Election's over. Now what?

AROUND THE BLOCK

Commentary

Post-Election Musings

Grieving, weeping, questioning and Groucho

I, like many of you, am trying to deal with what happened on Election Day.

On the day after the election, Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of the Nation wrote to her readers:

“Today we grieve. Some of us even weep. We know the weeks, months and years ahead will not be easy, but we will get through them together and we will come out stronger together, as we always have.”

A good friend forwarded an inspirational email from a neighbor, outlining three goals for this post-election period (excerpts below):

·     "We must hold all levels of government accountable to ensure that whatever the race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or religion of our brothers and sisters that they consistently are treated in ways guided by fairness and justice (and love, we can hope), as our democracy declares.

·     "To organize and work within our state and local governments that also define our democracy to, first, ensure the safety and security of our brothers and sisters, and second, to give expression to the full panoply of values suggested above.

·     "To organize to elect Representatives, Senators, and a President in upcoming elections that embody and will support the values to which we are committed, and on which our democracy is founded."

That same day, I wrote to my daughter in New York who was trying to cope with the results:

“Make no mistake the grieving will go on for a while. It will be more than “12 steps” because this guy and his sycophants will be around for four years.

“You’re not alone. Tuesday night I awoke almost every hour; I was simply uncomfortable — not physically but emotionally. 

“Last night was better but then I awoke to a headline where Paul Ryan called Trump’s victory “a mandate.” How he has the nerve to say a guy who lost the popular vote has a mandate is beyond me. But, then again, everything people like him have been saying for the last 18 months is beyond me.

“The protests last night were both heartening and depressing. But, like it or not, Trump won by the rules and he’s not going away.”

I closed by joking with her that if she wanted to take advantage of the #Calexit movement advocating California secession, she’d have to move back from her beloved New York City.

Late Tuesday night I posted a tongue-in-cheek “News with a Twist” announcing a Hillary landslide. A friend pushed back – “It’s not funny.”

I responded, “People grieve in different ways. I was not smiling when I wrote this piece; I was angry and chose to express that anger with absurdism. I apologize if it offended you.“

Last month, after the last debate,  I posted on Facebook, “Not that I needed to be convinced, but after watching last night's debate my takeaway can be summed up in this paraphrase of one of the late, great Groucho Marx's most famous quotes: “I don’t want to belong to any country that elects Donald Trump as president.

Yet here we are.

Perhaps Groucho was right.

Do I want to belong to a country where, in one of the most consequential elections of our times, 46% of the electorate did not vote?

Where Latinos, a group vilified, insulted and threatened by Donald Trump, actually gave him a bigger percentage of their vote than they gave Mitt Romney in 2012?

Where fewer African-American voters, who will be the greatest victims of the continuation of the rolling back of voting rights, a rolling back that will go unencumbered under a President Trump, turned out in far fewer numbers this year because Hillary Clinton wasn’t Black? Didn’t they realize that every policy achievement of President Obama, every one, will be dismantled as a result of this election and their apathy?

Where “working-class white men” supported Trump because he promised them that their factory jobs will mystically come back in droves and won’t listen to the reality that it’s not factory jobs that will save them, but jobs created by badly needed infrastructure projects and retraining allowing them to better succeed in a 21^st century economy?

Where a smaller percentage of women voted for Hillary Clinton, who was running to be the first woman president of the United States, than voted for Barak Obama in either 2008 or 2012? And who, by virtue of that smaller vote, helped elect a man and a Congress that will shape a Supreme Court that will dismantle the rights that women have over the control of their bodies?

Where almost half the voters apparently believe that climate change really is a “Chinese hoax” and that we can continue to expand our burning of coal and other fossil fuels without worry? And drop out of the recently signed Paris Agreement on climate change as well?

Where voters seemed to show no concern that the potential policies of a Trump administration regarding national security and global trade will put this country at risk?

Where misogyny and racism carry more weight than facts and rational thought?
  
So, was Groucho right? Do I want to belong to a country like this?

At the end of the day, despite all the flaws, I guess I do; there's really no greater place than America.

And because despite the trauma I, and many others, feel today (and tomorrow and for a while), life will go on. 

And because I guess I truly believe, as Katrina vanden Heuvel does, that we will weather this storm and maybe come out the other side stronger and smarter. 

And because, who knows? Maybe he’ll surprise us.