America, We Had a Good Run...

[The_Voice_of_Reason]

Below is an excerpt from a blog article written last night which explores the sense of hopelessness that many of us are feeling as we stare down the barrel of the Electoral College Vote on Monday which will more than likely see Donald J. Trump officially become our next President of the United States. You can read my full article here.

EXCERPT

Like many Americans, I was vested in this past Presidential Election, was looking forward to the progress we would make with a Democratic Senate, Hillary Clinton in the White House, and for the first time in 42 years, a Supreme Court where liberal progressive thinkers were in the majority on the bench. On November 8th I woke up early, had my morning coffee then walked up the street and around the corner to our local library to cast my vote...Straight Blue Ticket from top to bottom, and then went for a walk on a beautiful sunny day with my camera, my step light, not a care on the horizon as I strolled along the Hudson River.

When dusk arrived, evening darkness settling in ordered in food and got myself settled on the sofa ready to watch the returns coming in, a bottle of Champagne in the refrigerator ready to be uncorked when the News made it official that for the first time ever Americans could say, "Congratulations Madam President". The bottle of champagne still takes up space in my frig, the cork never popped, the celebration replaced by a deep sadness as the reality that Donald J. Trump had won the Electoral College votes necessary to be our next President tried to sink in.

Some six weeks later, the reality is far worse than any of us thought it could ever be, the man now President Elect far worse than the monster we had seen out on the Campaign Trail. Some have moved on, accepted what will be, returned to their daily lives, struggling to pay their bills realizing that for them not much has changed, or will change with the changing of the guard in Washington, DC. Myself...I am having a hard time accepting the unacceptable, frustrated that our Government is far more concerned with a "Peaceful Transition of Power" than addressing what was not, is not a "Free and Fair" election, as even those in our own party seem to be complicit in the betrayal of us. Where is the backbone of our party, their will to fight and take a stand?

[Binkie The Clown]

1. All that is necessary for evil to triumph....

is for good Democrats to do nothing.

[man on the moonshine]

18. is for an FBI Director to fire-bomb one of the campaigns

I wish I believed in Dante's Hell, where traitors receive the harshest punishment.

[Aristus]

2. The same with my bottle of celebratory champagne.

It remains in the fridge, cork un-popped.

I applaud the people who want to stay and fight. Fight for what, though? A country that elevated Donald Trump to the Presidency? The fact that three million more people wanted Hillary to be President is cold comfort.

I can stay in my blue state of Washington and hope for an eventual dissolution of the Disunited States of America, and the anticipated advent of the Liberal Republic of Cascadia.

Or I can emigrate to Canada. Unlike a lot of less fortunate Americans, I have the means available to make emigration north of the border feasible. Canada is what America should have been.

Horror, shame, and embarrassment are all that I can look forward to if I remain here. I plan to attend anti-Trump rallies, and participate with gusto. And when the rallies are over, and Trump remains, spreading his feculence over everything good Americans once cherished, what then?

[The_Voice_of_Reason]

9. Envy you

the means and ability to immigrate to Canada should the need arise. Some of us are not so lucky, and have no choice but to stand and fight. I am in that camp, have so much to lose under a Trump Presidency...especially when he has a GOP controlled Congress, and sadly will soon have a Conservative GOP SCOTUS. My Medicare, my Social Security come quickly to mind...without those, my supposed Golden Years quickly become Fool's Gold, and my ability to support myself quickly diminishes.

[1AM Coffee]

3. Did we though?

WWII was our peak and we've been coasting since. Our country's "you can't own people" argument was embarrassingly long and bloody compared to other countries. We killed a lot of native people that were just chillin. Stole lands from mexico and Canada.
We've fucked up every single "liberation" (Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, Cuba) we've ever tried since WWII yet still insist it's our strong suit.

[The_Voice_of_Reason]

10. Don't disagree

with your position that our involvements since World War II have been far less than lack-luster. As a veteran, think we started losing these wars/police actions when we stopped making leaders of the countries we invaded come to the table of surrender. The aftermath of World War II worked out somewhat well because of the Marshall Plan, and the control it gave America in shaping and re-educating the defeated nation.

[Guilded Lilly]

4. I'm in a very strange place in my head

Not at all resigned, but still waiting for...I dunno...SOMETHING...to change what I know won't change.
And time is not on our side. Nor, apparently are the means or will of those in power who could actually DO something.
Even being stubborn, resilient and a "survivor" of many life changes, this one really shakes my soul.

I read every word written.
I understand completely.

[The_Voice_of_Reason]

20. Same here...

Especially after the Electoral College vote yesterday just feel DRAINED here, as if someone sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Life goes on, but being 60 here, I find myself wondering what that life for me is going to be like when there is so much talk of replacing Medicare with vouchers, and significantly cutting back our Social Security Benefits...think Trump administration is going to significantly affect quality of life for our 70 million Baby Boomers, of which I am one.

[msongs]

5. our party stalwarts are protesting the repub coup in NC....ummm never mind nt

[colsohlibgal]

6. Scary Times No Doubt

I really do not see a good way out of this. If a miracle happens and the electors deny Trump his far right crowd will go nuts and they tend to be armed to the teeth. If not this fraud will take office, and we are in for who knows what, but he will never be my president and I will resist to the max.

[The_Voice_of_Reason]

21. No Miracle

So now it all depends on us, "The Resistance". I find it very worrisome that the GOP leadership is wanting to keep the Russian Interference investigations secret, rather than agreeing to an open independent investigation...it in my opinion is a tacit admission that there are a lot of dirty hands in all of this, and that many could find themselves charged with treason, or have their careers forever ruined. Doubtful we will know in our lifetime the real truth on this stolen election.

[Skittles]

22. of course they want to keep it secret

they were COMPLICIT

[CousinIT]

7. Yep. We're done here. n/t

[jimlup]

8. Something in the pit of my stomach keep telling me things were not alright on Nov. 8th

I really may never understand this. My conscious mind said that everything was fine. Hillary would win. My vote was part of Hillary's insurance in Michigan and all would be as we here had envisioned. But something in my gut knew otherwise.

I don't know why my feelings knew when my head didn't but I remember being quite nervous about watching the returns. Even not turning on the TV until a little after 8pm dreading what that little voice of concern was telling me, and, in a sense, delaying what my emotions seemed to know was inevitable.

My mind settled a bit as the first returns looked normal though tilted a little more red than I had anticipated. The feeling of dread even subsided a bit as Virginia and the East coast seemed to be coming in blue as expected. I looked forward to the election viewing ending in about an hour, early enough for me to get a good night's sleep before teaching Wednesday.

Then it started... I began to realize that Florida was falling red and then the real punch - Michigan was looking too red for comfort. I texted my daughter (who now lives in Minnesota) with the message that we were "in trouble in Michigan" and it has been downhill from there. I didn't sleep at all that night. I taught my classes through a cloud of deep depression on a shoestring of energy.

How did my feelings know there was trouble while my mind insisted that there was not? What was that all about? Anyone have any ideas? My dad says it was our "collective unconscious." I've never held that view as I'm educated as a physicist. But I really don't understand why I was so anxious November 8th before any indication of trouble. What did I know that I didn't know that I knew?

[dhill926]

11. I feel the same way

Actually the hack of DU raised a bit of an alarm…especially in retrospect. When I saw NC and FL going a little sideways, I got spooked. Told wife something felt really wrong. We watched HGTV the rest of the night. Just felt it in my gut. Goddamn. Hurts to even type this now.

[jimlup]

12. Yes

the hacking of DU was a red flag wasn't it?

[Pachamama]

13. Yes, it was

A very frightening one

[LuckyLib]

15. I saw the hacking of DU as huge -- and felt something was up.

I think sometimes our bodies signal to us impending doom before it is even upon us. That whole evening felt surreal. And so many of us are still feeling every morning that this must be a horrible nightmare.

[moonscape]

19. Yes. Every morning when I wake up, it feels like coming out

of a nightmare dream, and I'm waiting for the realization it was just that. But as I move into consciousness, I'm slammed with the reality it really happened and get depressed all over again.

[Upthevibe]

16. Jimlup, I sincerely believe that it was the Collective Unconscious. It comes from Jung.

It happened to me too. A horrible feeling in my stomach. I was at a friend's and we saw one of the states that she was supposed to win go to him. She had the horrible feeling too. We both simultaneously thought we wanted to take her dog for a walk. We got back to her house and neither one of us wanted to see what was going on on.
We watched a movie. By this time, all of the results were probably in. We both, once again simultaneously, wanted to go to sleep with hope. I woke up in the middle of the night and started writing down all of the states and trying to remember how many Electorial votes they each got. I took something to help me sleep. I remember when I woke up I knew. I just new.

[The_Voice_of_Reason]

17. I know that dread...

My first alarms started back in September...I was really worried, and posted on Twitter that I though the campaign was making a huge tactical error in basically ceding the entire White Male vote to Trump...not all of us are/were angry, but many were/are hurting and wanted to feel like someone was at least talking or listening to them. IE, the family in Ohio that Van Jones featured on his Town Hall who voted Obama twice but this time around voted for Trump...even though they had serious issues with most of what he was saying, the fact he was showing up, talking to them was enough to swing their vote. To me, never made a lot of sense to turn your back on 16-17% of the voting populace.

On the night of the election, I knew we were in trouble when Trump took the lead for awhile in Virginia...the margins were not where they should have been.

I don't blame Hillary for the loss, as I think there were too many other factors in play that denied her the White House. Voter Suppression, Gerrymandering, votes not counted (Michigan) votes discarded by machines (Wisconsin where the GOP refused to do even a 300 voter recount in one precinct to show the machine was skipping/not counting votes, and of course the whole Comey, Russian situation...I was frightened the second I saw it that the Comey thing ten or eleven days out became the MAJOR NEWS STORY on CNN and other networks. Couple that with the very real fact that a lot of men just were not ready for a woman President and we are where we are at.

I think a lot of us knew more than we were willing to admit to ourselves.

[TaterBake]

14. 100% Resistance Here

Never Trump