I understand people being upset about this outcome. We’re are continuing down a dark road. Descending into depths we didn’t think we’d go to. I feel the pain. I want to hug everyone.
Still, I don’t buy being shocked. This was predicted during the primaries. The lynchpin sentiment in this election — and worldwide this year — was one of anti-status quo. The people recognizing they’ve been screwed by the status quo for too long. If the Dems didn’t put up an anti-status quo candidate, they weren’t going to win, regardless of what form the right anti-status quo took. Data, polls and so many analysts said it loud and clear. So, how can anyone claim to be surprised?
Right here on this site, with it’s millions of viewers, Markos was a leading voice against Sanders and his platform to fight the status quo. Those of us who supported Sanders were vilified and beaten out of the joint. I hold Markos, with the powerful position he as built for himself here, very responsible. He owes us an apology which includes owning his responsibility and telling us what lesson he learned.
I have a 17-year old daughter. I’m talking to her today about getting an IUD as soon as possible. Hopefully, one that is long-lasting and will get her through at least 8 years, as she’s likely to lose her right to not only insurance coverage of birth control, but birth control itself.
My non-white friends have even scarier prospects to dread. My non-straight friends, too. My non-able friends. My non-Christian friends. The white supremacist fascist form of capitalism has been unleashed.
Even with the great Obamacare, I’m struggling to get my health care needs met. (Currently not getting treatment because of an insurance change, with absolutely zero communication about why or when I might get it back.) I have every reason to believe that my health situation will become far worse, now. I regained some functionality and I’m likely to lose all that progress.
Thank you establishment voters! Thank you “lesser evil” voters! Thank you to everyone who didn’t care about who was disaffected and why and trying to force feed the most establishment candidate they could find. Thank you for trying to claim we weren’t feminist if we didn’t support a hawkish woman. You did all the brow-beating you could and you still couldn’t stop the anti-status quo sentiment. So, now we get the worst version of that.
Ready to start fighting for real change, yet? I can offer forgiveness and tenderness and invite you to build some real solidarity. I can do that, if you can be real and stop trying to claim this outcome is shocking when it was entirely predictable. I can do that, if you stop blaming people who didn’t vote. Or people who voted for a third party. Or whichever voting group you’re blaming. Those voters didn’t have the power here and they were told so during the primary. You wanted to focus on who leaked emails rather than the content of those emails. You wanted to scoff at “Hillary Haters”, because they were all conspiracy theorists, rather than addressing the very real political agenda she has been pursuing for decades. You didn’t want to stop the DNC from controlling the primary and you didn’t support letting them know what a huge mistake they made by supporting a 3rd party, truly progressive candidate. Don’t blame voters for how they voted in a farce. Acknowledge the farce.
This is the capitalist outcome. The divide in this country and the world, is not about religion or sexuality or race, per se. Those are tools to prop up and mask the true divide: those who control capital and those who don’t. Public sentiment only changes the surface look of the capitalist leader. Wealth inequality has been spiraling and it’s hit a point where people are desperate. So desperate they’ll take a pathological narcissist-liar with zero governing experience, zero governance ideas and zero ability to hold a reasonable dialogue, who will foment violent hatred and nurture every phobia and fracture socially possible over the status quo. Still, he’s a capitalist, through and through. So, the establishment is okay with him. When you live with capitalism, capital is the foundational determinant for everything. Ready to realize that, yet?
I need to see that level of honesty to believe that we can actually work toward something radically different.