right back into that political assumption tub you had been bathing in, wishing it was all over for many days. Once everything goes south the hangover can be really nasty…
I started typing this before I heard what all the pundits and talking heads said. It’s midday, after election day, and I still won’t listen. I don’t want their claims to cloud my own perceptions, at least not yet. Am I utterly surprised in a country where “news” and entertainment have been mixed into one mess of news-less, partisan speculation… where entertainment that humiliates fellow citizens… where humorless programming tries to for me to laugh with annoying laugh tracks… that today is what it is?
Of course not.
Now for a mea culpa: yes, I have typed into my columns and debate forums many times that you can’t piss off that many people and still be elected president. Yup. Sure did. To quote my grandfather, “I could be wrong, I was… once.”
Still, I do wonder, despite knowing that even the suggestion something might be wrong might as well be tossed in the trash. One thing the 2000 non-election election etched into stone: if Dems think something might be wrong they had better shut up, sit down and be thankful for the abuse that follows. We must smile. We must bend over. We only get to say, “Oh, please give us another, sir.”
Republicans? Well, they get to say so even before the election has actually started. In fact they get to preempt any claims by saying the election was going to be rigged.
Funny thing is, I suspect they were right. But I’ll bet they won’t claim that now, unless to boast that the country is even more racist. misogynist and bigoted, so their margin should have been bigger.
I would type, “I’d sure hate to have the last name Clinton right now,” except that will spread like a virus to anyone who dares pisseth off the emperor. Like many Republicans these days, Donald’s idea of justice seems to be guilt by accusation, except when it comes to anyone willing to be part of his bully gang. It’s also limited to those who look like him. You know how he continued to accuse those found innocent of murder in Central Park even after they had been proven absolutely not guilty?
I know there are those crowing on the left now who are chiding those who voted Hillary during the primaries (I voted Bernie), claiming how he would have won. I typed this a few days ago, and still maintain it as true: such speculation is somewhat foolish. I’m a big believer in the Butterfly Effect. The game plan would have been different, a lot of other factors would have come into play. That prediction ignores all that. It certainly ignores one of the very first things I mentioned: to expand on my previous comment, we have a nation where the entertainment/news media/talking head culture we have treasures name calling, accusation, framing, noise, flash, bang and obnoxiousness above all. We’re horribly addicted to it. We breathe it in constantly like a 4 pack a day chain smoker who also inhales a filter-less pipe. Now society has cancer. Trump and his cronies are the doctors and nurses who have decided treatment should be more of the same, and arresting anyone who offers something different.
I know what I type about. For 15 years I was that heavy smoker, until I quit in 79. Yup, I started at 12.
This was about a hell of a lot more than Hillary or Bernie. Their goal would have been the same, and their willingness to do whatever, say whatever, to get there would have been the same too.
Blaming Hillary is too easy.
Blaming Bernie is too easy.
In part, we have ourselves to blame. 16 years ago we didn’t stand up as much as we should have with Gore and demand the vote be completely recounted: give the political finger to traitors to representative form of governance the the Bush aides during their riot. Indeed we should have hopped over the Gore team and demanded the whole damn state be recounted. We didn’t support I.E.America, Air America, Link and those trying to un-propagandize the news. No matter how bad we think they may, at least there’s something to counter the Goebbels network and clones. We didn’t stand with our candidates when, yes, they were not that great, but a hell of a lot better than the fascism to come.
We shouldn’t just “sit down and shut up” and take it like their bitches they demand that we be.
Most of all, and this drives me nuts, the left keeps thinking that if they contrast the right’s over the top nastiness with being nice we’ll win more. How’s that working for you?
These are the kind of bullies you have to get off your bike and beat back even harder, and when they respond, beat back even harder.
Many have said Hillary lost because she was too pro-corporate, and too pro-the status quo, ignoring that Trump is now ready to implement something far worse. And he will get it. If you couldn’t vote Hillary you damn well should have voted so Trump didn’t get a puppet Congress.
Unless, of course, back to my original point, it was rigged, and it absolutely was. 30 years of mostly Republican gerrymandering created this situation, not Clinton, Obama, Kerry or Gore.
Welcome to us becoming just one more slave labor/prison labor/poverty wage nation. And in Donald’s world stealing your earnings is perfectly OK. All that has to be said is the person who hired you is unhappy with the work. And big business can be no more than even more of a scam than it already is.
Goodbye small business.
Hello many new Trump University-like businesses
All that having been typed, yes, I believe something went wrong here, something is suspicious about the “win.” If not, well a lot more people agree women are damn near useless and should just put up with being groped, Hispanics, even if their citizens, should just go ahead and deport themselves: even if they’re a native born judge, and blacks go back to separate lunch counters, pools or maybe even Trumpland plantations.
“Yes massa, Is so sorry Is so lazy.”
And you know all those lawsuits and how Bill Clinton’s lawyers pushed for the president couldn’t be sued while in office? Never guess what might be rule of law now, of course only for Trump.
Right now my main concern is: can there ever be a coalition like what won WWII? I think we in America may damn well need a lot of help defeating the new fascism.
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Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 40 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks, and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
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