Many others have written personal pieces about why they need to persevere despite the election results. This is no different.
Yes I voted for HRC, even as I mocked DK with the potential doom of Trumpism up to election day.
I actually thought we would win, and consign Trump to the ash heap of infomercial television.
Yes I am annoyed that complacency because of problematic polling, makes many of us feel culpable.
And yes, it is very distressing that an entirely difficult number of years lies ahead for this nation, particularly for those who felt that “progress” had been made despite the chaos brought over the decades. Good policy is fleeting, well-written policy even more so, and implementation the most illusory.
I supported Bernie, if only because of the possibility of normalizing (democratic) socialism after the neoliberal, deregulated capitalism enabled by the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama administrations (without pie-fighting over pejoratives, it actually has been pretty consistent (see Piketty on inequality)). Trump’s may in fact be the most extreme version with perhaps the most extreme consequences possible.
And yes, I have always been a registered Democrat who has had to put up with some startling and difficult defeats for party candidates, local and national.
But no, I wasn’t a BoB, because all cults of personality, while amusing are not what democracy is about, and I’ve given money to Warren, Bernie, and HRC. I’ve tried to stay here, despite the usual issues endemic to DK, because there still may be a community in which I can thrive, even as there have been the usual paths of some Kossacks’ conflict and personal agenda, including the zombies and trolls.
It still is about things that are larger than one’s self. And the politics have come into even greater relief as we witness the failures of a liberalism that cost the Democratic party the White House and Congress.
The problem in the US is alway one of representativeness and the social construction of faith even as one has the right to be faithless, that the American experiment will survive in spite of and often because of its flaws and not because of claims of being exceptional— an equally problematic cult. Hard to say whether that’s worth it, but I know that I am still faithful to something, even as life will become difficult.
I am trying to psych myself up since age and treachery will be the hallmarks of the coming months of trying to survive (a bigger challenge than I’m willing to admit in print), so this is one of many opening narratives in the service of that task. I like to think I’ve made some friends in DK and hope to keep them through what will be a historic challenge.