We, as a people, have done something remarkable. The United States elected Donald Trump, a misogynist, xenophobic, hypocritical, blowhard to the most important position on this planet. This has caused a great deal of anxiety for myself, along with a vast majority of the people I know. Granted, there are some of my friends or acquaintances that aren't dismayed by this event, and although I don't understand why, I guess it's nice for them to get some satisfaction in this world.
This world is forever changed. The vote was a referendum on the status quo. Hillary Clinton forgot about the rust belt, the farmers, the no collar white men that have been disenfranchised for the last eight years under President Obama. And that neglect has thrown a tidal wave across our collective landscapes.
So. What do we do? How do we handle this new world? People who think like me, who have respect and love for women, the LGBTQ+ members of our society, minorities, immigrants, and the paycheck to paycheck people who thought one day it will all be better, have to regroup. We have to dust ourselves off and move forward. We were all in shock. Some of us cried, and some of us held the criers and offered some modicum of support. "We are all in this together." "Maybe it won't be that bad." "At least we still have our friends."
We drank a lot. We drank first out of anxiety and trepidation. We then drank out of hope and desecration. We then drank out of sadness. We texted, and posted statuses and tweets. We sat at the bar, or at home, and watched with fear and amazement as the events of November 8, 2016 played out. We wondered what citizens of other countries thought about what was going on. We played scenarios out together with the hope of an outcome that we wanted. We wondered what our people who weren't with us were doing, and what they were drinking. We stayed up late with like minded folks, trying to do the societal math of what happened, and trying to distract ourselves from what we had witnessed.
We did those things. And they are done. And it's all over. And we are forced to deal with a world that has a tenuous future. My generation is scared. We are scared because there have been a great many institutions that have tried to build fairness and goodness and health and prosperity for us, and we fear that so many of them will be taken away because one unhinged lunatic, and an even more dangerous second, is now the most powerful person in the world.
But we can't dwell on all this. We can't dwell on it because the potential for disaster will only cause us to become reactionary and paranoid. We don't want to revert to the base level monsters that we all want to be when we are alone with our thoughts, fantasizing about what we SHOULD have done rather than what we actually did. We can't dwell on what could possibly happen, because dwelling on hypothetical situations is unhealthy for our minds, and we all need to stay sharp now.
As a generation, my people, the 25-40 year old people, are more tuned into social issues than previous ones, and the children behind us are blowing out awareness out of the water. That's good. That's a start. Personally, I think the current backlash against the election, the protests, the absurd and unnecessary violence that I have seen online, needs to end. We need to stop being emotional and start being rational.
Being rational will ensure that nobody flies off the handle and gets in trouble. We need to use our minds now. We need to be the smart, tough people that we are. That all of us are. You can't survive in today's world without being a tough bastard. Weakness has been, to a degree, bred out of us. So we as strong, smart people have to act, but we have to act within our skill set and within the boundaries of our opportunities.
What I mean is: Do what you can. Don't go off and try to change the world in one fell swoop. It won't work. Take small steps to accomplish great things. Don't live your life with resentment over what happened on November 8th. Take that negativity and turn it into something positive. Make art. Write. Create music. Play sports. Open a business. Get involved. Recirculate that negative energy into something that moves your community forward in some way. Rise above the vitriol and make something you can take pride in.
Getting involved in local politics, local issues. Make your voices heard, but do it in a productive way. Say what you want, but frame it in a fashion that doesn't equate you with the hateful and hurtful diatribes of Donald Trump. Be better than him. If we all get better, get wiser, get more active, we will get a better future. Get involved in things you can stand for without second guessing yourself. If you believe in something, act upon it. If you want to see change, do what you can to make that change.
Voting in the Midterm Elections is hugely important. We have two years until those occur, and sweeping changes in the House of Representatives and Senate need to happen so that the potential policies of President Trump can be either negated or dulled so they won't cut so deeply into the fabric of the society we have gotten to so far. The really dangerous aspect of the next two years is the controlling Republican majority, and the Supreme Court seat they are going to fill with a small minded man who is willing to repeal so many many things that we hold dear.
But that's all on the macro scale. For real change to occur, we have to think small. Local politics, our daily lives. These are the places where we can see real, honest, change. So we need to do little things. We need to eat better, we need to go to the gym more frequently, we need to read some damn books instead of watching dumb shit on television. We need to get a hobby and fall in love with it. We need to find people and fall in love with them. We need to find a better life and fall in love with everything.
I joked about moving to Denmark if Trump got elected. I can't actually do that. It's just too damn expensive. It's not a risk that I am willing to take, simply because of the logistics of it all. I am curious about the population numbers in Canada, Europe, Australia, over the next 18 months or so. I don't think it will change much, honestly. So I think we are all going to still be here in the future, and I think that we are all going to be better, eventually. But I think that we all need to get better on a small scale, and then we see the domino effect of small scale change.
The world isn't over. As a culture, America has suffered a huge setback, but it's not over. Not yet. We have to stand together, we have to unite. We have to be the type of people we wish we had been in our worst moments. We have to get stronger, get smarter, get better. We have to realize that this is just a temporary setback.
The world is darker, but it isn't over. We have to make our individual lives better, because by doing that, we are going to make the lives around us better. We have to do things that are positive, because that will make the things around us more positive. And I know this call for a more positive outlook is weird coming from me, the more negative man in the world. But I'm right. We need to change everything about this world from here on out.
We need to be better. At everything. All of us. Only then will the disaster of November 8, 2016, be rectified, and we can go back to being the nation on the hill, welcoming the sick, the tired, the poor, the scared, the persecuted, the lonely, the ones wanting a change, the ones wanting a better life, the one wanting more. We all want more. We all need more, and we all deserve more. So we need to be better, so we get what we deserve.
Because I think we got what we deserved, because our collective hubris and greed and ego led to this new world.
I want us all to be better, and live in a better world. SO LET'S FUCKING WORK FOR IT.
SD
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