Month: November 2016

You really can’t hear the voices of most people until they vote. This election is a perfect example. What I (and obviously millions of others) didn’t hear from the electorate that became Trump voters were stories like, “I lost my job in the (pick one – auto plant, coal mine, appliance factory) in (pick one – 1984, 1992, 2009) because of (pick one – offshoring, regulation, automation) and in the years since, politicians from both parties have promised to help me, but no one ever has.”

Those voters spoke loudly on Tuesday night. They certainly weren’t all racists, xenophobes, or misogynists. I believe most were not any of those things. I have to believe that. I have friends and family that supported Mr. Trump. If you supported Mrs. Clinton, you likely have those friends and family too. Speaking of Mrs. Clinton, I think she would have made a fine president, and I do believe she got badly slandered by the right-wing press, but ultimately her “qualifications” were a turnoff to Trump voters. She’s been a “Washington politician” for 25 years, and a big majority of Trump voters see politicians as a group that did not hear them or help them. The Democratic Party had a candidate with a message to help many of the very same people who voted for Donald Trump. Bernie was my candidate, but the DNC denied him. How’d that work out?

On election night, well, morning really around 4:30AM, after seeing the supposed “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin crumble red, I realized that I didn’t know anything about those “disaffected voters” that elected Donald Trump. I’m a white (somewhat) educated male living in Massachusetts who has enjoyed almost 33 consecutive years of career progress and great jobs in high-tech. I’ve been lucky and very fortunate to have no idea what financial pain and insecurity and hopelessness is all about.

Those good people in the “rust belt” – by the way, do you think they like that quaint name? It comes from the image of empty factories literally rusting away in their towns, a reminder of a past when America was great for them. Many of them have little left and less hope. “Hope and change” sounded great to me, but what real change did it deliver to them?

So along came Donald Trump. They knew him from TV. He was a billionaire and he promised to “Make America Great Again.” He told them he’d change the trade deals and get tough with Mexico and China. He promised to bring those jobs back. Those people aren’t stupid. They’ve heard the jobs promises from candidates over the years, but maybe this time would be different. Donald Trump had many successful businesses and he wasn’t a politician. He wasn’t taking donations from big donors and corporations, either. Just small ones from people like them.

On Tuesday, these people who worked hard until the work was denied them walked into polling places all over the country and they spoke. They didn’t like his behavior toward women or his mistreatment of that Muslim Gold Star family or his making fun of a handicapped man, but they saw him as their last chance to have a voice so they held their noses and cast their votes. And they were heard.

I don’t think Donald Trump is nearly as bad as the liberal press makes him out to be. Yeah, he’s a chauvinist and being inarticulate has got him in some trouble, especially when insensitive comments are amplified through the liberal echo chamber. I know. I’m in it. The problems he faces are complex and won’t be solved with slogans. “Repeal Obamacare?” Good luck telling those health insurance companies you’re ripping millions of customers from their income statements. None of it is going to be easy.

Finally, I’ve witnessed a real freak out from some of my fellow liberals who came out on the losing end in the election. Please, as Samuel L. Jackson might say, “calm the fuck down.” “If you supported Trump, please defriend me?” C’mon! (Full disclosure – a Facebook friend – more of an acquaintance came at me gloating Tuesday night… Poof.) Hey, our system of democracy worked and our girl lost. Get a grip. Plus, I don’t think Mr. Trump really has passion for the social issues like some of the social conservative nuts in the Republican party. I know… Mike Pence is pretty whacked out on choice and LGBT rights, but those things have already been sustained through a conservative Supreme Court, and again, I just don’t think Trump’s agenda is social. All that said, if some crazy shit gets proposed, and it will – we fight it.

My hope is that the president-elect stays true to his promise to help the middle-class people who got him elected. If he does, we’ll all benefit.  In the meantime, I think my liberal friends should walk the talk of peace, love, tolerance and acceptance.

Son Kyle and I cast our votes on Friday afternoon, so in spite of all your efforts to convince me Hillary Clinton is the devil, she got our vote, but I’m really worried about you. I know that many of you want real change in this country, but the fact that you can somehow rationalize the racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic behaviors of Donald Trump and accept his complete lack of substance on the issues makes me have real doubts about your judgment.

The Trump supporters I know are white and blue collar. How can you support a man that has stiffed working people like you throughout his career by simply not paying them? He also refuses to show his tax returns, a tradition of presidential candidates for 40 years. He likely hasn’t paid much if anything in taxes, but you have, right? If you’re concerned about your jobs being taken by foreign workers, both here and abroad, how can you support a man whose clothing line is manufactured in China and the steel he uses to erect phallic monuments to himself is imported from there?

If you’re a “family values” voter, how is it you can support the man who said “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything. I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married.”

In the debate that followed this revelation, he denied ever doing the thing he bragged about. Then multiple women came forward to claim he had, in fact done it to them. Oh, and he also thought walking into a dressing room of partially clad Miss Teen USA contestants was OK, too. He bragged about that to Howard Stern, “I’ll tell you the funniest is that I’ll go backstage before a show and everyone’s getting dressed. No men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in, because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it. … ‘Is everyone OK?’ You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. ‘Is everybody OK?’ And you see these incredible-looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that.”

Oh, and if you’re, you know, a “decent human being” voter, The Donald also mocked a reporter with a disability.

OK, so now let’s look at your case against Hillary. I’ll go with the ones that I read over and over and over and over on Facebook:

1. She lied to the families of Benghazi victims by telling them the attack was the result of a cartoon Muslims found offensive.
   Some of the family members claim this while others, including the family of Ambassador Stevens say they never heard it.
2. The email server – The claim is she mishandled classified material and should be jailed for it.
   I’m going to quote Facebook friend Chris Harvey on his thoughtful response to this “scandal:”
   “HRC sent a few emails which were classified, but did not have the proper classified header in the email..i.e. “Top Secret, Classified, Etc”. The header was not present on any of these emails and when she sent them she was sending them to people with security clearance. She did not know they were classified when she sent them. So she isn’t lying when she said she didn’t send any classified emails…because she didn’t know they were…after the fact it has been revealed that a few were classified without the header. This whole email ‘scandal’ is ridiculous. Let’s say every one of her emails were classified…she was sending them to people with security clearance! The horror! There is no indication that any of these emails were ever hacked and it is even likely that her private email server was just as secure as the general email used by the Dept of State. Any classified emails/correspondence is handled on a separate more secure system at Dept of State. Also, I know you, FOX propaganda (I won’t call it news) Giuliani and Trump want to think there is something nefarious about these 33k deleted emails….but you know what…the FBI knows what was on most of those emails…how? Because they were sent to other people at DoS…every email sent by Hillary to someone…so when they did they investigation that got tens of thousands of the other side of the conversation emails. Unless you think she was emailing Putin…there is nothing to this ‘scandal’.”
3. The Clinton Foundation
   There has been no evidence of any explicit quid pro quo of Hillary Clinton influencing State Department policy as a result of donations by individuals, companies or governments, and the foundation has announced that if she becomes president it will stop taking new contributions from foreign and corporate donors. Oh, and the Clinton Foundation is rated a 94.74 out of 100 by independent charity rating organization, Charity Navigator, and they report 86.9% of the money the Clinton Foundation raises actually goes to charity.

Here’s what I think. I think much of Trump’s support is the last gasp of maintaining a system of white privilege in this country, and the slogan “Make America Great Again” refers to a time like the 1950’s when blacks had to sit in the back of public buses, Latinos were primarily south of the border, and women were home in the kitchen. And that’s where the hate for Hillary Clinton comes from. In a 1992 interview during the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton made a statement that set the tone for the hatred of her by a large base of Trump supporters now some 24 years later…

“I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas. But what I decided to do was pursue my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life.”

Some people just aren’t comfortable with strong women who make no apologies about it.