews Lies were told by a sociopath and his clique, and through clever manipulation and propaganda, they were believed to be truths. We saw it in our own country, in our own time. Fox News is the propaganda arm of the Republican Party, but many of Trump’s followers are not necessarily Fox News viewers. Many are conspiracy theorists. Many are in the alt-right. We have reached the point in the electorate where facts don’t matter. And that is the basic problem. In Germany, many times the lies were repeated, and they became facts, not open to dispute or refutation. We saw the same thing about Hillary Clinton. Never mind her real flaws, which everyone has, or her bad decisions, which everyone save Trump makes. Those would be valid points to judge her on. But the narrative about her was so totally distorted that, fairly or not, she was a weakened candidate.
So tonight I am trying to wrap my mind around how so many people I know in one way or another, could vote against their self interest. How could a married lesbian vote for someone who will appoint Supreme Court justices that might very well remove her right to be married to the person she loves, or at least will allow other states to not recognize her marriage? How can a married teacher support someone who is anti-union and will support charter schools that will affect her career? How can a woman, any woman, support the appointment of justices that may curtail her right to not carry her rapist’s baby? Or that their daughters might be forced to carry a pregnancy to term that might kill them? Military members who will almost surely be deployed not in the interest of the country, but one man’s ego?
Because, in the end, facts don’t matter. It is all a form of magical thinking, which is something we should grow out of. These people see that things can happen, and believe with all of their might that they will happen, without thought to what steps could bring it about or what the implications are.
I’m a more concrete person. I have one adult son who is low functioning autistic. One day I will not be able to keep him at home, and he will have to enter some sort of assisted living. The struggle for funding for these places is always on my mind, but now with a president that openly mocks the disabled, I feel true fear. Another son has a pre-existing condition. No problem with Obamacare. These people will now try again to repeal it, and may just succeed. They will not have a viable alternative. How do I make sure my son can get the insurance he needs, and that we all deserve?
Time to try to sleep, perchance to dream...
