blog.izs.me

Hillary Clinton was judged to be too much of an insider. She didn’t have a story for the disaffected working class voter who sees a mechanized future where they have no place. A voter who wants something, anything, as long as it’s different. They’ll find out soon enough that this isn’t what they got.

The obvious solution: radicalism. An obstinate hard left anti-capitalist socialist workers’ movement, focused on: systematically destroying and tearing down the institutions of corruption, including the electoral college and the military industrial complex; nationalizing banking, health care, and higher education; criminalizing the bribery of representatives by corporate interests; providing civilian oversight for police; restoring protection for voting rights and establishing universal suffrage as a constitutionally protected right; ending slavery by abolishing private prisons and mandatory minimum sentencing; ending wage slavery by establishing universal basic income for all Americans; streamlining the process of naturalization and providing amnesty for so-called “illegals” who wish to become naturalized.

Such a movement would have the right amount of social justice, scapegoating, catchy slogans, and could unite oppressed minorities and disaffected heartland whites. We can reclaim what it means to be a" red state".

It is time, comrades! ☭

To the hot-take authors, politicians, and liberals asking us to build bridges.

Here’s an incomplete list of people more deserving of our empathy right now than white heartland voters, in no particular order:

• Muslim Americans who watched in horror as the GOP candidate successfully campaigned on a platform of targeting them with state violence.
• The people of Puerto Rico, who live under US federal rule without representation or voice in the electoral process.
• Everyone who is unable to vote for the rest of their lives due to a conviction for a nonviolent offense.
• Native peoples facing further destruction of their homes in the name of oil.
• The peaceful protestors in North Dakota holding their ground against rubber bullets, riot gear, and attack dogs.
• The millions of people whose drinking water will be in jeopardy of contamination due to the oil pipeline those protestors are protesting.
• Black people. Just, all of them, everywhere. But especially black women, who showed up for Hillary more than any other group.
• All non-white people, who now face hate that has been emboldened by Trump’s win.
• Everyone whose vote was restricted by voter ID laws and other policies that violate the Voting Rights Act.
• The 20 million people depending on the ACA for access to medical care.
• The millions of disabled people whose legal and medical lifelines Trump has promised to remove.
• Same-sex couples, whose families and marriages will face concerted attack from the federal government in the near future.
• Transgender people, who only just recently started seeing progress towards equitable treatment and protection by the federal government, and can expect that to roll back.
• Basically the entire LGBTQ community, no longer safe from discrimination in their jobs, homes, hospitals, or anywhere else.
• The millions of women relying on Planned Parenthood for reliable and safe access to reproductive healthcare.
• The civilians living in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and everywhere else where the US maintains a state of constant dangerous wartime readiness.
• International allies and trade partners of the US.
• Teachers doing their best to curb bullying of children, with inadequate resources.
• Everyone who has immigrated to this country, who will be 1 misplaced document away from sudden deportation or worse.
• Victims of rape and sexual assault, watching as a predator ascends to the highest office in the land.
• The next few generations of earthlings, who may be the last, as we quickly make the planet too hot to inhabit.

When you’ve summoned empathy and built bridges with all of the people on this list, let’s start talking about the Trump voters who attacked all these groups this week.

This was never about “economic uncertainty”. Lots of rich white people voted for this monster. This was never about “the elites” vs “the downtrodden”. Donald is a parody of an evil crooked billionaire, and already starting to name cronies from the financial elite to put in positions of power.

This is about kicking the newcomers out of the franchise. It’s about returning to a supposed golden age when men were men, and whites were on top, and spoke english, and had jobs, and never had to confront their homophobia or transphobia. It’s about blaming The Other for our problems.

Watch as the media spins a tale about the poor disenfranchised Trump voters, about how the media just didn’t listen enough, about how black folks didn’t show up in great enough numbers to the polls. But the facts don’t line up with that story. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote despite losing the white majority. People of color did show up. There just weren’t enough of them. A democracy is always vulnerable to a tyrannical majority.

And here’s why I’m so terrified: the checks and balances that prevent the President from becoming a tyrant only work if the congress, the state governors, and the supreme court are willing to stand up to executive abuses. The GOP now has a majority in both houses of congress, a majority of governorships, and the presidency. There’s an open seat on the SCOTUS, and 2 more likely to open in the next 4 years.

Throughout this election, the GOP leadership has shown unthinkable cowardice and weakness in calling him out for his excesses. Do you really think they’ll change now? His plans are going to harm women, minorities, trans and queer people, foreign civilians, our positions in treaty and trade agreements with other countries, and our economy. Among his first campaign pledges have been promises to jail his political opponents, repeal healthcare for millions of americans, and do away with what little federal protections that LGBTQ people had. People will die, and you can be damn sure it won’t be “the elites” who suffer.

And there is no longer anyone to stop him.

WE did this, White People. It was OUR families, OUR culture, OUR people. I am ashamed, and guilty, and enraged.

Donald Trump is our chicken come home to roost.