Era of Trump
Many of those who I have spoken to about the US elections will know that I was not really expecting anything other than a Trump victory. Nor was I associating the accustomed apocalyptic adjectives with it.
I think the following two quotes really do ring true today.
"Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve."
- George B. Shaw
"These are the best of times and the worst of times."
- A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
By no means am I pro Trump.
He is a man who, despite being born with a golden spoon placed so firmly up his bottom, has shown incompetence at every turn in his life. In fact, I find it funny that his main credential of being a successful businessman comes with a resume of 6 bankruptcies. Nevertheless, he was able to tap into a very disgruntled segment of the electorate by channelling their disdain at the status quo into racist, sexist and xenophobic demagoguery.
But.
Let me now present a counter factual. It is the 9th November and Hillary Clinton has won. What portion of my previous sentence fills you with any degree of joy? She is an extremely intelligent and astute politician, yes. But what does she stand for?
-If you say gay marriage. Is this the same gay marriage she campaigned and voted against previously?
-If you say Black Lives Matter. Are these the same black lives that were mass incarcerated during her support for Bill Clinton's prison reform?
-If you say she'll be tough on Wall Street. Are these the same banks she has constantly provided regulatory breaks for and are the main engine for her campaign financing?
-If you say stable foreign policy. Iraq War.
(In fact let me dwell on this one for an instant. Is it not astounding that in America, in 2016, using a private email server can disqualify you from becoming the President – but voting for a war that has killed 300,000 people is "good foreign policy experience"?)
-If you say her opposition to trade deals. Who was heralding NAFTA as a seminal agreement just last decade?
- If you say she's not anti-migration. Are these the same migrants she described as being a threat to the nation's borders when it was politically expedient?
So if the above is not enough, and you think her greatest asset was that she was NOT DONALD TRUMP. That is not good enough.
In all seriousness, I feared a Hillary election more than I fear the Bumbling Buffoon Elect.
Had she been elected, in what reality do you exist, if you think the c. 49 million people who would have voted for Trump would have quietly fizzled away into oblivion? They would now be angrier and a sense of loss will have magnified the intensity of their rage.
I am glad that America's racist underbelly is now evident for everyone to see. It has gone from being a problem the world ignores, to a problem we must now confront.
So all the progressives who bemoan a Hillary loss, I am sure your energy and efforts are better exerted in fighting against the onslaught on minority rights, civil liberties and freedom that is about to occur. This is a battle that would not have been avoided had Hillary been elected, merely hidden.
But it is a battle, if won, will lead to a much better situation than the lukewarm centrism of a Hillary Presidency.
This is now a battle for the values that America has purportedly been heralding for the last two and a half centuries. Now, that is something I am passionate about. I am not passionate about electing an individual who views the Presidency as an accolade rather than a vehicle for change.
I have no doubt that Trump's presidency will be diabolical in many ways, but things often do have to get worse before they get better. Anyone who thinks politicians bring about change, especially of the Clinton variety, is seriously misguided.
Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali. They weren't fighting for your votes, they fought for a cause.
Now we have clarity on a cause, and it is not to get behind a candidate of no change.
It is to fight the evil, the hate and the misinformation that propelled this unhinged, egoistic, cowardly cretin to the White House.
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