I'm a Canadian and even I am terrified and numb :-(
Some may remember me some may not. I haven't posted in a long time due to personal struggles with emotional issues and other things I wish to keep private. I am still struggling greatly, daily 
, but this has nothing to do with that. I used to be a regular poster here, mostly on DU Lounge. As a liberal Canadian I always felt a bit of a disconnect from the majority here as I was not usually directly effected by policy decisions and did not live in "the belly of the beast" so to speak. But I made a number of online friends here and I've always known that America has always been full of amazing warm hearted liberal minded people. Some of the nicest people I have ever known.
After these elections of course I have never been happier in my life that I AM Canadian. But I decided I needed to get on here and vent after my long absence as much as anything to connect with my fellow minded liberal friends to the south of the border in this terrible time. I was sad to see DU had been hacked but I suppose not surprised given the tactics that are now in play as part of the norm of political discourse.
I just wish to say that even as a Canadian, who has the luxury of not being immediately impacted by this, I have spent the last week in a state of numb stupor. Honestly I felt a similar degree of shock post 9/11 as I feel now. For very different reasons of course, but the base feeling is very much the same. An inability to accept the outcome. And every time I feel I have accepted the outcome all I have to do is think about what the repercussions of this will really mean in its details and I again find myself back in a state of shock.
Bush and his cronies were terrible. They lied and fabricated evidence in order to involve the world in a decades long war against an enemy they had no understanding of and no interest in understanding. They tortured, they set us back decades in foreign and domestic policy. They played a key role in almost bankrupting the global economy (though I would argue that those forces go back even further). They were crude, dismissive and borderline evil.
And then we had 8 years of Obama. I never fully saw eye to eye all the time with Obama. In truth I felt very uneasy about some aspects of how he governed like his drone program, I wished he could have played more to the left. But given the insane level of obstruction that he faced, how little respect he got, how terrible he was often treated (lets not mince words, mostly because he was black and they couldn't stand that fact), he was the best president you guys have had in many many a decade.
And now... FUCK I don't even know what to say. Going into the elections I felt that things were far closer between Hilary and Trump than I felt they had any reason to be according to ALL of the polls. But I still felt that at the very worse Hilary would eek out a win. I was never a great Hilary lover, I was always much more of a Bernie supporter. However when it looked like there was no hope for him I fully understood the fall in line and Stop Trump movement. And I'm NOT going to get into an argument about who should have been the nominee. That is a legit argument but one for another thread. Again I'm Canadian and so I couldn't vote but I follow the news south of the border closely.
When I saw that she lost Florida something in my stomach turned and I told myself "shit that's not good". And yes slowly and surely as the night wore on it became clear that the nightmare was real. Trump had won.
Let me just say this, and I don't mean to blame anyone here specifically or indeed any american personally, as I said I know that the majority voted against Trump, the majority of Americans are very good people. Even those who voted for him, many I feel, are good but misguided people, blinded by fear and hate. But I have to get this out... FUCK YOU AMERICA, FUCK YOU!!!! Because not only have you potentially ruined your own country but in this interconnected world we live in this is a fucking disaster for ALL Of US! The whole world has been shifting towards the radical right in recent years and so perhaps I should not be surprised. But I am. Like it or not the US sets the tone for the rest of the world a lot of the time. What have you guys done? This hasn't just been a vote for Trump, this has been a confirmation the world over that if you are a bigoted racist, misogynist neo-nazi type that your views are down right condoned. We now enter a dark era.
Sorry again I don't mean to be angry at any one individual. But you have elected an unstable, megalomaniacal, fascist, misogynist, sociopath. 3 or 4 days in and he's already appointed a white supremacist to a critical government role. Looks like he is now fighting to install his sons to positions of power, like some kind of Russian Czar. Every single day I wake up I have to pinch myself and remind me that this is all real, not some dark sitcom. But no it's real and the fallout is going to be global.
Where the fuck are things going from here? Like I said Bush was bad enough, I never thought I'd see someone a lot worse. You have proven me wrong.
Every time I look at my Facebook feed now I see examples of emboldened white supremacists spouting hate, vandalizing or even killing people. With Trump's election after all why even bother to hide your racism, your bigotry, your misogyny. And maybe, just maybe that is the THIN silver lining in all this, that all the pieces of shit will come out of the wood work and we will finally be forced to face just how little progress we have made, just how ugly things really are. I just hope it's not too late. Lets not even talk about things like climate change and a whole host of other issues.
I feel nauseous
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Most of my neighbors seem to have voted for Don the con. They know I'm a Democrat because a little blue Bernie sticker is still on the back window of my car. We are going to speak with a realtor sometime soon. We'll be happier elsewhere if we can pull it off.
