Laying awake in bed last night I realized that Trump getting re-elected wasn't the unthinkable coming true but it was actually the inevitable being realized. Ever since he rode down his golden escalator our country has been determined to realign itself as us versus them.
I have lived through many difficult times in this country's history where groups fought to change the way the country was headed. They were sometimes bloody battles yet the one thing that we never worried about was that both sides loved what the country represented to the rest of the world. We may disagree on an issue or lifestyle but we all believed that America was a beacon of integrity and democracy for all to see.
Not anymore.
This dictator wannabe has brought out the absolute worst in us all and for the first time I am ashamed to say I am an American. He has turned us against each other because that is what dictators do to gain power, and we have let him do it. He couldn't do it without help and there were plenty of people willing to help him, starting with the media.
The way the press handled Trump was different than how they handled any past politician in our history. Anytime he said something so outrageous that it would have cost any other politician their election he was given a pass. "Oh, that's just Trump being Trump." How many times have we heard that phrase when he insults someone or denigrates a group of people, and we shrug our shoulders and say "oh well". Social media then picks up on his insults and spreads it like wildfire as something to be proud of, turning him into a hero to a sect of the country. This is not normal or acceptable yet we, and the press, stood by and did nothing to stop him.
For as long as he has been in politics Trump has had a different set of rules to play under then the rest of the country. As someone said last night, imagine if one football team was penalized five yards for being offsides and the other team wasn't penalized at all for the same thing. That is what we've allowed Trump to play under. He says the country and the people here are garbage and gets a pass while Biden says a comedians joke is garbage and he is vilified.
We either have rules and standards for our politicians or we don't, but we can't have two different sets of them. Allowing one side to play by different rules is not how we do things in this country, or at least not how we used to do them. The Republicans are playing the game as if rules don't exist while the Democrats are playing the game like it is still 1955.
The fastest growing segment of voters in this country is the Latino voter and unfortunately the Democratic party has no idea how to reach out to them nor do they understand them. These voters keep proving to us that they are motivated by different issues then the rest of the electorate. Additionally they have this machismo streak that will not allow them to vote for a woman for office at any level. Many of them refuse to even vote at all fearing it will lead to them being arrested or detained by the authorities, and those are the legal ones.
Their wives, sisters, or girlfriends are encouraged to stay home too. Most do because the culture doesn't allow for them to go against the wishes of their man. Yet the Democrats are out there reminding the women they can vote for who they want because it is private while they know that if they vote their guy will find out and there will be hell to pay at home.
Trump figured out that the way to win them over was to show them how nasty, mean, and degrading he could be to others as a sign that he was just as macho as they were and that he gets them. Guess what? They bought it 100% and his numbers in this segment of our population continues to grow all while he has told them he will be rounding them up and deporting them back to where they came from.
The Democratic party needs to figure out how to reach this group or they will never win another election.
This is not an excuse but a fact that voter suppression by the Republicans at the state level has been the greatest tool they have to keep them relevant. They have gerrymandered states to the point that Democrats can't pick up seats even when they win 70% of the votes. It has allowed the GOP to force people of color, young people, and others to jump through hoops in order to vote which has made many of them just stay home because they feel it isn't worth it.
And they keep coming up with more ways to suppress segments of the population they know are traditionally Democratic voters. This is their playbook and the courts that they have packed are helping them. Which brings me to the single biggest thing the Democrats have screwed up on. They have forgotten that all elections are local.
Meanwhile the Republicans have spent decades reorganizing their states, counties, and cities so that they control all levels of the local government which has allowed them to then take control of Congress giving them the ability to select judges that will continue to allow them to subvert the rules. The Democrats have been focused on winning the House, Senate, and White House and have let the states fend for themselves. The GOP has said thank you very much and now they are in control.
The Democrats need to tear it up and start all over by focusing on the local elections and get back control of the country from the bottom up.
At some point we have to realize as a country that the electoral college does not work in today's world. We are the only country on earth that has this system to pick our top leader. We don't even use it for any other election here but the Presidency. It is archaic and outdated and we need to repeal it and go to a majority vote system like we do for every other office we vote for.
Many people will point out that this time Trump won the popular vote but how many people around the country didn't bother to vote because they knew in their state it didn't matter who they voted for because the majority party in their state was going to win it anyway. I know people in Illinois, California, and other big blue states didn't vote because it wouldn't have changed who won. Same thing I'm sure in places like South Carolina, Indiana, and Kansas as an example. How many more voters would vote if the President was elected by the popular vote?
Today is a dark day for our country and at some point the cult of Trump worshipers will wake up and see that they have wrought destruction onto our country by supporting this poor excuse for a human being. For a time I was sad that family and friends were no longer speaking to me because I had told them here and in person that they were stupid for supporting Trump and the GOP.
Today I say to them sorry but we no longer have a reason to communicate with each other. I have no interest in being around someone who has such low regard for others that they would vote for this racist, fascist, misogynist, and felon to lead our country. If you ever wake up and realize that you are as stupid as I've been telling you then give me a call. Until then we are done.
For the rest of the country, we need to go back to the basics and start by taking back our city, our county, and our state. We cannot accept what has just happened as being the way it is. We need to be direct with the other side and tell them we will not allow them to turn our country into the far right hell hole they dream of and it starts this morning.
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