Faith in Our Country

I think it's safe to say that a lot of the country is confused right now.

As Tuesday approached, the prediction polls for the election had upped Trump's chances, but were still calling it for Clinton 3-to-1. When I told my wife that I was worried it could flip, she responded, "I have more faith in our country than that." So did I. Faith that Americans could look past their distaste for both candidates and recognize that there was an overwhelming moral decision to choose the one who was not only more experienced, but who had a basic sense of compassion for other people.

I don't think I properly prepared myself for the alternative. Is this the punch line to his joke of a campaign? If you are a Trump supporter, you may want to stop reading now. As an independent, I recognize the importance of maintaining stable tax rates of the Republicans, the important of lessening government grip of the Libertarians, the importance of civil rights for all people of the Democrats, and the importance of curbing climate change of the Greens. I also embrace all races and religions, love meeting people from other countries, and believe that everyone should have rights regardless of gender or sexual preference. Does that make me a crazy liberal? I must be insane to be so accepting, since it's so much easier to have an "us vs. them" mentality. You know, there's a lot that I can accept, but one thing that I won't accept is hate rhetoric that discriminates and pushes us further apart. Sorry not sorry.

The news that Clinton lost made me angry. Depressed. Disgusted. I couldn't sleep on Tuesday night and kept wondering how someone who is so obviously looking out for #1 could be in charge of the United States. Rather than the support of any living past president (Democrat or Republican), any major newspaper, or any scientific analysis following the three televised debates, Trump relied on the support from an increasingly frightening Alt-Right movement that includes white supremacists and Russia. Just how many decades or centuries did our country have to fall in order to become "great" again? I'd feel embarrassed to tell another citizen of planet Earth that I'm an American after the Donald takes office, especially if they are an ally that Trump has declared should pay for our help. Then again, with Greece, Brexit, the Philippines president, and others, 2016 seems to have peaked in humanity's progress and is now pedaling backwards.

Perhaps we can find some solace (or at least, less misplaced anger) in a mathematical analysis of the election. Wow, never thought I'd say that. As of today with 99% of votes reporting, Clinton has almost assuredly won the popular vote with 60,839,922 votes vs. Trump's 60,265,858 votes, with the remaining 6,226,950 votes going to Johnson, Stein, and other candidates. That means that most of the total 127,332,730 voters chose Clinton over Trump to lead our country, though she still fell short of the electoral college points. When you look at the total voting-eligible population (accounting for non-citizens and convicted felons), we can see that only about 54.99% of voters actually went out to the polls. With that perspective, though 26.03% voted for Trump, 26.27% supported Clinton and 28.96% of the population voted against the man who loves grabbing women by the... well, you know.

I'm not naive enough to think that the remaining 45.01% of eligible voters would have all voted against Trump, but I do think that many or most who didn't vote - due to political apathy, a misunderstanding of vote significance, or a lack of ID and other voter suppression - would likely have voted Democrat in this election. I still have some faith in the 73.97% Americans who did not vote for Trump. So where does that leave us with those people who did vote for him? Some individuals are standing out against characterizing all Trump voters as racist. Well I'm not going to sugar coat this for any of you who voted for him and don't feel comfortable labeling yourselves as racists: if a Trump vote does not come from a place of racism, then it almost certainly comes from sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, religious intolerance, or ignorance and tolerance of any of the above. Ya'll would be welcome with open arms into Wyoming, where Trump got 70% of the vote.

I stand against that hate rhetoric and discrimination. I think the anti-Trump marches are a good start in showing that he will need to be a president for all Americans, but this is just practice for channeling that anger to charge against injustice that many expect in this administration. It can be difficult to separate the fears of Trump from the fears of a Republican-dominated white house, senate, and house. There may be areas where the two agendas overlap, and there may be areas where the Alt-Right agenda overlaps, but we are dealing with a Trumplican whose stance on issues breaks down to his plans being "the greatest you've ever seen" vs. his opponents plans being "a disaster." In short, I could handle this result a lot better if he were simply a Republican, but what's horrifying is that we don't know what he is, apart from being a selfish, immoral SOB.

One thing is for sure: if Trump and the Republicans decide to roll back marriage equality, women's rights to choose, or go back to segregation, you're god damn right I'll be protesting in Washington. In the meantime, I'm taking a break from the news, FB, Twitter, and Reddit, and have no intention of ever using the words "Trump" and "president" in the same sentence until he can prove to the multi-cultural children across this already great nation that they have a role model they can look up to.