For me, it was the death of hope. Even with a very slim Biden win, which itself is improbable, with a GOP Senate, no meaningful legislation will be passed and no judicial nominations will proceed. 50% of the population would refuse a "Biden vaccine". Hitler was only stopped by a world war, and we now have a global pandemic and weakened democracies at every turn. Permanent damage from global warming is 5 years away at best, and in its wake, more mass death. As we continue our downward spiral, the chance that the House will flip in 2022 is very likely, and with it, a gutting of entitlements to 'balance the budget'. I don't see any light only the end of a very dark tunnel. Perhaps others see something I am missing.
A sad day indeed. In 2016, many voters for Donald Trump could be forgiven for assuming that his chaotic, red meat-throwing theatrics would tamp down--that it was all part of the show before a cooler head would be revealed. We now know better. In the end, the tragedy tonight is what it reveals about much of the American electorate.
In brief, it's no longer the case that much of it cares to defer to or even defend the principles that preserve democracy when it is under threat. Instead, we are seeing firsthand a replay of the fascistic psychological underbelly--little different from Weimar Germany or the Spanish Republic-- that now is an openly embraced reality for nearly half of the electorate.
This is a group that thinks we'll all be just fine without those defenses to democracy. And while you might think the ultimate expression of this fascistic sentiment will look a lot like Putin's Russia, it doesn't have to be. Where an economy is especially vibrant and capitalistic, it can look just as easily like Pinochet's Chile or Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore.
The enthusiasm for Trump is sadly one of the greatest projections of inner id we've ever seen within an electorate. Incompetence in governance or open self-dealing are no longer disapproved by at least half of our fellow voters. And it will not do to say we are dealing with ill-informed voters--lied into voting against their own interests by Fox and Sinclair Broadcasting. There are just too many voters who, it is now evident, are quite open about their lack of interest in the preservation of democratic principles.
I suspect if you ask any of them why they voted for Trump, you're likely to get a lot of one-issue fetishists (guns, fetuses, taxes, and Jesus), with a strong sprinkling of unspoken racism, misogyny, and homophobia. These voters are not uninformed. Quite the opposite. They are informed. They just don't care. Democracy is too abstract. Instead they obsess over whatever others are getting that they're presumably not--and happy to sacrifice their liberty in pursuit of that mysterious pot of gold at the end of someone else's rainbow (which some will get and many won't).
This is the worst of all possible signs. Their self-interest is still self-interest, but it's Trump's version of self-interest. And what that is not is enlightened self-interest.
For me, it was the death of hope. Even with a very slim Biden win, which itself is improbable, with a GOP Senate, no meaningful legislation will be passed and no judicial nominations will proceed. 50% of the population would refuse a "Biden vaccine". Hitler was only stopped by a world war, and we now have a global pandemic and weakened democracies at every turn. Permanent damage from global warming is 5 years away at best, and in its wake, more mass death. As we continue our downward spiral, the chance that the House will flip in 2022 is very likely, and with it, a gutting of entitlements to 'balance the budget'. I don't see any light only the end of a very dark tunnel. Perhaps others see something I am missing.
A sad day indeed. In 2016, many voters for Donald Trump could be forgiven for assuming that his chaotic, red meat-throwing theatrics would tamp down--that it was all part of the show before a cooler head would be revealed. We now know better. In the end, the tragedy tonight is what it reveals about much of the American electorate.
In brief, it's no longer the case that much of it cares to defer to or even defend the principles that preserve democracy when it is under threat. Instead, we are seeing firsthand a replay of the fascistic psychological underbelly--little different from Weimar Germany or the Spanish Republic-- that now is an openly embraced reality for nearly half of the electorate.
This is a group that thinks we'll all be just fine without those defenses to democracy. And while you might think the ultimate expression of this fascistic sentiment will look a lot like Putin's Russia, it doesn't have to be. Where an economy is especially vibrant and capitalistic, it can look just as easily like Pinochet's Chile or Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore.
The enthusiasm for Trump is sadly one of the greatest projections of inner id we've ever seen within an electorate. Incompetence in governance or open self-dealing are no longer disapproved by at least half of our fellow voters. And it will not do to say we are dealing with ill-informed voters--lied into voting against their own interests by Fox and Sinclair Broadcasting. There are just too many voters who, it is now evident, are quite open about their lack of interest in the preservation of democratic principles.
I suspect if you ask any of them why they voted for Trump, you're likely to get a lot of one-issue fetishists (guns, fetuses, taxes, and Jesus), with a strong sprinkling of unspoken racism, misogyny, and homophobia. These voters are not uninformed. Quite the opposite. They are informed. They just don't care. Democracy is too abstract. Instead they obsess over whatever others are getting that they're presumably not--and happy to sacrifice their liberty in pursuit of that mysterious pot of gold at the end of someone else's rainbow (which some will get and many won't).
This is the worst of all possible signs. Their self-interest is still self-interest, but it's Trump's version of self-interest. And what that is not is enlightened self-interest.