Self-image
America’s friends sighed and exchanged glances as the election results came pouring, then trickling in. They waited for the United States to say something, but it didn’t. “So,” Canada said, then cleared its throat. “So, uh, after that last election, you were pretty —”
“Pretty adamant,” New Zealand said. “Pretty adamant that this whole electing Donald Trump thing was a random fluke, an aberration, and not who you were at all.”
It’s a good joke, and it stings. I have to say, though, that I haven’t been saying that, and I’m far from the only one. This clearly is who we are and that is sickening.
“But you certainly don’t vote for him by mistake a second time,” Canada said.
“He might not win!” the United States said, quickly, not looking up.
“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Britain said. “Sure, America, he might not win. Let’s even say he probably won’t! But it’s not what you would call a resounding defeat, right?”
“Certainly not a wholesale repudiation of his entire ideology and all that he stands for,” New Zealand said.
Well now let’s be fair here. He doesn’t have an ideology. He’s not clever enough or coherent enough for that. He has Fox News, and an infinite supply of hatred and contempt, and enraged hostility to people who disagree with him. That may look like ideology in a weak light, but if you sat him down and told him to expound the ideology to you, you know what would happen. It would just be a patchwork of blurts stitched together with accordion gestures. He doesn’t have an ideology, he has only his angry impulses.
“I don’t understand,” the United States said. “This is not who we are.”
They exchanged glances. “Isn’t it, though?” Canada said. “I mean, at a certain point, you have to look at yourself and say, ‘Is who I think I am aligned at all with what I am actually doing?’”
Well we are the country that overthrew the duly elected Mossadegh in Iran and Arbenz in Guatemala, for a start. We backed Pinochet’s coup against Allende. There’s the little matter of Vietnam. There’s the fact that it took us until nineteen sixty fucking five to pass the Voting Rights Act…which the Supreme Court has now mostly repealed. So yeah, Canada’s not wrong – we’re more like Trump than we are like Obama.
At least he was pretty sharply defeated in the popular vote, as he was last time. So I’ve never thought it was fair to say, he is what most of America wants.
This is sad-funny because it’s basically true. In my workplace, made up of kiwis, poms, Irish and Germans, we’ve had basically that discussion. Many of us have American friends. I have family living in North Carolina. It hurts and is sad for everyone having thrust upon us that the world is a worse place than we hoped and believed (including our own homes). Humour is a temporary refuge. I just keep reminding myself that even if half of all people are arseholes, the other half actually try to. E pretty decent.
@1, 4 Million fewer votes than Biden (yah!). 2.8% of the total vote cast (Boo!). Lots of people, not what I’d call sharply in population terms though.
He’s only just stopped repeating the claim that he won the popular vote first time around because the three million extra votes for Hillary were illegal. If he can spend four years spouting conspiracy theories about an election he actually won, it doesn’t bear thinking how far he’ll go to deny the result when he loses.
With every fresh dismissal of his lawsuits in courts across the country the insanity is going to ramp up higher, with every judge ruling against him being a Democrat conspirator. I dread to think what he’ll accuse the SCOTUS justices of if and when they refuse his claims, but I’ll bet that ‘traitors’ will figure strongly.
AoS @4, this is pretty relevant I think (both Roberts reported comment and the clip retweeted).
Worth noting that, no surprise, that Trump lawyer was talking complete smack. Ballot inspections, counts and recounts are conducted by a pair working as a team. One is a Democrat and one is a Republican. no count ever happens with just one person handling the ballot.
Secondly, what she is talking about are actually observers. In the hearing she was referring to the Trump lawyers had to admit that they actually had people in the room. The actual argument was about how close they could stand and exactly how many there could be. The judge made the parties go away and come back with an agreement as to how many observers from each party could be in the room. I understand that the election officials were able to decide how close to the workers they could stand. So, no shenanigans, no actual evidence of wrong doing and no-one held in contempt at all (since there was no breach of a judges order).
Law twitter has been remarking much of the morning that the campaigns public statements bear no resemblance to what their lawyers are actually saying in Court.
And to this day, in South Carolina, marital rape is legal unless it involves “excessive violence”.
Here is the thing that gets me – earlier this year I got into an argument with someone who proclaimed that the Republicans he knew were willing to vote for anybody but Bernie Sanders. They hated Donald Trump, they wanted him out, and they were willing to go with anybody – except “socialist” Sanders.
Trump’s share of the Republican vote is up.
So here’s my first take-away from this election, stop believing these guys.
Bruce, I make it a practice not to believe anything a Republican says about politics (or much else) unless it can be verified by an independent, reliable source. (That’s the same way I deal with trans activists.)
Of course, if you know the Republican well, you have an idea how much can be trusted. My husband is registered Republican (from his youth), but has not voted Republican in many years, since before we met, even. He sometimes makes noises about changing registration, but since about the only candidates we ever have around here are Republican, he wants to be able to vote in that primary, to hopefully get the least bad candidate. I don’t think I blame him, but I would never take the step of getting that R by my name.
He also told me that living with me has improved his politics, so I guess Trump can blame me in part for the fact that my husband voted Democrat in nearly every race where a Democrat was available. I wear that achievement with pride.