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| Warriors endure and now we, especially lgbts, must learn that lesson. |
So. IT happened and subsequently the joyous news I had hoped to post about Hillary Clinton becoming our first female president will no longer be a reality.
Instead, at the very least for four years, our president is a egotistical, coarse windbag who is more talk than action; a man who has absolutely no idea what he is doing or going to do. A man whose supposed wealth and reality television star status partly led the way to him walking into the White House on the backs on unfortunately gullible people who felt that their "country was being stolen."
Now before liberals and progressives begin with the circular firing squads (and I really hope they don't, but that's like asking for the sun to stand still and I am not Joshua from the Bible), we need to ask ourselves how we got here.
There will be some individuals who claim that Clinton was a flawed candidates and the Democrats should have chosen Bernie Sanders, but come on. Trump brought out all sorts of ugliness in his followers and this election. Switching from "don't vote for Clinton because she is corrupt" to "don't vote for Sanders because he is a member of the Jewish cabal, like Soros" would not have been difficult for them to do.
Trump's path to the White House began eight years ago on the night of President Obama's inauguration, when a group of GOP legislators and allies plotted to undermine him in order to make him a one term president. They plotted to work against his efforts to bring stability to the country. Aiding them were little nasty tendrilic entities, such as Fox News who daily put out negative slants on Obama. "He is apologizing for America," "He hates America," "His stimulus isn't working," "He isn't creating jobs." "He is constantly in over his head." "Obama won't lead" "He is for completely open borders." "Obama isn't a citizen of this country"
Obama was too powerful for them to undermine totally, so he easily won a second term. But effects of their constant harping, and the continued resistance of the GOP to cooperating with Obama, did have an effect. It poisoned a segment of the electorate. Infected them like a nasty drug, which created a mindset which lowered the tone of our political debate. And the constant barrage of pundits whose debased statements and debased positions offered without proof kept this segment of the electorate hooked like junkies to a vile stew of hate, fear, and a lowering of their own morality.
We weren't dealing with people wanting intelligent discussions of the issues and decent answers. These folks became mental zombies, surrendering their kindness and common sense as entries to a bubble of toxic nonsense which fed them anti-Obama lies, anti-government conspiracies, and false beliefs that this country is constantly on the precipice of a cliff where a bunch of man-eating lions and Islamic terrorists lay at the bottom in anticipation.
That's what created the Trump voter. But even then it wasn't enough to bring the White House (and unfortunately the Senate and House) to the GOP. A foreign entity called Wikileaks daily undermined the Clinton campaign with stolen emails. Lastly, how could we forget FBI Director Comey's unprecedented and unnecessary letter about the Clinton email investigation - i.e. the one factor while stole her momentum and for eight days dominated the news cycle until it was revealed, two days before voting, that it was a huge nothing burger. History will tell us that this letter, more than anything else, probably was the single thing which torpedoed Clinton's chances.
So those who don't know how we got to this point, now you do. A toxic brew of lies, aided by foreign bodies and an assist by a supposedly objective FBI has thrust us into the land of Tramp.
What do we do now? Specifically what does the lgbt community do now?
What we have always done. Dig, scratch, and claw our way back from whatever hole we may have been thrust in. I can't promise that things are going to be easy. An anti-lgbt GOP now controls all branches of the government, so I'm guessing that we are in for it.
But lgbt equality was never for the faint at heart. No matter the optics or semantics, we don't just march in the streets to articulate our anger and then zap, we win. We have always won our victories through consistent pushing and moving.
We know how to win the hard way because we have won victories the hard way. And we are going to keep those victories. And even in the face of this mess, we will endure and win again. It's what we have always done. It's what we will always do.
