Post Election Part I
Although I should write a long treatise on the election results, I will probably take a shotgun approach. Ambivalence reigns.
First, let me be clear (as someone likes to say), I did not vote for Trump or Clinton or Johnson or Stein. I wrote in a candidate, which is meaningless but my conscience is clear. Some would say I am a wuss and noncommital; I was committed to not falling prey to binaries or voting for people I believed were bad for the country. (Nor was I voting for a geographically challenged weedsmoker whose running mate should have been the Libertarian candidate.)
Second, some of the reaction has been so over the top I am embarrassed. By both sides. Trump is not "GOD'S MAN." Please. That level of naivete and faith in a human being is downright scary coming from an alleged Christian. Shame on you. And he isn't going to hurt gay people (what does he care who they sleep with, considering his own background?). Now, immigrants, I can understand some of their concerns and sort of share them (I don't pretend to have more knowledge and empathy of their lives than I do.) Legal citizens of color, well, yes, some of his supporters are rednecks, but those people would have written ugly graffiti if Clinton had won. Neither candidate is going to keep that from happening, any more than he/she is going to affect the oceans rising (although Democrats like to think they can.) Perhaps some of the racist yahoos were emboldened by his election. These are some of the reasons I didn't vote for him, despite usually voting Republican (usually, not always).
The saddest thing is the number of supposed Christians who said character didn't matter in a leader.
To women I say, be realistic. Come on. He's not going to hurt you or make your life miserable. If you are sitting on a plane (in first class) and the old fart next to you touches you inappropriately, why in the world don't you scream bloody murder and kick him where it hurts, rather than waiting 30 years to report it. I think that is why those reports didn't go anywhere, whether true or not (and probably were). On the other hand, he employs lots of women and gives them opportunities. I think he knows talent when he sees it; Kellyanne Conway is the proof. Say what you will, he knows how to run a business; he is crazy like a fox. He is still despicable, he's a conman, but he's not incompetent.
Illogical abounded in this election. How many times I was told to vote for Hillary because we need a woman president. What? Non sequitur alert. How many times were we faced with false dichotomies and slippery slopes? For the logical, the only argument was the Supreme Court. As one writer on Breakpoint said, we can breathe a sigh of relief on that, but we should not think the country is going to go back to some idyllic time. I don't know when that was, and I am getting up there in age. Weed got more legalized everywhere and physican assisted suicide got passed in Colorado.
I ask the church, the real church, to search its soul and repent. I pray that we do not get a backlash and blame for electing him when things go south (as they always do in someone's eyes). I stand as the loyal opposition and still blame the Republican party for letting this happen, but at the same time I rejoice that Billary is going away and we don't have to deal with them any more.
First, let me be clear (as someone likes to say), I did not vote for Trump or Clinton or Johnson or Stein. I wrote in a candidate, which is meaningless but my conscience is clear. Some would say I am a wuss and noncommital; I was committed to not falling prey to binaries or voting for people I believed were bad for the country. (Nor was I voting for a geographically challenged weedsmoker whose running mate should have been the Libertarian candidate.)
Second, some of the reaction has been so over the top I am embarrassed. By both sides. Trump is not "GOD'S MAN." Please. That level of naivete and faith in a human being is downright scary coming from an alleged Christian. Shame on you. And he isn't going to hurt gay people (what does he care who they sleep with, considering his own background?). Now, immigrants, I can understand some of their concerns and sort of share them (I don't pretend to have more knowledge and empathy of their lives than I do.) Legal citizens of color, well, yes, some of his supporters are rednecks, but those people would have written ugly graffiti if Clinton had won. Neither candidate is going to keep that from happening, any more than he/she is going to affect the oceans rising (although Democrats like to think they can.) Perhaps some of the racist yahoos were emboldened by his election. These are some of the reasons I didn't vote for him, despite usually voting Republican (usually, not always).
The saddest thing is the number of supposed Christians who said character didn't matter in a leader.
To women I say, be realistic. Come on. He's not going to hurt you or make your life miserable. If you are sitting on a plane (in first class) and the old fart next to you touches you inappropriately, why in the world don't you scream bloody murder and kick him where it hurts, rather than waiting 30 years to report it. I think that is why those reports didn't go anywhere, whether true or not (and probably were). On the other hand, he employs lots of women and gives them opportunities. I think he knows talent when he sees it; Kellyanne Conway is the proof. Say what you will, he knows how to run a business; he is crazy like a fox. He is still despicable, he's a conman, but he's not incompetent.
Illogical abounded in this election. How many times I was told to vote for Hillary because we need a woman president. What? Non sequitur alert. How many times were we faced with false dichotomies and slippery slopes? For the logical, the only argument was the Supreme Court. As one writer on Breakpoint said, we can breathe a sigh of relief on that, but we should not think the country is going to go back to some idyllic time. I don't know when that was, and I am getting up there in age. Weed got more legalized everywhere and physican assisted suicide got passed in Colorado.
I ask the church, the real church, to search its soul and repent. I pray that we do not get a backlash and blame for electing him when things go south (as they always do in someone's eyes). I stand as the loyal opposition and still blame the Republican party for letting this happen, but at the same time I rejoice that Billary is going away and we don't have to deal with them any more.
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