Post Election Thoughts – Or Why We Shouldn’t Panic
I want to say right off the bat that I voted a straight democratic ticket. While I’m actually more conservative than most democrats, there are a few issues I just can’t compromise upon, so believe me when I say that I was less than thrilled with the outcome of yesterday’s election. That being said…
This is not the end of the world.
Many of my liberal friends were absolutely and utterly convinced that Trump could not and would not win. I wasn’t so sure. In fact, I’ve had a sickening feeling for weeks now that the results were going to turn out pretty much as they have done. Last night, following my facebook feed, I saw people well and truly terrified: that they were going to die, that they would lose their health care, that they would be rounded up and sent to concentration camps, and even a few who are seriously contemplating suicide (please, please talk to someone) because they are so incredibly frightened. To all these hurting, scared people, I want to say, “breathe.” I do not think this is going to be quite so bad as you fear. In fact, many of the things that you’re afraid of now, are things conservatives feared when Obama was elected (no joke, and something I’d forgotten until a friend reminded me).
Two things are important now, well, three actually:
- Grieve. I realize for many of you this was a horrifying shock. It’s natural to have an emotional response to that. It’s normal. Let it run its course and seek out whatever support you need.
- Don’t let fear rule you. The truth is that we don’t know what Mr. Trump is going to be like in office. There are many, many democrats still in powerful positions, and our governmental system was designed on a system of checks and balances. I understand that you are afraid, but breathe; and finally,
- Start planning for mid-term elections. If you don’t like the way this election turned out, start looking ahead at midterm elections, campaigning, writing your representatives, etc. Get more involved in the political process. The world is not going to end. We are not all going to die.
Now for the less popular part of this piece…
I want to say a few words about why I think Mr. Trump won. His victory didn’t surprise me. Part this is because I’ve traveled in middle American, away from the cities within the past three months and I’ve seen the support that he garnered and partly because I don’t just watch mainstream news sources. I watch those news outlets, but I also watch conservative and foreign news outlets. If you only watch mainstream news, then of course it’s easy to think that Trump is the devil, Cheetoh-Hitler, and that this is the collapse of liberty. A broader perspective might be in order.
I think it’s easy when living in a city (like New York, for instance where I work) or working in a largely liberal setting (like academia) or talking only with friends who think similarly to assume that our political views are the correct ones and I see people guilty of this all the time (I see it in myself in the utter contempt in which I hold anti-choice advocates). It’s easy to ignore the other sides’ concerns and I think that’s a good part of what happened. I think that many liberals are convinced that they are morally superior and that if everyone were as educated and enlightened then of course they would support the liberal position. That attitude fosters neither dialogue nor understanding (and let’s be fair, it’s not much better on the other side of the equation). I saw a lot of contempt flying on both sides of the election and I saw very specific concerns not only left unaddressed by the democrats, but treated with outright contempt. As one of my teachers once told me: the moment your contempt shows, you’ve lost.
I’ve been hearing a lot of people saying that a vote for a Trump presidency is a vote for misogyny, racism, and homophobia. I don’t actually think that’s true, though I do certainly see those things in a percentage of his voters. I simply don’t think that Hillary addressed concerns over illegal immigration and Muslim terrorism, two key areas of concern I see in my very conservative friends. I also think that a vote for Trump was a vote against a radical SJW agenda. Let’s just say that riots caused by BLM did not help the democratic cause. Things like this and this and this really did not inspire confidence. I’ve seen consistent concerns about a threat to free speech and personal liberty, concerns that I absolutely admit to sharing, in conservatives and Hillary’s campaign not only refused to address that but mocked it.
My point is not to assign blame. Someone asked me today what good if any do I see able to come from these election results and I think that it’s a good opportunity to consider our differences and the way we approach them, to look at the bigger picture and what serves our country best in the long run. Where were mistakes made and how can that be corrected in the future?
Maybe first, to believe that there is a future and that there are things that we can do.
I’m horrified at the level of raw terror amongst so many within our communities, fear of loss of life and liberty. Now more than ever is the time for dialogue with those on the opposite end of the spectrum, and coming together within our own communities and groups. I don’t fear a Trump presidency. I’ll admit to fearing a Pence Presidency but I think we have it in our power to stop that in the future.
Other things to consider: almost immediately Trump dropped any “pro-life” statements from his agenda. His acceptance speech spoke of improving our infrastructure and tending to the cares of veterans (I’m not sanguine ever about any politician fulfilling campaign promises, but it’s significant, I think, that he did not mention God, family values, or any of the buzz words that insane evangelicals cling to, not even to give a passing nod to that group). Most of the states that went for Trump also legalized recreational marijuana. There were several important wins, including a first time Latina Senator and the first openly LGBT governor in OR. I don’t think things are quite as bleak as we may initially have supposed. I do think this is a wake up call for a liberal party disconnected from working class American concerns. Until a few years ago, Trump was a card carrying democrat. I think it’s important to remember that we don’t know what he really thinks on many issues and we may end up surprised.
I’ve had several relatives ask me how I could vote Hillary, when I don’t particularly like her and my answer is simple: this isn’t the quest for the holy grail. This isn’t some sublime mystical experience, it’s the very practical act of choosing the candidate that one believes will move this country toward the goals one wishes to see enacted. We make the best reasoned choice from the candidates given us. I don’t expect any politician to be lily white. If they weren’t corrupt, I suspect they wouldn’t have gotten as high in their political parties as they did. I’ve read political narratives from the ancient world through to our modern era and nothing ever really changes there. The ones who want power probably shouldn’t have it handed to them! We must, however, make do with what we have.
I read an interesting comment from a FB friend LF re. the Gods and this election. LF said that she couldn’t pray for the outcome of the election because the election of a country’s leader was something of the human realm. It was the responsibility of human beings – us—to do wisely and well. It wasn’t something in which the Gods should get involved (I’m simplifying her argument somewhat). That really stood out to me and I thought ‘yes, this is our job.’ Maybe we can use this election to consider how to approach that job well. I will say this, out of all the elections that I can remember, this one seems to have had people most furiously engaged. That’s a good thing: we should be invested and engaged in the future. Maybe with this election behind us, we can learn how to do that more effectively.
I’m going to end this with a quote by C. S. Lewis that a reader posted earlier today, food to consider, for those disappointed with this election’s outcome. It certainly made me reconsider:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. “
Posted on November 9, 2016, in Misc., Uncategorized and tagged don't panic, election results, politics. Bookmark the permalink. 26 Comments.
Gangleri's Grove 
Thank you!
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I am sticking to Fatalism and Ruthless opposition. I think you missed a lot of the Alt-Right and Stormwatch elements and you have not studied him as a businessman. I hope you are right but I doubt it and have to prepare and assume on the basis that you are wrong.
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good. I would much rather see that attitude than laying down and giving up because Trump was elected!
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Of course not! This is the time to show the benefits and strength of our beliefs! We never back down or give up, unless it is a ruse or there is a better prize. 😉
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I personally am pretty relieved he got elected. I really truly believe many important to me personal freedoms would be gone within a maximum of 3 years had she gotten elected. And corruption would have become the public face of government. Sorry, but as a better than average educated business owning woman I much prefer him. Now maybe we can get rid of the nightmare that is Obamacare and get something that actually might work.
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There was no difference between allowing a ruler to rule in Irish society in accordance with fír flatha and the Goddess of Sovereignty and doing things with the accordance of the Deities and powers of the Otherworld and the human world. (And the lack of Otherworld support for a human ruler is what lead to all the problems in the human world.) This is one of the prices, but also one of the great splendors, of Irish culture’s insistence that the human world and the Otherworld, while separate, bleed into one another constantly, and support one another. What we do here is echoed there, and what is done there is echoed and often manifested here. As the Hermetics said (and this is the correct translation, slightly paraphrased), “That which is lower is made from that which is higher, and that which is higher is made from that which is lower.” Without that principle in place, we could not do divination, for starters…nor could deification take place, either, or any Mystery initiation.
I suppose this is one of those many areas in which polytheists will differ strongly from monotheists (generally): I have a hard time “believing” in anything unless I have a direct experience of it, and my “belief” or lack thereof in anything cannot and does not change the nature of the thing itself.
I can’t believe anything the President-Elect has said thus far because so much of it has been proven demonstrably to be lies; so, why believe any of the campaign promises, or even the victory speech promises at this point? While Sec. Clinton did say that he deserves a chance to lead and to see if he can unite the country, and I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt on that (though his choice of VP has already called that into question), there’s so many warning signs against thinking that this is going to be an easy road for any of us who aren’t white, cis, het, able-bodied, working-class, Christian (preferably Evangelical) men, who are also lower on the education spectrum on the whole…many of them won’t be impacted by the changes that are afoot, so they won’t care when things aren’t as nice for those that they could care less about…and amongst those that they care less about are the Earth and all other living things on it. There will be more drilling, more fracking, more pipelines to fuel all of the factories that the President-Elect has promised to bring back to the U.S. so we can compete with China, and the tipping point we’re at now is going to be orders of magnitude worse in a few years…we may not realistically have until the mid-term elections to wait this out before the sea levels begin to rise dramatically and quickly.
Suicide’s daimones are a real load of shit-bags, and I’ve fought them off before; but the fact is, they don’t have the police and the military at their beck and call currently like the President-Elect will in about 78 days. In this, I am reminded of something Favorinus of Arles once said in relation to Hadrian, as transmitted in the Historia Augusta Hadrian 15: 12-13,
And once Favorinus, when he had yielded to Hadrian’s criticism of a word which he had used, raised a merry laugh among his friends. For when they reproached him for having done wrong in yielding to Hadrian in the matter of a word used by reputable authors, he replied: “You are urging a wrong course, my friends, when you do not suffer me to regard as the most learned of men the one who has thirty legions.”
The major difference there is that Hadrian–for all of his faults, actually was a pretty learned individual.
I do not remotely plan to sit this one out, or to go back in the various closets I have danced my way out of, or to shut my fuckin’ mouth; but I also think and know it will be (as Cú Chulainn once said) “not an extending of my life” to do so.
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You do realize he’s done a lot for LBGT in the past, and actually bought a country club (after he sued the shit out of it because it wouldn’t admit Latinos or Jews) so he could open it to minorities…..He’s not going to institute marshal law, take away your freedoms, or initiate death squads. He *is* going to (hopefully) deport a lot of illegals and create a lot of jobs.
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[By the way, it’s “martial law,” not “marshal law.”]
No one knows what he’s going to do for a fact…we can hope he won’t, but we really won’t be sure until he sits down and signs the first few bills and executive orders after his inauguration speech in January, and that’s 77 days away.
That Mike Pence is his Vice President is horrific…even if he got him on the ticket only to win the evangelical vote and then ditches any and all ideas Pence supports, that’s still cause for extreme suspicion. You do know what is on record about what Pence will do in the Trump administration? Pence will handle “all foreign and domestic affairs,” while Trump himself will “make America great again.” One of the domestic affairs involves things like the issue of not being fired from my job because of my gender identity or sexuality, or my religious practices, and Pence is very definitely not on the side of allowing “people like me” (and, religiously, “people like you,” too!) any of those rights.
Trump has disavowed what he’s done or said in the past so often over the last 18 months, it’s really impossible to say for certain what his policies are on any topic at present. His last policy statements were about the auto industry (in his rally Monday night) and rebuilding the country’s infrastructure (in his victory speech last night), and while both of those seem good, and I am personally in support of them, if they happen with more fracking, drilling, mountaintop removal, and other things, and favor corporate profits over the lives of everyday people and environmental concerns (he also said he’d shut down the EPA and deregulate a lot of things put in place to prevent the faster advance of climate change) it’s not going to matter whether they’re good or not when the Earth starts revolting against humans by further earthquakes in Oklahoma and flooding on both coasts and worldwide, as well as who-knows-what-else. A job making cars in Michigan is going to mean very little when millions around the world die or are displaced by climate change.
The fact is, I don’t have as many freedoms as many people do because of certain aspects of my identity. What little I do have could be taken away…or it could not…but, the thing is, no one knows. And you saying that he won’t do these things is probably true, *for you*, but it may not be true for many of us.
If you are wrong (and by the grace of the many Gods, may you not be!), here’s my question: will you voice your dissent when they start coming to take certain people away? If the answer is yes, then we have no disagreement. If the answer is anything other than yes, then we should probably not continue this conversation longer. I’ll be very happy if my anxieties and my suspicions come to nothing, and will very readily admit that I was worried over nothing…but the realities of that will not become apparent until at least late January, and possibly not until later in 2017.
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Yes, it’s martial – too many hours awake, not enough sleep after being up too late election night can make for things that don’t look quite right (though spelled right) and I know it but can’t decide quite ‘why’ makes for strange word choices.
I stand up for people anyway. I once spent a night in jail for standing up for the right thing. I once nearly had my nursing license taken away for the same thing, because I was under investigation for being arrested (I was cleared). Is that enough for you?
If there’s one thing I am *not* it’s quiet about injustice or power hungry people who want to be big fish in a little pond, and take away the legal rights of others in my community. I got the chief of the local fire district fired because I exposed the corruption and cronyism. But I will say, the key words are “in my community.” I don’t have the mental or emotional energy to get involved in something clear across the country, let alone the world, and I certainly don’t have the time. I work 6 full days per week and clean my house/do laundry/take care of the yard on the 7th.
I really don’t understand why people think voting for Hillary was a better choice. She’s been no friend to the religious community either (unless it’s Jewish or Muslim). She’s been no friend to the LBGT community over the years, and she’s “flip flopped” on equally many issues….but I don’t see a lot of people on the left bringing that up. She didn’t give a crap about any of the LBGT issues until she wanted your vote. The difference is that she has been quiet and sneaky about her actions where Pence has been out in the open from the start. And other than his stance on abortion I am honestly unfamiliar with anything that he has said that you would be afraid of. He’s the governor of my former state, and my family doesn’t seem to have a problem living there safely and freely.
Quite frankly I think the average person is tired of feeling threatened by those who are so far on the left that they have no common ground whatsoever, and just want to be able to live their lives without fear of losing their jobs or homes for saying the wrong thing. And I have personally seen that happen. Recently. And reading the G&R blog only reinforces my feeling that those on the far left have, quite simply, gone too far. Now is the time for the pendulum to swing in the other direction for a time.
I don’t know what you teach, but I do think universities should not be “safe spaces” because life is not safe and people need to learn to deal with that. I have a lot more thoughts on that but Galina’s blog is not the place for them.
I don’t clearly fit on either side, left or right, because I think carefully about the bigger picture, not just what benefits me personally. For instance, my business matters to me because it provides an income for one person (not me unfortunately, and it would fold if Hillary were elected) and provides medical/nursing care to many in my community. What happens to it affects many more than just me. And if I were just thinking about me, I would still not have voted for Hillary. I might have voted for Jill Stein. Or Cthulhu, still undecided between those two. Either one would be able to accomplish just about as much as the other. Cthulhu would have been more interesting to watch, however….
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Responding to your other, longer comment, thetinfoilhatsociety:
What you’ve talked about in terms of your own record on standing up for others is so vague that I can’t really tell if what you’ve said is “good enough” for anything. Every time I’ve heard someone say “I have a horse in this race, too” about LGBTQQIA+ issues and advocacy around them, often because the person concerned has friends or family that are of those identities but are not of those identities themselves, the first chance to sell us down the river when demonstrable bigotry or threats occur is taken. It has happened to me more times than I can count.
I had heard of Mike Pence quite a bit before he became the Vice Presidential nominee of the President Elect. He is the first one to have introduced “religious freedom restoration acts” (RFRA) in Indiana in order to allow people to legally discriminate against LGBTQQIA+ people in public services and businesses based on their own religious convictions. His was the first state to do that, and many others followed suit. If you had not heard of that before, and your family has had no problem with what he did in that state, chances are it’s because it would not interfere with any of your abilities to use a public restroom, get treated by doctors and other medical personnel in a public hospital should some emergency medical treatment be needed, or any number of other things that make life difficult for queer and particularly non-cisgendered people at present. If that isn’t a threat to us to have such a person in the position of Vice President, and someone who furthermore Trump said would be “in charge of domestic affairs,” I don’t know what is.
No, Clinton was not my favorite candidate, and while she was not 100% fantastic on every issue, what I’m most concerned about is how she’d been most recently. When Obama took office, he was not pro-same-sex marriage either, but he eventually came around. When he took office, trans issues were not mentioned by any President or major political candidate, but now they are. Trump may not have said anything openly discriminatory toward queer peoples in recent history or during the campaign (I’m not thinking of any examples right off, though I may be wrong…I think he did comment on the trans restroom access matter at some point, though, and not in a favorable manner), but because Mike Pence has so openly flown the flag of not having any interest in even considering equal treatment or that various queer peoples are deserving of even the most basic considerations and human rights, respect, and dignity, that’s a HUGE matter to worry about going forward.
I teach at a community college (mostly social sciences–history, psychology, philosophy, and religious studies), and I tell my students on the first day of classes that while everyone is welcome and all are free to say whatever they want (so long as it respects all people and demeans no one), life is not safe, and that college is a welcoming space but not a safe space, and that we should work toward a “brave space” mentality where people take risks and work to refine their thoughts, and can make mistakes in an environment where they will not be excoriated for doing so, but will be held to a higher standard of not spouting ignorant things or treating people in a deplorable fashion. No, I’m not interested in making everyone toe a line of useless SJW rhetoric, nor in restricting free speech (and I’ve been the first and only person in many cases recently where I have defended Trump supporters from being badly mischaracterized for their choice of political candidate, which has made me unpopular with some faculty colleagues!); but if someone holds a view of an entire other group of people based on stereotypes or faulty information, that is something that should be discussed and addressed. It is not simply a matter of “political correctness” that people of various genders, sexual orientations, races, and physical ability levels (amongst other things) deserve respect and decent treatment on a basic level no matter what their own identities might be, that’s just being a good person and recognizing the commonalities of our humanity. Some will not ever agree with ideas involving acceptance of others, and that’s true of anything and everything; but, I can also maintain a space in my classes where someone who has views that will offend and demean others by their expression doesn’t have a chance to do so while they are in the forum I am moderating at that point. Ignorance about these matters can be educated; deep-seated hatreds cannot be.
Side-issue, but may as well address it here–if the first words on a comment you make on my blog are “I didn’t read the whole entry,” then your comment won’t be approved because you’re not well-informed enough to have anything useful to say. If any of my students began a comment in my class with “I didn’t read the chapter, but,” I’d cut them off and tell them to do their homework. I expect no less on my blog, where I try to foster respectful and informed discussion in the presence of my Deities, and if one is not informed at the most basic level what the discussion is actually about, one cannot (and should not attempt to) participate therein.
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if i’m wrong, and likewise i very much hope that i’m not, i will voice my dissent and do everything I can to help those in danger. that goes without saying.
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and actually PSVL, most people assume that I am gay, some that I am trans. It doesn’t matter that I’m a het white woman. that is not the perception and if things got that bad, I’d be on the chopping block too. let’s not pretend otherwise. I’m very well aware of that. NOt to mention, our religion.
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Oh, I know you’re on our side and are entirely with us, and would never let that kind of crap go by, Galina…I was mainly asking thetinfoilhatsociety if she would voice her dissent if she was wrong about Trump not instituting martial law, taking away people’s freedoms, or sending out death squads.
Today is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, so it’s on people’s minds…yesterday was the anniversary of Hitler’s first attempt to seize power. But what people forget about that situation is that he didn’t have to seize power, he was elected democratically and fairly. Let’s hope Trump is not in that mold, and instead is just this generation’s Warren G. Harding.
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For some reason I was unable to reply to your earlier comment so I replied to mine.
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I survived Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. Nixon is the standard for declaring martial law, etc. He was the one who subverted the Constitution, had the enemies list, and used the government for personal vendettas. That period nearly tore apart the country.We survived him. We will survive this.
And Nixon signed Title Nine, started the EPA, and opened China. He also met Vietnam protestors at the Lincoln Memorial. So, some good will come from this.
Trump doesn’t have the cunning that Nixon had nor the deep, deep hate in his heart that Nixon did. Just a friendly reminder. I believe that social media has a lot to do with spreading this fear and dread. People become a part of the fabric, and focus on the madness. Marshall McLuhan said the “medium is the message.”
From his website: McLuhan wrote with no knowledge of galvanic skin response technology, terminal node controllers, or the Apple Newton. He might not have been able even to imagine what a biomouse is. But he pointed the way to understanding all of these, not in themselves, but in their relation to each other, to older technologies, and above all in relation to ourselves our bodies, our physical senses, our psychic balance. When he published Understanding Media in 1964, he was disturbed about mankind’s shuffling toward the twenty-first century in the shackles of nineteenth century perceptions. He might be no less disturbed today. And he would continue to issue the challenge that confronts the reader at every page of his writings to cast off those shackles.
In other words the technology combined with our selves formed our perceptions. What is the reality? What is the truth? What is Trump really? Not what the memes say or the media say. Who is he? I think we need to understand that before being overcome by fear and panic.
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The “radical SJW agenda” is actually just Internet propaganda against (mostly) younger adults. If one looks at PEW research studies on Millennials and the generation below us that hasn’t been named yet, a lot of the reason for the “radical SJW” stereotype actually stems from the fact that we’re the most diverse cohort in American history. There’s a shock when dealing with members of older generations sometimes because even I am sometimes like, “OMGs did le really just say that?” because there are different standards of acceptability. My own mother has said offensive things about TQ people, and she’s been an indigenous rights supporter since the 1980s.
A lot of what people outside of our demographic call a SJW agenda is actually just normal college-educated Millennial brunch conversation. Most of us are not revolutionaries, and many of us care about fixing broken systems. Most of the BLM platforms are really just about reforms that will give POC in the USA the same dignity afforded to white Americans. One of the side effects of BLM, incidentally, is that a lot of POC are leaving Christianity to investigate their ancestral polytheistic traditions. I am very happy about that, and I think that this side effect of BLM makes Christian authorities very nervous.
On the other hand, we have a Hindu Congresswoman now who will take an oath over the Gita. I’m so super stoked for polytheist representation in our political system, even if we have to deal with conservative Christian policy overall.
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Might I recommend stepping outside of your echo chamber and taking a good, hard look at what’s actually happening in the world, particularly on our campuses?
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Galina, one of the reasons I read your blog is that I know that your opinions are different from mine, and I think that’s what you were getting at when you mentioned echo chambers. Please let me know if you meant it differently. I do actually share many of the concerns that you do on a variety of topics, but my life and experience have led me to different conclusions and courses of action.
We both work in higher education. I read the Chronicle and talk to colleagues on my campus about many of these issues and how they impact our roles. I’m reluctant to talk about this in detail because it’s a complicated topic that varies from institution to institution, but students do have real concerns. I think that this is also tangential and not precisely related to the point I was getting at regarding the generational-cultural divide.
The SJW issue, to recap what I said earlier, is partly an intergenerational translation error. There is actually tremendous opportunity for engagement on traditional polytheisms with my generation. How you approach these differences and this opportunity is really up to you. That’s really the only point I wanted to make.
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Rome actually prospered under Nero, if you ignore the fire of course. It was embarrassing, but survivable. I do spend a lot of time around Conservative “Christians”, and everything they do is for your own good, but they seem not to realize the representatives they’ve picked aren’t under their control. Expect them to become even more the moral contortionists than they usually are. In the end this is just a pendulum swing and balancing of the scales with a chance to drain the festering wound left by slavery, the Civil War and unfinished Civil Rights actions. The Left needs to learn that this psychic energy can’t be repressed it has to express itself before it can heal.
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As a follower of All-Father, I think Mr. Trump being elected is a great thing for our country. Now we can stop half handedly dealing with the greatest threat to our society, IS and radical Islam. We can put “boots on the ground” and end this war relatively quickly. Also, Mr. Trump will force people to be responsible for their own future and stop suckling from the teat of others. As heathens/pagans how can you possibly desire a more socialist type country where you have those who refuse to “pull their weight” (I’m not talking about the sick, children, or elderly) who sponge off society and degrade our country or people who break our laws to come here and set up shop?
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As Romans dealt with their various emperors, good and bad, they took the attitude – pray to get the best one, but work with the one you did get. Be resilient. Take the good from the situation, and lessen the bad.
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Kaye, I didn’t mean to single you out specifically, or even Millennials. I think EVERYONE could benefit from stepping outside their echo chambers. And you’re absolutely right that your generation has an important role to play in the future of traditional polytheisms; in fact some of my most promising students belong to that demographic. I do think SJWism is a cancer on our culture, but I’m also heartened by the fact that some of the strongest voices speaking up against that poisonous ideology are Millennials, as evidenced in this video clip:
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I am someone who voted for Trump and makes no apologies for doing so. The majority of people I know also voted for Trump and many did so proudly. I voted for him in large part because many of the things he was advocating made sense. I do not support many of the more controversial things he said. But as John Michael Greer has repeatedly pointed out over at The Archdruid Report, we were not voting for a plaster saint.
That being said, I though Trump would be far more preferable than Hillary Clinton, who is a notorious warmonger who has advocated a confrontational approach with Russia and who is also one of the most egregiously corrupt politicians in the history of the US. I was disgusted in the extreme with the way that the Democratic Party establishment rigged the primary process in her favor, when Bernie Sanders almost certainly would have won if the contest had been fair and square and who almost certainly would have won hands down against Trump.
Beyond that, Clinton was very much the standard bearer and champion of the status quo, a truth reinforced by the fact that so many establishment Republicans openly backed her. Remember, it was Bill Clinton (and wasn’t Hillary supposed to be the “co-president” back then?) who gave us trade treaties like NAFTA and MFN status for China that have destroyed the American working class. Hillary herself called TPP “the gold standard” for trade agreements, before the issue became too toxic and she had to change her tune. To paraphrase John Kerry, she was for TPP before she was against it. They have both shown themselves to be shills for the globalist oligarchy that is wrecking not only America but the entire planet. It should be no surprise that the single largest source of campaign contributions for Hillary was Wall Street and that she did very little campaigning for the first two months after the Democratic Convention because she was too busy hitting up all her super-rich friends in Hollywood, Wall Street and Long Island for more money to show herself to the peasantry.
By contrast, Trump has been pointing out for quite some time now the devastating effect that treaties like NAFTA have had on the American working class and the rest of Middle America. Greer has written a number of essays at The Archdruid Report showing how policies promoted by Bill and Hillary Clinton and other members of the neoliberal elite have greatly benefited the top 20 percent, while everybody else gets screwed over. Given Hillary Clinton’s track record on trade, corruption, influence peddling and “pay to play politics”, warmongering and a great many other issues, there was no way I could vote for her in good conscience.
I am also someone who is disgusted to the high heavens with the SJW’s and other hate mongering extremists on the activist left these days. Galina herself has written many times on this blog about the dangers posed to the pagan community by SJW’s like Rhyd Wildermuth. The behavior of the SJW’s and rest of the activist left was the other major reason why I voted for Trump.
I am sick and tired of the rank hypocrisy of liberals who go around accusing whites, including those who have done nothing wrong, of being inherently racist, Islamophobic, etc, but are willing to engage in or at least condone the most vile forms of anti-white and anti-Semitic racism coming from the SJW’s. People are fed up with this kind of garbage. I am tired of the sneering, the attitude of undisguised contempt towards those from “fly-over country”, the hypocritical double standards and the equally hypocritical virtue signalling that seems to be endemic on the activist left these days.
If that makes me a “Deplorable” then I will wear that label with pride and honor. But believe me, I can tell you from experience there are a lot of us out there who feel the same way I do, in the pagan community and from all over America. If the liberals and the SJW’s continue down the path they have been on, the backlash from the rest of us will only grow more and more powerful.
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I really appreciate you posting and talking about your choice. Thank you.
I would also ask that my more liberal readers be courteous when responding.
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No, too much panic is never a good thing, and perhaps, I’m not very qualified to express any sentiments on this blog post (which I found eminently well written) or any othe political matters of foreign nation A or should we say B… It’s just that sometimes, from where we stand (and we only stand there because we have to) things look very different…
http://hedniskatankar.wordpress.com/2016/11/11/trump-versus-the-nordic-states/
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