The ascendancy of Trump is a huge embarrassment for our country and a threat to all civilized people and nations working for the betterment of the species and the planet.
Thereʼs simply no way to sugar coat this shocking new reality. Our beautiful and diverse citizenry, our precious environment, our bedrock legacy and essence as a multi-cultural, tolerant society, and all the social justice, environmental protection, and landmark human rights, achieved with huge effort and suffering over the last 50 years, are hereby under assault.
There’s a great mourning in the land, great sadness, crushing fear … and anger. There’s plenty of good reasons to be angry, and perhaps it’s helpful to let some of it out. Weʼ’re angry with the tainted DNC establishment, angry with racist, sexist propaganda, angry with those who didn’ʼt vote and angry with faux patriots, who voted only with cynicism and hatred.
A day after the election, Iʼ’m herding goats on a Gill hilltop, squinting hard into a gorgeous, autumn twilight, hunting for something, ANYTHING positive, wise or hopeful, a “silver lining,” a “window of opportunity” to reconcile this dreadful election result. Something good HAS to come from this debacle, it must.
This is our MANDATE. The election is surely a mirror for all of us. Hence, we’ʼre surely now called to be better citizens, calmer listeners, stronger healers, smarter farmers, gentler men! The ugliness and cruelty we’ve seen unleashed requires us to elevate knowledge, truth, fellowship, cooperation, AND beauty, unflinchingly, relentlessly, not just into “politics,” but into our daily lives, as well. And we must also become allies to all, and a sanctuary for the vulnerable, including our own broken hearts.
Hereʼs a few positives that could come from Trumpʼs unfortunate victory:
The left will grow (up) and become more galvanized and effective.
The DNC will be forced to coalesce around the real people’s choice.
The veils of normalcy will be ripped away, bursting the bubble of comfort and privilege enjoyed by some, hence creating an opening for these are dark and dangerous times. and there are important, deeper issues to be (finally) addressed.
A national soul-searching will commence: on wealth disparity, race, gender, bullying, refugees, democracy, etc.
Communities of mutual support will be strengthened at a local level.
Weʼll ALL take more ownership for creating our nation at the grass-roots level.
The 2016 election was so close one could ascribe the Democratʼs historic defeat to any number of effects: ingrained misogyny; an obsolete “electoral college”; fear of terrorism and the false conflation of refugees with terror; pernicious minority voter suppression in Ohio and elsewhere; Anthony Weinerʼ’s unfortunate “sexting” obsession …
But, the vast majority of the American people did not vote for racism, scapegoating, sexual objectification or misogyny. Few voted for conceit, classism or bombastic unpreparedness. They voted overwhelmingly against elitism, against the establishment, against government gridlock, and against the corrupt “Clinton Dynasty,” as it was falsely portrayed to them.
Anyone paying attention knows now that the true people’ʼs choice, Sen. Bernie Sanders, would have crushed the creepy, personality-driven candidate of fear, and turned back his hateful, divisive message, because Sanders was the authentic reformer, not propelled by ambition, hubris, or the cult of personality.
I spent the entire summer and fall explaining to (and scolding) my Bernie-or-bust loving wife that despite the tainted Democratic primary result, it was time to “move on” and unite behind HRC to defeat a dangerous authoritarian with zero leadership or policy acumen. My wife took a lot of abuse for continuing to insist the Democratic primary was illegitimate and for denigrating Hillary as a “lesser evil.”
Listening to Sanders’ʼ clarity, vision and commitment now, a week post-election, one observes, painfully, what a true leader actually looks and sounds like, and our regret is multiplied one hundred fold.
And weʼre left beaten and bewildered, dreading the other shoe falling, cringing over the latest regressive, hateful appointment by the president-elect. An attorney general who denigrates Black Lives Matter and champions stop and frisk? A vice president who supports conversion therapy for gays? A generation of Supreme Court justices against reproductive rights? A White House adviser who ran the odious, white nationalist Breitbart empire?
These are dark and dangerous times.
There have been calls to give Trump a chance to lead. But the sad truth is, the entire nation gave him more of a chance than he ever deserved.
The ratings-obsessed media that originally elevated this patently unqualified “candidate” who preyed on our basest impulses, must be accountable for helping herd a gullible electorate on an odious race to the bottom. Honestly, there may not be enough Van Joneses to go around, enough “better listeners,” enough time for healing, enough “high road” or “cathartic evolving” left in us. The entire rational world agrees, America has gone stark, raving mad, and we’re all terrified of what’s next.
We will give the new president a chance to govern, yes. However, we, like our champion, Sen. Sanders, we will actively and immediately oppose his misguided agenda of scapegoating immigrants and refugees, dismantling paltry environmental protections, fracking us into the inferno, trampling people’ʼs rights and of those of our sacred Mother Earth.
We can only hope we each have the fortitude and endurance to survive this nightmare, heed the wake up call, and together take back our beautiful and beloved, multicultural, peace-loving homeland.
There’ʼs no other choice.
Daniel Botkin is a farmer, teacher and activist from Gill.