God-damn.
I really . . . REEEEEEAAAALLLLY didn't want to be right on this one. For about seven months there, I thought I would read this post, and look foolishly upon my gloom and doom from Winter 2016. Along with, well pretty much everyone in America, perhaps even El Drumpfo himself, I was pretty sure that my "Oh Trump Could Win It" phase was just a phase, and that that piece-of-shit-in-shoes would go down handily to a flawed, but eminently more qualified Secretary Clinton.
But I was wrong to change my mind from its pre-ordinance. The unthinkable has happened, and now, as though our presidential elections were a "Who's the Biggest Asshole" Competition, that turd-breathed sleaze, El Drumpfo, is President-Elect of the United States. That happened 12 days ago. I am still somewhat in shock, as Herr Hair lines up his cabinet with the biggest collection of fringe right lunatics you'll find outside a Klan rally, although who knows, perhaps some of these jackals will attend the Klan's victory celebration December 3rd.
The apoplexy on the Left is palpable. We are defeated, and pretty badly. The America we thought we knew turns out to be ephemeral and pretty fucking hateful and irrational, when the mood changes. It's entirely understandable that the nice people at DailyKos are re-litigating the primaries, blaming Hillary, blaming ourselves, blaming the idealists, blaming Bernie, blaming the pragmatists etc.
That's all normal and all that, but it's time to wake the fuck up, get up off the ground, and unify now. We don't have time to kill on blame-games, infighting, or even drawn-out, navel-gazing autopsies. I have my own theories on "What Went Wrong," but I am MUCH more interested in forward-looking solutions, than putting November 8th's horror show on repeat. We lost. Time to get over it. There is work to be done, immediately. We've been badly knocked down, but we ain't dead, not even close to it.
We need to unify now to stop El Drumpfo. Period. We have TWO YEARS until the 2018 midterm Elections. We must organize and RESIST NOW.
Stopping Fascist Trumpblicans (and I don't use the word Fascist lightly) will require both outsiders and insiders; street protesters and those familiar with the halls of power; those living on the margins, and those rational power-players of good will, who are horrified about what Trump represents; community organizers and legislators; black/brown/white/yellow/red/gay/straight/queer/trans and all in between; outsiders who never claimed a political party, and fed up Republicans who have watched their party morph into something unrecognizable; those who voted Democrat, and Green, and Libertarian, and the PLURALITY of voting-age Americans who simply didn't vote in 2016.
Fuck whether you pulled for Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton, or Jill Stein, or Gary Johnson, or just weren't motivated enough to vote in 2016; doesn't matter now. Who cares? If you think Donald Trump's brand of proto-fascist, hate-based politics is wrong, you are welcome aboard the U.S.S. Resistance as far as I'm concerned. Mobilize now. We are putting a stop this insanity.
We ALL have a role to play. For my part, I decided to come up with five actionable things I could do to, in my own small way, to stop the Fascists.
#MyFiveThings
1) I will talk more about current events, and just generally "get more political" in my classroom
2) I will encourage my student poets to get into a more political mode in their art
3) I will engage more with my local Democratic party . . . yes, even in Chicago
4) I will start giving monthly contributions to two organizations who are going to be facing budget axes, or resisting Team Drumpfo and his horde of orc-people - the ACLU, and the Stone Belt Center in Bloomington, IN
5) I will encourage EVERYONE I KNOW to come up with #MyFiveThings lists themselves.
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