Some post-election thoughts:
- Boy, did the Democrats blow it. Right now, I would love to have a sit-down with Jaime Harrison (DNC chair), Gretchen Whitmer (DNC vice-chair), and for good measure, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
• I am furious with every liberal expressing shock at Trump's re-election. I know many, and they are the ones I can hardly bring myself to speak to right now, not the Trumpets.
• I'm far less anxious than I was in 2016 or 2020. We saw this election coming. I went into it clear-eyed. Trump is a known entity. I'm nervous for the future, but I can't say I'm unprepared.
• For every aghast liberal scold exclaiming, "how could you vote for a rapist?!," shut the fuck up. Democrats didn't have a primary, Democrats kept telling us Biden was fit for office when it was obvious he was not, and Democrats had zero plan to deal with immigation or the economy. (Instead, they decided gaslighting the public on those issues was the right tack.) Trump didn't win, Democrats lost.
• Telling voters they shouldn't trust their feelings is a losing tactic. Duh. Told you so.
• Maybe if liberals want to win, they should spend more time around conservatives. Move out of your cities and into a small town — I dare you.
• Democrats are obnoxious. The open condescension with which they speak about rural people, white people, heterosexuals, men, and Christians is astounding. I say this as someone who used to do that very thing. (But you can't move to rural America and maintain that condescension and hope to make any friends.) That condescension is hateful — knock it the fuck off.
• To my shocked liberal friends: what work did you do between 2020 and 2024 to change the outcome of the election? And don't say "vote," because that is the bare minimum required of an American citizen. Seriously. Being a citizen is work — tell me, what work did you do? Do you live somewhere surrounded by people that think like you? How many Trumpets do you talk with on a regular basis? How many do you count as friends?
• Any person claiming Harris lost the presidency because she's a woman or black is in denial. Full stop.
• I'm upset, yeah, but more than anything I'm sad. I'm trying — expending real mental effort — not to be angry. Not at the results of this election, but at this cycle, this endless stream of bullshit, these false choices. Let's be real: a vote for Kamala or a vote for Trump is pretty much the same. Sure, Kamala gave lip service to an inheritance tax — a tax that would've affected me personally — but do you think it was ever gonna pass? Do you really think the Democrats are any less in-the-pocket of big corporations than the Republicans? C'mon. They're two sides of the same coin, and capitalism as we know it is rigged against you. I'm sorry you don't want to admit it Democrats, but it's true.
• And yet a vote for Trump is a Faustian bargain, no matter what you think of him. We are all now at the mercy of his ego.
• We Americans got the president we deserve. The over-educated wealthy that live (though not exclusively) on the coasts and in the cities parade their liberal platitudes — "science is real," "black lives matter," "we believe women," etc. — and do they give away any of their money? Of course not. That should say everything. Real liberal values would compel them to help the poor, not condescend to them. History tells us that it's really this simple: societies crumble when wealth accumulates at the top. Class unrest consumes the population, as it will and should, and everything we cherish — democracy, civility, safety, all our creature comforts… it all goes out the window. This election is a verdict that damns the elite, the wealthy, those at the top. They — we — should've known better. That's what all that education was for… Instead, we treated education as a way to climb the corporate ladder, to make ever-more money, to make ourselves richer and fatter and safer… the next iPhone, a new car, another home. We lost sight of the social contract: an education is meant to better ourselves in service of helping others, not to buy more shit and surround ourselves with people that think exactly as we do. We failed. Trump is our retribution.