Here's something I guess I need to vent/rant about before trying to go to sleep. I don't personally identify as a Republican, a Democrat, a Liberal or a Conservative. I don't believe in Red vs Blue, because I don't think there are only two sides to an argument or subject when it comes to matters like social issues, economics or international affairs. Context, nuance and shades of grey matter when it involves people's lives and livelihoods. I am not, in any way, a fan of Hillary Clinton. However, I am deeply saddened and appalled by the circumstances that have now seen us elect someone like Donald Trump into the nation's highest office.
I think it's unfair and inaccurate to say that Trump supporters are all racists, but it is also an injustice to overlook and ignore the clear racism that has followed the man since the 70s when he was found to be illegally refusing to rent apartments to minorities. Regardless of what Trump supporters or the Internet tries to tell you, (that Trump was never accused of racist behavior until running for president) his reprehensible behavior regarding minorities and women goes back decades and is a matter of public record.
If you hold Clinton's feet to the fire for failing the men who died in Benghazi, I don't see how you can justify voting for a man advocating for more lenient usage of nuclear weapons. If you think Obama and Clinton have been disrespectful or bad for our military, I don't understand how voting for a man who blatantly insults a Gold Star family and a genuine war hero like John McCain (regardless of what anyone feels for McCain's politics) rectifies that.
If you're offended that Bill Clinton was/is a serial adulterer (though he wasn't running for president this time around) and that Hillary attacked/influenced the women who accused him of sexual assault, I don't see how voting for a man who openly bragged about sexually assaulting women makes that any better.
If you were angry that Hillary Clinton is a part of the political establishment, I don't see how a Trump vote undoes that. The establishment is a combination of politicians and big business interests. Trump is every bit a part of the big business side of that establishment as Hillary is the political side. It looks like he tried to bribe an official in Florida to prevent a Trump University investigation. Newsweek uncovered illegal business dealings in Cuba during the embargo. He brags about manipulating his tax filings to pay as little as possible and using the loopholes that politicians granted to people like him. Trump has never been anti-establishment- he's a direct product of it.
If you view Hillary Clinton as dishonest and untrustworthy, I think that's fair. But Trump is proven to lie repeatedly even about things he just said in recent history, so how is he a more honest choice? He simply isn't. Talking in a way to inflame people isn't more honest. It's simply rhetoric. Trump is a proven, habitual liar. He always has been.
If you view Hillary as a war hawk who was behind a lot of the unrest in the Middle East, I don't think voting for a man cozying up to Vladimir Putin and talking about using nukes is a solution to that problem. Trump's advocated for actual war crimes by killing the innocent family members of suspected terrorists as a deterrent. Really think about that and the possible consequences of it. That's how groups like ISIS gain strength and leverage, because we give them a cause.
If you viewed Obamacare as a disaster that was negatively affecting your finances, that's a fair conversation to have. But why vote for the guy who basically said he'd blow up the existing system without putting forth any concrete ideas or plans on what would replace it? What about those people with pre-existing conditions who finally have insurance for perhaps the first time in their lives?
All of that's water under the bridge now, because Trump is going to be president. And while a Trump voter can claim that race and sex played no role in why he or she voted for him, it is impossible to turn a blind eye to the racism, misogyny and general ugliness that have permeated his entire campaign. What a vote for him does say is that those issues don't matter nearly as much to you as, for example, the economy or health insurance or "never Hillary no matter what."
And that's the part that's sad to me. Because we, as a nation, just told a large part of our people that their rights, their safety and their quality of life don't matter nearly as much as ours does.
We just told women that their body autonomy doesn't matter. We just told peaceful American Muslims that their Constitutional right to privately practice their religion in their own homes and places of worship doesn't matter anymore. We just told people of color that their complaints, feelings and treatment in society don't matter.
Trump has encouraged people at his rallies to attack and beat up people who disagree with him. (Remember when he told one assailant he'd pay his legal bills?) He's threatened to jail members of the press and his political opponent when there are no investigations that turned up any criminal wrong-doings. (You can disagree with those investigations and their thoroughness, but regardless that's the system that we have in place and we can't jail people "just because.") He's shown either complete ignorance or complete dishonesty in his statements about abortion, and those ignorant or dishonest views (rip the baby out days before birth, as an example) can have very real, long lasting and devastating effects on women and families across the country. These aren't hypotheticals anymore. This is all a reality come January.
Trump's talked about assigning judges who could overturn marriage equality. If you agree with that assessment, it's likely on religious grounds. But the Constitution, the one that Trump keeps promising to defend, guarantees a separation between church and state. Laws can't be enacted on religious grounds, and one religion cannot hold favor over another. Yet, this man wants to ban Muslims, who are simply followers of a religion, and treat the LGBT community like second-class citizens to appeal to a religious contingent that has no right being involved in law-making to begin with.
We talk all about the concept of consent and how important it is prior to engaging in any sort of sexual contact, and in the same breath elect a man who brags that he can grab a woman anywhere on her body he chooses and do anything that he wants to her because he's famous.
I don't like Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump makes me sick.
But Donald Trump will be the President. So now, it really does fall to all of us. Women as a group are more vulnerable now than they were yesterday. People of color are as well. Muslims. Immigrants. The LGBT community. We're talking millions and millions of people have just been potentially marginalized in the span of one night. That fucking matters.
THAT IS IMPORTANT. THEY ARE IMPORTANT.
So now it's more important than ever to look around us and defend the rights of our fellow citizens when they are in danger of being infringed. We have to call out sexual harassment when we see it. Or gay bashing. Or someone making a racist remark. We have to take a more active role in local governments and look out for each other, because I don't think the people running the country will be in a Trump regime unless you're white, male and affluent.
We can't blame a Trump presidency simply on racism or sexism. But we also can't have a Trump presidency and still try making the tired argument that rape culture isn't a thing and that racism doesn't permeate almost every element of society. Tonight, in my opinion, our government failed us and we failed our government. Now let's just try not to fail each other as we move forward into whatever happens next.