This is going to be some brief post election musings as I want to process and grieve the shock of Trump’s victory before I write things I might regret. Plus, so much ink has already been spilt a mere 24 hours after the event, that I’m not sure my adding to them at the moment is particularly helpful.
I am devastated and bewildered by Trump’s victory. I took all day yesterday to grieve and mourn after having stayed up all night last night to watch the results slowly trickle in. I am in the UK, so the five hour time difference means I had to stay up and watch the whole brutal thing. I really thought we’d have elected a President Clinton by no later than 2 or 3 a.m. my time. I never went to bed the night of the 8th/9th. Another reason for my silence yesterday! I was too tired and depressed to say anything, so had to practice some self-care by having coffee with a good friend, having a skype conversation with a mentor, by eating nice food and having a few martinis last evening as I blobbed in front of Netflix!
As you know, in my last blog, I told you how I had donned my pantsuit and a purple blouse (one of the suffragette colors) and I fully expected that we’d be celebrating the victory of the first female President on the 9th of November. Boy did I feel stupid, ashamed, and embarrassed when I was proven wrong and Donald Trump was elected. I thought I had a better sense of the pulse of the American people than that! As a political junkie, I thought the polls were right. I even thought Nate Silver and the fivethirtyeight polls were being overly pessimistic! So, believe me, I am off to read what went wrong, reflect and hear the voices that this election gave voice too. I want to learn and listen and understand all voices of America better.
I feel much like a bride must feel on her wedding day, all dressed up in white (also a color the suffragettes wore), ready and eager, waiting full of confident expectation for the bridegroom to show up. I sat huddled wrapped up in my throw rug on the sofa for hours as I watched CNN waiting for the results to trickle in. Surely now he will appear? Come on Florida! Come on Ohio, come on home state Pennsylvania, and come on adopted state, Virginia, deliver me my heart’s desire! But, one by one they all deserted me, with only Virginia delivering the result I hoped for, and even then, begrudgingly and belatedly.
As you know the bride groom never showed up. And even worse, the maid of honor, the Senate mocked me and supported my rival as many of my wedding guests, the House of Representatives. They all went Republican and gave my bitter rival their unadulterated love and support. Now what? I was and still am devastated. I am currently going through the five stages of grief, denial being the most prominent one at the moment. I keep saying to myself, my heart’s desire, electing the first female president, didn’t really abandon me at the altar? It turns out that she didn’t, but was unfortunately blocked this time from arriving.
The popular vote, in all its multi-colored and multi-gendered glory went for Clinton, and did represent the vast glorious diversity of these United Sates. Small consolation I know. Although at this moment, I will take consolation wherever I can, especially given the overwhelming and unbridled power people have given to the new President elect who for the rest of the blog will be referred to as he who shall not be named.
There are other consolations though and I take heart in them. Those of you like me who are devastated by the result, can take consolation from them as well. Congressional elections resulted in three new women being elected to the Senate and one being new one being elected to the House of Representatives. These are women, who represent the diversity of this great nation of ours. They are women who have not only overcome sexism, but they’ve also overcome racism and disability to become Senators and Congresswomen. Their battle was far harder than those of white American women like myself and should be triply celebrated. They are as follows: Tammy Duckworth, a biracial Vietnamese-American woman and double amputee who lost her legs serving her country in Iraq who was elected to become a new Senator for Illinois; Kamala Harris, the second African American woman and first Indian American woman to become a senator was elected to become a Senator for California; Catherine Cortez Masto the first Latina to become elected as a Senator, elected to be a Senator from the state of Nevada; Pramila Jayapal, elected to become the first South Asian American woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and who will represent the state of Washington’s seventh congressional district. Well done you wonderful women! For more information https://www.bustle.com/articles/194199-these-4-congresswomen-are-making-history-after-the-2016-election
I also admire the olive branch President Obama, former Secretary of State and ex-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders, extended to the President elect. I daresay, he who not shall not be named and his supporters would not have been as gracious (and already much has already come out in the media about how they are not being gracious and magnanimous in their victory). The speeches of these Democratic leaders after the speeches after the election results were announced have been magnanimous, open, and have done much to uphold and support the institutions of our democracy.
Like them, I will work with him where his agenda is to serve the poor and those who’ve been forgotten by globalization. But, I will continue to call him and his followers out where their rhetoric and policies continue to support racism, sexism, and bigotry. I will not be silenced. I will seek spaces of reconciliation where we can work for the greater good of the country. But, as a true patriot who loves America, I will not cease from being a critical friend and a patriotic dissident who will call American and it’s leaders out for where they are not modeling and upholding the greatness and goodness of this nation.
I will call them out when they’re acting homophobic, I will call them out for saying racist things, I will call them out when they are behaving in misogynistic ways and saying misogynistic things. Note that I am not saying they *are* these things. I respect that they are human beings with dignity and put their pants on one leg at a time. However, that said, it doesn’t mean that they always behave in good and appropriate ways and that their actions and words often serve to demean to goodness, dignity and humanity of human beings that aren’t like them. So I will call them out on it.
Okay, more anon. But, rest assured, I will not be silent.