I saw an American flag flying on a car while I was on my way to the grocery store and a thrill of fear ran down my spine. Same when I saw the American flag flying in front of a neighbor’s house the day after the election. Later on, I saw three American flags in the user name of a troll on Twitter, and that jolt of fear came again.
I had felt the same fear once before for a sustained period of time. It was after 9/11, when American flags started flying everywhere. To me, the flag had become a symbol of empty jingoism, rabid nationalism, and the opposite of patriotism. It was used to shut up dissenters, those who protested the invasion of Iraq. We were right, by the way, though many people prefer to retcon their memories of how they acted during that time. The flag was shorthand for, “Get out of this country, you traitor,” and since then, I have had an aversion to it.
This time, the flag is a replacement for the ‘don’t tread on me’ logo and the Confederate flag. It says, “Get out, Chink. You’re not welcome.” It’s not a coincident that they’ve sprung up in my very Democratic neighborhood as it’s a way to signal other like-minded people that a friend resides within. It’s meant to intimidate those who don’t feel the same or who are not of the majority, and in places where there are more who think like that than not, it will probably do the trick.
I’ve been in a state of disbelief since the election results were called. Everything I’ve seen since has done nothing to assuage me or my fears. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus? Steve Bannon as Chief Strategist, whatever that means. A man who has never served in any capacity, political or military is about to be president, and he’s filling his Cabinet with equally (un)qualified members. The fucking media, who have aided and abetted in the rise of Trump, are acting as if this is business as usual. They’re pretending that there’s nothing different about this transaction than any other in the past. They’ve aided the Republicans in entreating liberals to ‘heal’ and ‘get along’ with Republicans, which is hypocrisy in the highest order. Eight years of obstruction and shooting down anything PBO suggested, and they want us to acquiesce to them? The appalling thing is that many Democrats have indicated that they’ll do just that.
One exception is Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. He released a blistering statement condemning the words and actions of Trump. The whole thing is searing, but the last two paragraphs are the best:
If this is going to be a time of healing, we must first put the responsibility for healing where it belongs: at the feet of Donald Trump, a sexual predator who lost the popular vote and fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate. Winning the electoral college does not absolve Trump of the grave sins he committed against millions of Americans. Donald Trump may not possess the capacity to assuage those fears, but he owes it to this nation to try.
If Trump wants to roll back the tide of hate he unleashed, he has a tremendous amount of work to do and he must begin immediately
Senator Reid nails it when he says the onus of ‘healing’ the country is on Donald Trump as he is the one who inflicted the wound in the first place (and is still doing so). One tweet that has stayed with me is (and I paraphrase), “You cannot heal what you choose to deny.” In other words, don’t piss on me and tell me it’s rain. Trump and his campaign has spent the last eighteen months relentlessly ginning up hatred against the other, and his choices for his Cabinet have indicated that he’ll continue to do so. Even if he doesn’t, it’s up to him to allay the hatred that he has stoked across the country. It’s up to the Republicans to reassure Americans that they’re not going to burn down the country for their own selfish purposes.
Side note: Liberals, can we please stop with the constant in-fighting? We are so fucking good at tearing each other apart, and it’s killing us as well as the country. Nothing warms my heart more than seeing liberals shoot down ideas of other liberals. That’s sarcasm, in case you can’t guess. If you don’t like something other liberals are doing such as protesting or wearing the safety pin, then don’t do it, but for fuck’s sake, why do you have to shit on other people trying to do some good? There isn’t one sure way to combat what’s about to come, so why not let people find their own way? In addition, just because a person is doing one thing, it doesn’t mean they aren’t doing other things as well. I want to propose a rule. If you’re going to shit on what other people are doing, you have to suggest a concrete solution to replace it.
Look, I know we liberals need to do some deep self-reflection on how we fucked this up so badly, but can we please do it together? Is that really too much to ask? I remember back in the W. years, we operated much in the same way, and look where it got us.
I’ve been thinking about candidate Obama lately because he really was remarkable. A skinny, young black man with big ears and a bigger smile from Illinois who didn’t have much experience in politics, but had a dazzling presence and was an electric speaker. Many on the left said it was too early, that he should wait, that it was Hillary Clinton’s turn. He didn’t pay them any attention, and despite incredible odds, he became the Democratic nominee for president in 2008.
There’s a lot of talk about what Clinton did wrong. Some of it valid, some of it not. There’s a lot of talk on the left about the working class white feeling neglected, and a lot of push back on that. There is talk on the left about making poor white people the center focus of the DNC, and you can imagine the push back to that as well. My take? Well, this is why I was thinking so much about candidate Obama. He was a brilliant speaker (still is), and one of his knacks is making you feel as if he’s talking directly to you. One of the reasons I felt so passionate about him was because he mentioned Asians, queers, and nonreligious people in his speeches. It sounds like such a little thing, but it has never been done before. He was very vocal on inclusion, but he never neglected the majority as well. There was a spike in voting turnout during his two elections, and then it dropped back this year to what is more normal.
This has led me to conclude that he was an exceptional candidate. It would behoove us to study what he did and to, not replicate it, but find someone who has similar attributes. I’m not just talking about his fantastic speaking skills and his charisma, but his positivity and his effortless way at making people feel included. When he told the story about the being a tired candidate, flying out to South Carolina, I think it was, to visit a small county in which the congressperson promised to endorse him if he spoke to her constituents. He agreed and arrived at midnight. He had to leave at five the next morning. There were twenty people there. He started giving the speech. He added that he didn’t want to be there, and neither did the constituents. Sometime during his speech, a woman yelled, “Fired up.” Everyone else answered, “Fired up!” She added, “Ready to go!” They responded, “Ready to go!”
PBO got some laughs, then added that this continued to happen throughout the speech. He said, “The funny thing is, I was beginning to get a little fired up! I was getting ready to go!” He found out that this woman went around to meetings and did this all the time, so people knew what to expect. He said that for the rest of the day, he’d say to his staff, “Are you fired up?” They’d say, “Fired up, boss!” He’d add, “Are you ready to go?” They’d respond, “Ready to go!” He went on to say how one person can change things, and damned if I didn’t believe him. My point is, he recognized this was a game changer, and he added it to his repertoire. Candidate Obama preached hope and change, and he effortlessly took the high road every time he had people throwing shit at him. He appealed to our better nature, and I believe that’s part of the reason so many people voted for him.
Let’s be real about the loss. There were many people who don’t like the Clintons. At all. Clinton’s numbers were never very strong, and it does no good to say it’s because of the media. Yes, the media has pushed a relentless campaign against the Clintons for the past twenty-five years, but we knew that when we chose her as our candidate. We chose to delude ourselves that we could convince the American people that what they’ve been told for a quarter of a century was just bollocks. I want to emphasize that I’m not saying the picture of Clinton was an accurate one, but it was a widely-believed one.
What we want reality to be isn’t what it is most of the time. It’s easy to get caught up in a bubble, especially on line. There is a video from over a year ago with Rep. Keith Ellison saying that we have to take a Trump candidacy seriously, and the others on the panel are snickering. We were so fucking sure that there was no way Trump would win, we took a victory lap before the votes were even cast. We made excuses for any tightening of the polls, and we simply refused to consider the possibility.
We have to come to terms with that now, and we have to figure out a way to do better, in the short term and in the long term. If we don’t, and if we survive the next four years, we’ll need a plan. So let’s get cracking.