I don’t know about you all, but I’ve been on a steady diet of John Oliver, The Daily Show, sudoku puzzles and this. I haven’t had a real meal since All Hallows. With the water being gone, there have been more days than showers this week, and I don’t even feel that bad about that. I can’t focus enough to read. I can’t relax enough to sleep. Things keep jumping out of my head.
What about Project 25! What about the Supreme Court? What about bodily sovereignty? What is up with these roses blooming in Vermont in fucking November! (It would be the blood red bush…)
And do we really have to deal with four more years of unleashed assholery and unmasked ugliness? What is wrong with you people!
And then there’s that…
Desi Lydic pointed out that pundits across the spectrum were laying out every possible excuse for Kamala’s loss to the “worst man in the country”. If one person said one thing, there were ten video clips of someone else earnestly claiming the exact opposite. But not one opinionated head, not even Desi, dared openly utter the one true reason that this country elected Trump for his second term. It was the same reason we elected him for the first, but with added color…
The media world is being very quiet on that. They are skirting around it. They are looking sideways and mumbling. Nobody will come out and say why we have an actual felon, a doddering imbecile, as vile and disgusting a human as this species has ever produced, an utter failure of an ex-President who has literally incited insurrection, heading to the White House — for the second time!
They keep pointing to why she lost, never why he won. On Wednesday morning, there was talk of Harris’s laughter and unseriousness, her turn to embrace the center, her late start and the continual baggage of Biden — who, let’s just be clear here, is the current President of the United States, so baggage? Please… What are pundits really talking about when they talk about the weakness of women? It wasn’t her lack of stoicism. It wasn’t even her too dark skin. It was purely her lack of a penis.
In this election, about 20% more Latino men voted for Trump than when Trump ran against a man. About 10% more Black men voted for Trump in this race against a woman. In no way will these groups benefit from a Trump presidency. Trump has openly declared as much, repeatedly and in minute detail. Men in Florida and Texas voted for Trump, of course (and, you know, next hurricane? you all consciously elected that shit…), but so did men in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan and Arizona. Young men, old men, urban men, suburban men, and the mythical, fly-over, disregarded, ex-urban, working man, all voted for Trump in alarming uniformity. In no way will any of these people benefit from a Trump presidency. To the contrary, their lives are going to be measurably worse. And they know it.
So why can’t we just come out and say why we have come to this place? Again…
It’s not that she lost… it’s that all these people chose to vote for a barely functional troglodyte merely to avoid electing a woman. And to underscore that, they intentionally chose Trump of all human beings who lack a vagina, loudly declaring that they would take the worst man in the world over any woman.
It is, once again, the infantile fear American men have of intelligent women, or powerful women, or beautiful women, or successful women, or independent women, or old women, or creative women, or generally disinterested women, or really any woman that isn’t fawning in abject servile silence at the feet of mankind (I’m looking at you, suburban white women…). It’s gross chauvinism. It’s bigotry. It’s sexism. And this country is founded upon this one precept — that all men are created equal (as long as you don’t get too picky about the definition of equality), but women… are nothing but property.
Well… deep breath…
You know what’s been annoying me this week? It’s all these people parroting that ridiculous “It’s the economy, stupid” slogan when they don’t even know what they are saying, nor that what they are saying is factually correct, but not in the way that they understand it. It’s not just that these are economic tough times for the common man — as they have been for, oh, at least the last half a century. It’s that this economic system has failed.
Throughout history, in times like these, there are reactionaries, demagogues who lyingly promise a return to a fictional brighter past — because the past is whatever color we paint it. There will be other demagogues after Trump, as the elites thrash around trying to turn paper into material wealth, while the real wealth of the planet is degraded more and more. But each one of them is but evidence that this country is already in hospice.
What I am saying is that Trump is only four years. And if he or his handlers decide that they want to make an autocracy (or, more precisely, a puppet-fronted oligarchy… which is maybe not materially different from what we’ve ever had), then this country will break apart all the faster. You can bet New England and New York will not consent. Nor the West Coast. (And remember, California’s economy by itself is the fifth largest in the world, making up nearly 1/6th of this country’s GDP. They are not bound to this sinking ship, and they will jump.)
This election represents the failure of the American way of life. It is over. And now it is up to us, mostly us women, to build a better way…
And that is a reason to hope…
© Elizabeth Anker 2024
By My Solitary Hearth 
In lieu of making ourselves sick rehashing the latest patriarchal erection, why not go with the simplest explanation, which is usually the best. History repeats itself, first as tragedy then as farce. The real tragedy is not the farce of a so-called president elect. It is thinking that electoral politics, particularly the inauthentic, corrupt, bought and sold duopoly parties, are going to save us – let alone address the global polycrisis in meaningful way. That woman Emma, said it best, “if voting changed anything they’d make it illegal.” Eliza however, got it right. Our best hope is still with the women. Most men, especially those on top of the hierarchy, just have too much invested in the f.u.b.a.r. status quo. A patriarchy that has existed for thousands of years won’t go down without the extreme violence prevalent in today’s world. A word of caution is in order. As a man once said, “Hope is the last thing that dies in man; and though it be exceedingly deceitful, yet it is of this good use to us, that while we are traveling through life it conducts us in an easier and more pleasant way to our journey’s end.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
No truer words…
LikeLiked by 1 person