Democrats, liberals, and Progressives need to come to grips with the fact that they — or We, I should say — lost this election. Whether we like it or not the other team hung an “L” on us.
In the aftermath of this outcome, where we allowed a failed businessman, a conman who hasn’t paid taxes since 2008, a charlatan who admitted to taking advantage of the system, a guy who built a campaign on the false promise of erecting a wall on the southern border, who admitted to sexually assaulting women, who denied all 12 female accusers who came out to say he assaulted them, who dog-whistled white supremacists and used fear-mongering against Muslims to win, I can’t help but think about what could have been. And what the correct approach is moving forward.
The left has no one to blame but themselves. The original sin of the Democratic Party came in 2008, when Barack Obama made Hillary Clinton the Secretary of State and the Obama’s-Clinton’s marriage began. The party tied itself to an extremely flawed politician who was pornographically disliked well before she ran for president in 2016. And it was arrogant enough to think it didn’t matter, that establishment politics would be enough to defeat a populist who didn’t play by the same rules.
As an aside I will say, to his credit, Barack Obama will be looked at favorably with time. But his legacy is clearly tarnished since he won’t have Clinton, his hand-picked successor, to continue his work.
We now know, and as every poll indicated before Hillary inevitably got the Democratic nomination, that Bernie Sanders was the correct option to defeat Donald Trump in a general election. But this isn’t a matter of hindsight being 20/20. This is about all those insane, delusional, un-American, pothead millennials being absolutely fucking right about Bernie.
It’s easy to dismiss so many arguments from my side of the isle, but not because we’re wrong. It’s that for some reason facts no longer matter, and every political topic is seen as a 50-50 proposition, rather than what most equations end up being: right or wrong.
Some things are factually correct, and some things are blatantly untrue. We have to start calling bullshit on what is plain wrong, whether it’s factually or morally.
For example, Donald Trump — and a large swath of his supporters — are convinced of this idea that Mexicans are dramatically flowing into the United States without any resistance. And further, that Barack Obama’s administration — and by some extension Hillary Clinton — were willfully allowing it.
A year ago Pew Research posted a study that showed there was a net loss of 140,000 Mexican immigrants between 2009-2014 in the United States. That means more immigrants left than entered. To the second point, Barack Obama has deported more immigrants than every president in the history of the United States combined, so just stop.
This is Pew Research and The Nation. These are legitimate news sources, not some conservative meme listing bullshit statistics and telling everyone to Stay Woke. Just as that friend of yours who embellishes stories that are hard to believe, we must consider our sources. Otherwise of what importance is the truth? Isn’t that supposed to matter?
Next, to the idea that people who voted for Trump are being unfairly categorized as racists, or bigots, or misogynists, I feel for you. And no, I don’t think most of you are any of those things. I’m just saying the guy you voted for is all of those things.
Again, this is not some playground disagreement. There is video on YouTube, right now, of he himself vindicating my point for me. You can walk it back as far as you want, saying he didn’t mean it that way, but you are still faced with the fact that he said it. Trump supporters may not take him literally, but they do take him seriously. Conversely, people from my side didn’t take him seriously enough, but they do take his words literally.
So while thousands of people across the United States are out in the streets protesting, you shouldn’t have to wonder why.
And that’s another thing. For being the party that is so big on upholding The Constitution, why so quick to snap-judge those exercising their First Amendment rights? Isn’t that just a tad hypocritical?
Listen, I’m a patriot and I will support my president. I’m willing to give anyone a shot. Even a guy who ran a vicious campaign where I disagreed with almost everything he stood for. That guy won, and that guy is my president-elect. Some idealistic Progressives, not so unlike me, may consider that the sellout’s perspective. But I say that if you get beat, get better.
The only silver lining I can see from a Trump presidency is that we will see the rise of the American Left like never before. The angry old white man turned out in this election, came out and took back a country that was never theirs to begin with.
No, Donald Trump isn’t building some fucking wall. Hillary Clinton isn’t going to jail. That tax break isn’t for you. And America isn’t on a path to being great again. It’s already pretty great.
I’m willing to listen to the other side here. Many of my coworkers and a spattering of my family members were happy Trump won. And I love them no less for that fact; all I ask for is the same respect. Keep having the conversation, because that is America.
My only request is, to be basic, keep it real. Keep it in reality. I don’t want to hear myths about how people who vote for Democrats don’t have jobs or are lazy or looking for handouts. That is and always has been utter bullshit. Things aren’t true just because your parents say they are, and I know this from growing up in a family that always voted for the red team regardless of who the other candidate was.
Only with education can this paradigm change. The people who want to learn, and the people who want to know, will learn and will know. This is not equivalent to watching some YouTube clips and thinking that 9/11 was a conspiracy, or that the Illuminati is behind everything, or that UFO’s are real, or that lizard people are running our government. Because these were the same people saying that the system was rigged to make Hillary Clinton president.
Stay Woke, though.
I’m talking about actual evidence. Opinions are not valid without it. I don’t care about opinions based on feelings or bad evidence, and you shouldn’t, either. People should be held accountable to the same keeping it 100 standards that social media demands of everybody.
I take pride in being someone who cares about facts, who doesn’t deny climate change and finds real value in science and math. I take pride in having contributed multiple times to Bernie Sanders’s campaign, the only true vehicle for change during this election cycle. I am on the right side of history.
An optimist by nature, I do genuinely hope the next four years under Trump are tremendous and make my head spin because they are just so fantastic. I will not, however, be holding my breath.
Future Bets 