The Diatribe

I am of two minds today and so I will write both of my stories.  I am angry and sad as so many of us are.  Already in print articles and on NPR this morning I have heard theories for why and how this happened and I have my own ideas about those too, but I am not interested in those right now.  I know exactly who to blame for this outcome. 

First, The Diatribe.

Every dumbass motherfucker who voted for Donald Trump is responsible for this outcome.  Humans are consistent and predictable and as the saying goes, opinions are like assholes.  Everyone has one and most of them stink.  If you voted for Donald Trump however, you are a special breed of asshole.  First, you think you know.  You have it all worked out.  You trust your judgment more than anyone else’s.  You are wrapped up in your world and your experience and you’re selfish.  Second, you do not empathize with others.  You don’t care about the reputation of your country.  You don’t care about how your behavior as an adult is seen by your children. You are not open and your values around education and reading are likely not conducive to recognizing the truth or seeking it out. 

I don’t care that republicans have effectively gutted the voting rights act over the last 10 years.  I don’t care that Citizens United has allowed the wealthy class to exert undue influence on our political process.  You allowed this to happen. You made this happen.  

You voted for a guy who joked that he liked to walk up to women and grab them by the pussy adding that as a celebrity, he could get away with that behavior.  Did that sound like a joke to you?  I know his spin on it, locker room talk and all that, but did you buy it?  I didn’t.  (Then again, maybe you did buy it?  If so your judgment is pathetic.)  How do you reconcile that with your children?  This is a serious question.  Are you telling them that it was okay because it was a joke?  Are you telling them he was wrong to say such a thing but it's forgivable, his judgment is still good enough to be President of the United States?  President of the United States?!

About Hillary all that she is corrupt stuff is bullshit. I'm sorry you feel marginalized. Perhaps you really are a low information voter  Maybe the only information you take in is from Fox News or even the mainstream corporate outlets?  Hillary is as corrupt as the majority of our politicians today.  She is adept at playing a corrupt game.  That you think she is somehow a trillion times more corrupt than everyone else on the face of the earth is a testament to your inability to discern the truth from whatever someone or some entity is selling you.  If Citizens United allowed foreign governments or the Koch Brothers to spend millions of dollars through so called think tanks, (propaganda machines,) to  influence you it doesn’t change the fact you are responsible for succumbing to all that. More, in a straight up comparison of the two, Hillary never said she walked up to people and grabbed them by the genitalia.

What is wrong with you?  How could you do this?  We will all feel the pain of this Presidency but you should feel it more and I don’t know how that happens beyond sane people who had the good sense not to vote for him telling you how irresponsible and pathetic you have been.  This is not a one-time thing, either.  Like, whoops, I voted for Trump.  No, you allowed yourself to be here.  You were the one who did not focus in school, who did not embrace reading, who chose to nurture a short attention span rather than instilling some self-discipline in yourself.  We get the democracy we deserve and what we deserve presently is because of you.  How embarrassing for all of us.  (And if you are successful or well off, by odds you likely lack roundness and the balance of a gentleman and your financial success in no way represents your overall value as a member of society.  On that you have spoken-loud and clear.)

You voted for someone who as a candidate offered no real ideas or plans.  Instead he said, trust me.  And you did.  You voted for a guy who as a candidate refused to let the people, (as in, “We the people,”) see his tax returns.  It is not a law that candidates have to show the public their taxes, rather it has just been considered proper and it was thought the American people would never vote for someone who refused to reveal their financial behavior.  You proved that wrong.  You voted for him anyway.  Apparently you do not believe in accountability.  You are inclined to trust Donald Trump.  He has never behaved in any way like a statesman or a sage and yet, you...  the-fuck?!

You did it ostensibly because Hillary Clinton is connected to Bill Clinton who runs the Clinton Foundation who accepted money from a multitude of entities around the world to engage in charitable endeavors.  As an example the Clinton Foundation accepted $1 million from the little principality that is Qatar.  This transaction  occurred while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.  It was her duty based on her word to report this transaction to the Department of State and in this regard she failed.  There is room to parse this.  She promised to report any new or increased contributions and we do not know what Qatar may have donated in previous years, only that they did donate.  Still, she erred on this to avoid even the air of wrongdoing.  Of course there is so much more but this is as substantive or as egregious a thing as I can find against Hillary.  There are email issues that pale in comparison to what occurred in the Bush administration so I dismiss those out of hand based on the FBI concluding there was nothing to prosecute there.  There are far-fetched rumors of murder and worse I suppose but of course, that’s all bullshit.  A cursory analysis typically debunks those stories. 

By the way, you should google performance ratings for charitable organizations and check on the clinton foundation.  Charitywatch, charitynavigator, they all say the same thing.  

From factcheck.org: "Daniel Borochoff, president and founder of CharityWatch, told us by phone that its analysis of the finances of the Clinton Foundation and its affiliates found that about 89 percent of the foundation budget is spent on programming (or “charity”), higher than the 75 percent considered the industry standard."

Amazing.  Right?  Right?!  That's 14% higher at the rarefied top of the margin.

Am I a big fan of HRC?  No.  Bernie best represented my values.  Hillary, however, was in the mold of prior Presidents.  Presidents like Obama, Clinton, George HW Bush, Reagan, Carter and so on.  Yes, they were products of a monied system, (an increasingly monied system.) but in terms of education level and decorum, grace, if you will, they were Presidential.  I failed to mention George W Bush because yes, the two are similar.  They were both privileged, wealthy children who as a class, often do not adopt some of our most basic values of goodness and kindness. 

What Bernie Sanders accomplished as a candidate was beyond simply being unprecedented.  It had looked like a grass roots campaign could never compete in this system.  No doubt powers are at work trying to figure out creative ways of stopping the masses from being so influential in the future.  To raise the money needed to compete in this utterly corrupt system through small, individual donations, (yes, averaging $27,) was very much like a miracle.  I had such high hopes.  

Bot no, you did not get on board with Bernie by and large because you were sold all this bullshit about high taxes and the debt, (Of course the bogeymen changes seasonally and you're stuck on buy.)  You think you are going to be rich one day.  You blame people who receive welfare benefits for why you are not already rich, because you're such a hard worker and you're so brilliant of course.  The military budget does not bother you but there's a good reason for that.  You don't understand how exorbitant it is relative to every other country on the planet, or how much overkill it really is, (pardon the pun.)  

We can point out the evidence, show you how tax rates were following the great depression and the new deal, in the 50's for example.  We can illustrate the direct correlation between those tax rates and the wealth and prosperity that followed.  We can point out basic truths about how big business had behaved when unchecked in the past and what it took to rein them in, a strong adversary.  We can draw the through line for you right to a strong federal government but you still buy the propaganda the wealthy class, republicans and the right sells you about "states rights," and how the federal government should be weakened in favor of power distribution.  Who will protect our children from being forced into the work force, uneducated and prematurely?  Who will protect miners?  Who will protect workers in the work place?  Donald Trump?  Donald fucking Trump?!  Wake the fuck up.  

I can't blame ignorance anymore, as if it is a faceless nameless condition.  I can't empathize with you anymore after what you have done.  I want so much more for my children.  Fuck you.

I have heard this criticism of people who make Hitler comparisons on social media.  And yet, everytime we see societies bring someone like Trump to power bad things happen.