Like
virtually everyone I’ve spoken with today, I’m in shock. I simply can’t believe that our nation has
elected this miscreant, Donald Trump, to be the leader of the free world. Trump’s
victory represents a triumph of ignorance over reason, hatred over tolerance. His
campaign has brought out the very worst in us as a people, and I fear we are
heading down a treacherously dark path.
The first
person I spoke with at work this morning was a colleague who had, like me,
arrived at the office early. She was visibly upset and angry. As a thinking person, and a married lesbian,
she spoke of deep concerns that she and her wife shared – will a Trump
presidency coupled with Republican control of both chambers of Congress spell
the end of marriage equality? Will the
hard-fought gains of every disenfranchised group since the civil rights era
begin a long, backward slide toward oblivion?
How can any woman have voted for Trump?
We pondered that question together and came up empty; it was
incomprehensible to both of us.
What
lessons has this election cycle taught our children? That the meanest bully wins? That no matter how reprehensible one’s words
and actions may be, they won’t matter in the end? We’ve elected this man to the highest office
in the land; the only logical conclusion to be drawn is that it is acceptable
to brag about having sexually assaulted women, to describe these assaults in
the most vulgar imaginable language, to have all of that recorded and made
public, and to still expect the job – whatever “the job” may be – because after
all, every other job in the country is of less importance than the presidency. There simply are no consequences
for egregiously misogynistic words and [self-described] actions.
What can
we expect in the foreign policy arena from this man whose narcissism compels
him to brag about the size of his penis during a presidential debate, or to
send 3 a.m. tweets about Saturday Night Live skits that displease him? How will he behave when sitting across a negotiating
table from Kim Jong-un? Maybe, with
great luck, we as a nation may manage to avoid sending our soldiers to fight
and die in yet another pointless, unwinnable war on foreign soil. Or,
alternatively, maybe my daughters will be among the first women to be drafted
when our all-volunteer military has been spread too thin to deal with an
onslaught of self-inflicted foreign threats.
The possibility is not beyond the realm of imagination.
Today, my
social media feeds are awash in Monday-morning-quarterback comments about the
election. Amidst the vitriol, there are many noble, conciliatory posts along
the lines of “give him a chance.”
Okay. Fine. We will give him a chance. We really have no choice, have we?
As I ponder
this, I’m reminded of two memorable, long-ago presidential elections:
1980: Ronald
Reagan won in a landslide victory over Jimmy Carter. I remember being stunned. Being 21 years old, Reagan was, to me, some
ancient B-Grade film actor who had done a stint as governor of California,
whose politics were reactionary, far-right, and dangerously hawkish. He seemed, to me, a joke. I was astounded – and very upset – by his
victory. I couldn’t believe that this
cartoon-character buffoon with a head full of Brylcreem was to be our new
president. If I'd had a blog at the time, I probably would have written a post very much like the one you're reading. For the record, I “wasted” my
vote on third-party candidate John Anderson, for reasons that made sense to my
21 year-old self, which I can no longer recall.
So yes, I
see parallels between Reagan in ’80 – or at least my perception of him – and Trump
today; although I think we can all agree that Donald Trump is no Ronald
Reagan. Still, I suppose the possibility
exists that Trump may surprise on the upside.
We’ll call this the Happy Path.
On the
other hand… the other long-ago election that comes to mind was 1972, Nixon vs.
McGovern, at the height of the Vietnam War. Nixon was re-elected in an absolute rout. McGovern carried only one state –
Massachusetts. By the time of the
election, the seeds had already been sown for the Watergate scandal that would
soon unfold. Nixon resigned in
disgrace. When I first arrived in Boston
to attend college in 1977, there were still many cars on the roads bearing my
favorite bumper sticker of all time: “Don’t Blame Me, I’m from Massachusetts.”
The Trump
/ Clinton race was far from a landslide, so I doubt we’ll see a resurrection of
that particular bumper sticker anytime soon.
Still, with Trump facing multiple active lawsuits
on countless fronts, stemming from his business practices and personal conduct
over the course of many years, it’s conceivable that he may one day soon face
his own Waterloo (or Watergate,) and that history may more closely associate
him with Richard Nixon than with Ronald Reagan.
Time will
tell. Until then, we can engage in
catharsis – I feel better already - and, hopefully, healing.
