Article #15: Talk To Me America

I’m an independent voter. Sure I have leanings towards the liberal side, but I place more emphasis on the equality for all part of the Constitution and not so much the party lines (it wasn’t so long ago that Republicans were more like Democrats and vice versa, anyway).

You can have your guns, but is a grace period too much to ask to keep automatic weapons out of the hands of someone making an impulse purchase? Please, feel free to practice your religion no matter what I might think about its core values, but you can’t force people to live their lives according to your rules of spiritual conduct. I agree abortion is not a nice thing, but can’t we focus instead on prevention of the pregnancy rather than trying to police a woman’s uterus and judge her for having to make rock-and-hardplace decisions?

Tell me what it means when half of the population of my country have voted and shown that they want change no matter the cost. There aren’t that many evangelicals out there that can make a presidential race this close. That means, that people of all walks, in some percentage, voted for Trump over Hillary. Thirty percent of the population are white males. That’s not enough votes.

I am trying to understand why because I need to be able to explain it to my seven-year-old who was shocked that the “mean guy” won.

I am shocked and dismayed that so many women voted for Trump. And not just for Trump, the man who is his running mate who thinks that there is such a thing as “Gaydom” that can be cured. Trump said the women who have accused him of sexual assault weren’t attractive enough to be groped by him. People found that funny? In a society where there is a not-so-subtle message that woman are supposed to be thankful for the attention of men, that the catcalls they get on the street are no-big-thing and are harmless, it worries me that so many women have overlooked and brushed that aside. Do the women who voted for Trump not believe the accusations? Do they think Trump was just joking when he said the things he did? Do they think that since you can’t throw a rock in Washington without hitting an adulterer or philanderer — and that it likely wouldn’t be particularly difficult to find a pedophile or rapist in the mix — that it’s not a consideration? Do they hate Hillary more than they hate men who grope women? How is that possible? How is the safety and value of women placed lower than everything else?

What am I missing?

Why did people vote for Trump. Help me to understand. I know for sure that Trump voters are angry with the status quo. I think we’d find that the majority of Americans are regardless of their party preference or stance on hot topics. That can’t be the only deciding factor could it? People so fed up that they’d vote for a person that they, by majority, agree is underqualified and not of sound temperment to lead!?

Is this the equivalent of tossing in ton of political C4 into the White House and accepting the casualties?

Trump promised to undo LGBT rights that have finally been put into place and let the states handle it individually. History has shown us that when it comes to discrimination there are far too many states where the majority of the population are more than happy to discriminate and repress and allow misconduct to continue unchecked. If people think that racism, sexism, and homophobia aren’t a problem, they’ve been living in a bubble.

We have a Constitution because the founders of this country were imperfect people who understood that people can be assholes and that if they really wanted to uphold equality they had to make damn sure that the desires of the repressors didn’t outweigh the needs of the repressed. Our Constitution allows us to fix injustices and protect the people who have the minority voices. We even had to amend it to emphasize equality for all means equality for all because the founders had to make some concessions to get it signed in the first place. That’s politics for you.

Seventy-five percent of the population is Christian. Yet, there are people (not just evangelicals) that claim that their rights are being trampled on and that gay marriage affects their marriages and their lives.

When gay marriage (just like interracial marriage) became legal. Do you know what happened to other marriages?

Absolutely, nothing.

The only people who were affected by the law were the people seeking marriage. If you weren’t gay, then it didn’t apply to you.

Shocker.

It can’t be because of Obamacare. Our healthcare system has been broken a long time and an attempt was made to fix it. It wasn’t exactly successful, but nor was it a complete failure. How can preventing insurance companies from dropping your policy for a pre-existing condition be a bad change? Do we have to toss out the good just because it was a Democrat that got it through? Here is a novel idea, how about we keep the good stuff and just focus on fixing the parts of our health care system that still need fixing?

Some states voted to legalize marijuana, so I was thinking the attitudes of 2016 had become quite progressive.

I am unsure what to think.

I am hoping Trump amped up his jerkitude to appeal to the Kardashian-infused social media world who get distracted at shock and awe. Could it be that Trump picked his running mate just to get the ultra-conservative vote and intends to pat the guy on the head and send him to collate somewhere with a Swingline? Did Trump promise to build a wall to appeal to the people who have forgotten the folly of building walls (Is it to keep “them” out or to keep you in?) and will promptly forget he ever said it? Was he deliberately using racial slurs to draw out the bigots and racists to vote for him to give him an edge in the race? Were his hidden supporters the ones coming out of the woodwork because they were pissed that a multi-racial man got into the White House on their watch for two terms, and they needed to make damn sure some woman didn’t get in there next?

Tell me that Trump lied to get votes just like other politicians have done so that he could get his business foot in the door.

And if that’s not the case, please tell me that the Republican majority is going to keep a sharp eye on Trump and look out for all of us and reduce the deficit and build-up, rather than trying to undo human rights and women’s rights to their own bodies. After all, we have elected people to government who have hidden their misogyny and bigotry. At least this time, we can see the target and potentially get him to behave himself.

Because only 10% of the population that voted for him could actually like him right?

The rest just said, “Fuck it, let’s start a shit storm and see what happens.”

I hope you know what you are doing because now I’m on this ride with you.

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