I have never felt more like a stranger in my own land than right now. I have been grappling with so many emotions over the past 36 hours. This is not just about politics, it’s not about my candidate not winning. This is about human decency. This isn’t about right and left. It’s about two very different worlds. Nearly half of my fellow Americans who voted (Clinton WON the popular vote) clearly hold something as most important, that I just don’t understand. And now the rest of the world knows exactly what America does — and does not — value.
To those of you who live in the fear, anger and hatred Trump fed that precipitated this — I am deeply ashamed for you. And incredibly disappointed that this is the kind of person so many of us are: willing to put a violent, admitted sexual predator, racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobic, incompetent, lying, racketeering, volatile, uncontrollable man in charge of this country.
Your vote tells me that you don’t really care about minorities, or women, or the LGBT community, or the disabled, or immigrants, or the majority of Americans living hand to mouth. That you don’t care about most groups you aren’t part of, as long as you get yours. Your brokenness has now broken this country wide apart.
I don’t think these people really know what they want, or really thought through what this means for this country. I suppose they were looking for someone to tell them he’s got their back — even if he’s lying to them. The horrific, unacceptable, hate-filled things he’s done and said — his very character? Guess that doesn’t matter much.
What’s just as scary as President Trump is this new GOP Senate and House. We have already been losing ground on so many civil rights issues that have been taken for granted for years: the right to control our own body, the right to love whom we choose to love, the right for ALL to pursue the American dream, the right to hold our own religious beliefs and opinions.
Now those steps backwards are going to turn into massive landslides as this frightening administration tears through decades of progress. I’m distressed, sad and discouraged. So discouraged. If you think this is just that I can’t abide anyone who doesn’t agree with me — you couldn’t be more wrong. This is about basic humanity, and the values that any person who would vote for someone like Trump must hold. This is about exactly what you’re aligning yourself with, and embracing, when you supported Trump. And that I cannot tolerate nor forgive.
And if you think I am being overly dramatic or this is not important, then you are a HUGE part of the problem. Check back with me in 4 years when you see what this country is like. When the rights and progress that we’ve painfully made over decades, that many have lost their lives over in fact, have been dismantled and left lying in shambles. Come to me then, and explain again your vote.
I am instituting a “NO hypocrisy” rule for my page. If you voted for Trump, do not DARE have the audacity to like or comment positively on ANYTHING I post that embodies values different from the ideology that your vote clearly states that you truly believe in. If that’s who you are going to be, the least you can do is own it. Don’t pretend you’re something you aren’t.
Though I’m still reeling with all these emotions, at least I can sleep with my own clear conscience. My values, my humanity, my belief in equality and social justice, have not been compromised. I will be bigger and better than this.
But I have lost hope for this country, truly and deeply, right now. I hope one day to find it again. In the meantime, we will do what we can to heal and try to move forward.
Be careful what you wish for (and got), America.
