Leah and I went to bed Tuesday night slightly depressed and worried. When we woke up, I checked the CNN Web site to find the election results. We were not surprised, only disappointed to learn that the serial sex assaulter had been elected.
People have been talking about coming together. One talking head said that politicians generally rise to the challenges of office. The news media have been analyzing what parts of the pathological liar’s stated aims are realistic. I suppose that some think that he can’t single-handedly wreak the horrors that he has talked about.
They are wrong. The Republican god Ronald Reagan single-handedly set the US alternative energy program back decades. He dismantled Jimmy Carter’s plans almost immediately after taking office. Now we are in danger of being reliant on Chinese solar energy equipment. He single-handedly convinced Middle Eastern extremists that the US would run away if we lost some men by tucking tail and bringing the Marines home from Lebanon when a terrorist blew up the Marine barracks.
George Bush single-handedly took the US into a long, illegal, unwinnable war in Iraq, wasting thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and, according to some estimates, about $2 trillion in actual and future costs.
Both of these men did almost inestimable damage to the US and its interests, and yet I did not fear or hate them. But I fear and hate the racist who will inhabit the White House. If he can deliver on his wild promises, he poses an existential threat to the United States as we know it.
What if Putin decides that the ignoramus’s statements on our flexible commitment to NATO is a green light to invade NATO members near Russia’s borders? Would the rest of NATO live up to their words and help? Who would use nuclear weapons first?
What if Japan or South Korea decide they can no longer rely on the US for protection against Chinese aggression and start to build a nuclear arsenal as he suggested? Will China allow that, or will they act before they can build their nukes? What if North Korea decides that they will not allow South Korea to build nukes and so use theirs on South Korea first? What will the US do? Nothing?
What if the three-time business failure starts a trade war with China? How far will the US stock market fall, and how much will it cost Americans?
What if he deports all the undocumented workers in the US? Depending on whose numbers you accept, between 50 and 70 percent of US agriculture workers are undocumented. How much will produce prices rise when half or more of the workers are shipped out of the US? Who will replace the undocumented workers in the construction trades? According to some estimates, Hispanic workers comprise up to 90 percent of the house construction trades, usually in framing, drywall and other less skilled areas. Some builders admit that “most” of them are undocumented. Who will replace them when they are deported, and how much more will it cost to build a house?
If the non-taxpaying freeloader names Supreme Court justices, it may result in the loss of hard-earned rights that a lot of people struggled for years to attain.
I saw Paul Ryan say that the misogynist’s election was a mandate. If Republicans believe that, they may give the xenophobe his way.
Probably none of this will affect us personally, unless we die from a nuclear strike on Atlanta or the economy crashes so bad that our Social Security and savings are destroyed. And yet the country this abomination may bring about is not one that I care to live in.
* They first make mad.
I try to avoid politics in this blog, but I make this exception under duress.
This election blew my mind, made me see my country is a way that I never wanted to. We are seriously divided, and from my perspective the crazies have won. I worry about our planet. How much damage can be done in the first four years? I guess we’ll have to watch it unfold horribly before our eyes.
Robin — I keep trying to be optimistic that this pitiful excuse for a human being can’t cause the cataclysmic damage he has talked about. He is, after all, a habitual liar. But I’m really afraid that he will manage to cause serious damage to us at home, and, at least potentially, to the rest of the world. I wonder how people will look back on this in a hundred years. Or maybe even 20. I hate waiting to find out, but at the same time I don’t really want to see it.
I don’t want to live in a country the government of which is controlled by those who have no regard for anyone that doesn’t fit into their narrow definition of acceptable, that don’t give a whit for the planet except for what they can plunder from it, that look out only for themselves in the very short term. I worry that I won’t even exist when the next presidential election comes around and that what I and others of like mind can do to preserve the gains our society has made over the last few years is not enough. Four days after waking up to affirmation that the fears I had taken to bed were our brave new world, I’m still poleaxed. But I won’t give up. To the barricades!
Minnie — Every time I think maybe it won’t be as bad as I fear, something happens to make me think it will probably be even worse. When I think “President Trump” my mind wants to reboot; it’s just too hard to reconcile this with what I thought the world was like.
Latvians are desperately hoping that Putin is a good friend of Trump’s, because that make his attacking them less likely. That infamous Russian-language billboard with Trump and Putin on it, captioned “Let’s make the world great again together” is in Montenegro, which just signed the Accession paperwork to join NATO. Yeah, they’re not worried.
Personally, I’m pleased that more than half of the people who bothered to vote voted against him, but I’m dismayed that it was as close as it was and horrified that he won.
Karen — Yeah, I get some comfort from the fact that Hillary won about 2 million more of the popular vote. I simply cannot believe that anyone would seriously want Trump to be President. I suppose that’s a failure of my own imagination.