Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Election Thoughts

I braved Facebook a little bit last night but was too bothered by the deluge of other people's outrage and emotional reactions. It's clear that, like my literal demographic surroundings, my Friends circle was not a fan of Trump. Can I just quickly offer my own election musings?

So I voted 3rd party and it was my first time. I pretty much equally disdained both Clinton and Trump and, knowing for a while now that I wouldn't like the result of the election either way, I'd already covered the steps of grief and just watched the election as a neutral observer. It was a fascinating experience! Here were my own reactions:

Watching the results come in as unexpected States favored red, it was hil-arious to watch the news commentators. They were completely incredulous. Stupefied! I know an election is serious stuff, but I totally wanted to get some popcorn and snuggle in to just laugh at their stunned faces. As they asked "what went so wrong?" and "how could the polls have been so off?" and the like, I really got a kick out of it. I may disagree with Trump on many, many things, but I admit I loved the slap in the face this is to "media", Hollywood stars, outspoken liberals, Californians, city folk, and the like who presume to think that their endorsements and world views are tantamount to everyone else's, their thinking that they are so important and hold so much swaying power. Maybe it goes back to my friend-bubble, but I certainly saw waaaaay more negative memes, ads, press, etc for Trump than I did for Hillary. I doubt he needed the help, but social and traditional media went to town making Trump look ridiculous and he STILL won! Hahahaha.

As the reporters all threw around various theories about what the heck was going on, one of them brought up the point that there were many people who voted for Obama in both previous elections, who voted for Trump this time. MANY people. He postured, could it possibly be that this wasn't a racism issue like so many want to accuse, but in fact, that there are some who genuinely liked his policies better than Hillary's? A politician from Michigan went so far as to say that many people in his state, though dismayed by some of Trump's social comments and behavior, cared MORE about the economic effects of policies like trade agreements and immigration in their own lives. It irritates me immensely that you can't support one person over another without being accused of racism or sexism.

Regarding the Republican sweep in the rest of the government: to my virtue or to my fault I'm extremely loyal. I don't give up old connections easily at all. Although my political views have broadened, I'm still technically a Republican and most likely will always favor them over Democrats in the general sense. So, I kind of enjoy the overall results of the election in that way. Aside from that inner bias, here are a couple other things I've concluded: Trump may be a wackadoo in some areas, but thankfully many of the status-quo Republicans didn't and don't support him. Therefore I have trust in the checks-&-balances system that even being full of members of the same party, I think Trump's craziest schemes won't see fruition. On the other hand, having split parties is a recipe for nothing to ever change and nothing to ever get done. I'm intrigued to see what kinds of things might happen now that there's such a strong majority - and WAY more interested in seeing what these happenings are when it's the (slightly) more conservative party being that majority.

Now the big question: As all the reporters last night talked about needing to do some soul searching as a result of this election going so horribly awry from their expectations and hopes, what exactly will they find when they search their souls?

1 comment:

Laura said...

I echo your thoughts. I also voted 3rd party for the first time ever. The thing abt the commentators that amazed me (in a bad way) is that none of them pointed out the trust issue. Hillary went into this knowing she had trust issues, but still she lied abt the emails, cheated Bernie in the primaries, cheated in the debates w. Trump. It became appallingly clear that that she had the DNC in her pocket. When its leaders were found to be cheating in her favor, she moved those players to nice new jobs. She never disavowed their dishonesty. Do the commentators think we all didn't see this? Do they think everyone is willing to overlook such compulsive dishonesty? Their bias disgusts me.
I am happy to see Gary Johnson's little 3% is enough to deny any claim to a mandate or huge popularity. Mission accomplished.