A couple good things that might come out of the worst news ever.
It’s a sad morning for America and the whole world. I’m still in shock, as it feels like everything I wanted to believe about the American people is wrong.
The fact that Trump will be president aside, what hurts the most is that the people chose him, in spite of (or in some cases because of) his racist, anti-immigrant, anti-women rhetoric.
I haven’t really grappled with the possibility of a Trump presidency until now because I couldn’t believe that it was possible. But here we are, on a depressing AF drizzly Wednesday, and this is what we got.
Here is what I’m watching. With enough effort, I found a couple silver linings:
The inevitable GOP Implosion will be that much bigger
The only thing keeping the GOP from an all out civil war has been their unified opposition to Obama and Hillary Clinton. They’ve clearly sold their soul to eek out this win, and now that they’ve successfully taken over all branches of government, we get to see clearly who the party is.
Rural America will still be in decline, and there will be no more Obama to blame for everything bad. Trump can’t just make the factories reappear, and trying to would require GOP leaders in congress to overturn the free market policies that they’ve successfully fought for since the 80s.
The party is collapsing under its own weight, and the fact that it’s happening while in control of the United States government will make it that much more spectacular.
Will Republicans really repeal Obamacare?
My family has depended on it for much of the past 2 years to afford healthcare — are they really prepared to take this away from us and millions of others? The party has yet to propose an alternative to replace it with.
This would be a terrible thing in the short term, with life-and-death consequences for real people. But taking away people’s health insurance, bringing back pre-existing conditions, and undercutting all of the benefits the public has taken for granted — Trump supporters included — will be a big deal. It could be the spark that would make a true single-payer, universal healthcare system possible in four or eight years.
Politics is cyclical
Politics is nothing but advancement and backlash, advancement and backlash. Bush Sr. was the only president since WWII to be elected after his party held the Whitehouse for 8 years, so Hillary was fighting an uphill battle all along. Almost without fail, though, the midterm elections lead to considerable pickups from the minority party. The 2018 midterms will affect redistricting in many states, so we have that to (maybe) look forward to.
Deflating White Nationalism
A Clinton win would not have made the white nationalist energy behind Trump’s campaign disappear. If anything, it would have given it more energy. Probably the only way to deal with this cancer is to have their guy win and fail miserably, hopefully without taking the rest of us down with him.
Evangelicals exposed as hypocrites
Conservative Evangelical Christians supported this guy in droves. If they had a shred of credibility left after the Bush years, there’s nothing left. All this talk about family values just to support a thrice-married sexual predator? The Evangelical political movement is setting itself up to collapse in tandem with the GOP.
What will the Conservative Media do without Obama?
Conservative online media has flourished only since Obama has been in office. How will sites like Breitbart cover their guy? What kind of conspiracy theories will Alex Jones come up with? Will they focus their energy on defending Trump? Or sharpening their attacks on establishment GOP leaders? Any way you slice it, their job got a lot harder without their favorite boogeyman Obama in office.
Democrats will take a sharp left
The Democrats will become more liberal. I fully supported Hillary once Sanders lost, but it’s hard to not wonder how the election would have fared if the party didn’t line up behind the safe choice.
Once Trump took over the GOP, it looked like Democratic leadership was happy to move center-left in order to be palatable to Bush/Romney Republicans. After this stunning loss, Dems will have to regroup and clearly won’t be running to preserve the status quo next election.
Party leadership aside, people get organized and activated when they don’t feel represented by their government. I’m excited to see the Left become activists again.
That’s all I got.
There is no way to spin this awful outcome that makes it OK. Our melting pot nation chose a white nationalist over a supremely-qualified, history-making candidate running on a platform of “Stronger Together.” No future elections or movements will erase this new stain on our already ugly history.
But here we are. He might be our president but we won’t be defined by him.