I am still operating on very little sleep, but I'm now at the point where I feel like I can start to address my rage, our rage. Unfortunately I actually started doing so last night. (Sorry, Mom.)
Starting from myself is the only thing I have a right to do. Who am I mad at? What does it mean?
My answer is anybody who voted for Trump. They are the ones who bear full responsibility for what has happened. This is not to say that there are not other contributing factors, other people I have varying levels of disappointment in, but their actions do nothing to lessen the responsibility of every single voter who concluded that Trump would be an appropriate President of the United States.
I will be slightly petty here and take out my frustrations on allies I disagree with, taking care to emphasize that I mean no malice here and that I believe it is far too early for anybody to propose One True Way to go forward dealing with this.
I see some people suggesting that this aberration, horrible as it is, is not a fundamental one. That many of the people who voted for Trump did so for many reasons, are malleable, and can be persuaded of their folly. I agree, to an extent, with their assessment of Trump voters, but I disagree with the "pendulum" allegory so popular in American politics. We do not speak of a pendulum of state, but of a ship of state.
In this light, the statements of Obama and Clinton are right and appropriate. It is the responsibility of the captain to go down with the ship. Mind you, it is not so responsible for them to imply that the ship is not sinking, and I will not be adhering to their chastisements for me to stay on board.
I've gotten away from what I said I was going to talk about. The rage. It's easy for a lot of people to see this anger, this rage, as imitative of our adversaries. I frequently am asked the question, "What's the difference between you and them?"
And this, in all honesty, is somewhat of an insulting question. It's redolent of the Dawkinite interrogator who will, in all sincerity, ask what the difference is between Thomas Aquinas and Helena Blavatsky, and because they're not very subtle, go on to ask, well, aren't they both just superstitious fools making claims they have no evidence for?
More infuriating is that if you ask someone on each side what the difference is, we will have the same answer: We're right. Which the interlocutor will typically respond to with an arrogant smirk, because the question was less of an honest attempt at discourse than a crude rhetorical trap.
There are two things wrong with this trap. The first, and lesser objection, is that many of our beliefs are based in objective fact. Somebody who is concerned about anthropogenic climate change is concerned because of the tremendous weight of scientific evidence warning of the danger. Someone who is _not_ concerned about climate change bases their belief on a web of provable lies and flat-out delusions. There is simply no possible equivalence here.
The second, and more serious objection is that it is foolhardy and dangerous to take the position that all beliefs which are not empirically verifiable are morally equivalent. I can no more prove my belief in universal human rights than an alt-righter can prove their assertion in the moral superiority of the white race. Despite this, these beliefs are not morally equivalent. I am not a philosopher. I do not believe that I personally NEED to defend my belief in universal human rights to you, or to anybody, on a philosophical basis, or that you, that anybody, has standing to judge me or to dismiss my belief on the basis of my refusal to do so.
There is a lot of talk... the blame stuff. We can say, you know, the people responsible are the people who voted for Trump, but we want to know who these people are. We do not want to go to war with a faceless abstraction.
However, beyond the fact that the vast majority of them are white, we can make no generalizations. We have a secret ballot. Even if we were so inclined (and frankly some of us are), we are not in any position to be running an inquisition. If you voted for Trump, and after having done so you choose to hide your face in shame, if you keep your action a secret, you are safe from us.
In fact if you are a Trump voter I recommend you pursue precisely this course of action. Because we will never, ever forgive you for what you have done.
And when I talk about the need to rebuild, the need to re-create that which we have lost- if you are a Trump voter, you have no right to participate in this process. Even though I hate you, even though I am angry at you and will never forgive you, I do not say this out of anger or hatred. You had ample opportunity to observe what kind of person Trump was and to properly evaluate his fitness for the Presidency. Hence, as a voter for Trump, you have provided incontrovertible evidence that you do not have the sound moral judgment or reasoning necessary to participate in the creation of a just society. This is a purely pragmatic judgment based on your actions.
Beyond that, there is the hatred. The enemy have assumed for years that we hate them, and have behaved accordingly. They have, through persistence, managed to make their beliefs into reality. I have seen many people over the past day expressing, in so many words, the belief that the only good Trump voter is a dead Trump voter, expressing the hearty desire to bury them (in the sense that Khrushchev originally meant).
I disagree with those people that believe Trump voters should be most afraid of Trump. I think that Trump voters should be more afraid of us. Not because we are violent. Our rage is not mindless destruction. I can't speak for everyone, of course, but I say this as a fundamental tenet, as a defining characteristic of Us: No matter what your beliefs, if you firebomb a Republican headquarters you are just as much Them as if you burn a church. We are not going to raise an army. We are not going to fight you in the streets.
But- but- barring that, we will do absolutely everything, everything we can, to stop you, to defeat you. We will take everything from you, every power from your life, every ability you might ever have to harm another human being. You thought you had nothing to lose. You were wrong.
Actually just insert a Doctor Who speech here. Enraged David Tennant. That's basically us. That's who you're up against. None of us are nearly as clever as Doctor Who, but we are every bit as angry, and there are a hell of a lot more of us. And it's not like we're facing off against the Master or anything, someone who would wave her hand and vaporize all of us. You elected a fucking Sontaran president.
Anyway you'll probably get really sick of the righteous speeches after a while. We're not going to stop you by bloviating you to death. I'd be all Bond Villain here and tell you exactly what we're going to do, what our master plan is, but we don't have one. Again, David Tennant. We honestly have no idea what we're going to do, what exactly we're capable of, and it's going to be just as much a learning experience for us as it will be for you. Face our aleatoric fury.
