Saturday, November 12, 2016

Trump's Reich - Part Two: The Consequences




This is the second part of my post-mortem of Trump’s presidential victory:

 As I concluded my previous article, things are likely to change for the worse, MUCH worse. Over the past couple of days, Donald Trump, the media and even president Obama have begun the obligatory “normalization” process. We already hear the kumbaya clichés, “we are all Americans, we are all on the same team” (Obama), “we owe gratitude and respect to Hillary Clinton, who put up a valiant fight,” (Trump), etc. Don’t be misled by Trump’s new mask. The people now marching in the streets of America are not buying it, and neither should you. The Donald is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

As to those who are reluctant to forget and forgive (like me), they tend to predict a dark future, big fighting ahead, but they are short on specifics.

So let me help out here, and be a bit more PRECISE about the pain to come.

What are some of the likely specific consequences of Trump’s ill-gotten victory?

Nothing happens immediately at the macro level. It will be a while before things start to change. But you are in for some very major changes, changes very much for the worse:
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Friday, November 11, 2016

Trump's Reich - Part One




Mandate schmandate! Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, as has happened five times before to a candidate who was then robbed of the presidency which he earned (e.g. Gore, 2000). And I believe that in every instance the presidency was stolen from the Democrats.

The national polls - now universally loathed - were not far off. As Nate Silver emphasized over and over again, it’s at the state level that polling was problematic. His last overall prediction (Nov. 8) had Clinton at 48.5% of the national total and Trump at 44.9%. After the California votes have been counted, Clinton may have a million more votes than Trump, so the Five ThirtyEight numbers will be well within the typical statistical error range.

Trump is Right: The system is Rigged. America is not a Democracy: Once again the winner was robbed, the presidency was stolen. The electoral college is an 18th century anachronism that should be abolished. Doesn’t democracy mean one (wo)man = one vote? Why does my vote count for a small fraction of that of someone in Nevada just because I live in California? There have been many undemocratic rules throughout history. For example the three-fifths compromise which counted a black man as worth three fifths of a white man, the poll tax, and many other income requirements for voting.
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Thursday, November 10, 2016

Canvassing for Hillary



I wrote this story right before our country went dark, before Trump won the elections. It seems eons ago, at a time when life still seemed pretty good in the USA. Now, I am in mourning and like millions of Americans, I am afraid for the future of this country. Still, I am grateful for the privilege of having canvassed for one of the most admirable women in American history. This story is a tribute to Hillary Rodham Clinton and the effort, stamina and courage she has shown. I only wish I could have done more.

Friday, November 4th, 2016

Every morning I sleep walk to my computer to check the polls to see where the elections stand. Those red and blue lines on the polling site 'Fivethirtyeight' have become a daily fix, taking precedence over my morning coffee or even taking a leak before I start my day.

It has become a source of enormous stress. Like the prisoner checking off the days on the wall of his cell with a piece of chalk, I have practically stopped thinking about anything else. I am neglecting my cat and my husband, I don't clean the house and cooking dinner seems like such a trivial thing these days. My OCD personality has been given free reign and it is creating havoc in my life. Read more...

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

A Letter to my Daughters



Dear Leah and Dani:

This is in response to Leah’s text about Hillary Clinton’s plummeting polls. It’s too hard to text an elaborate message on the tiny iPhone, so I send this by e-mail:

Like you, Leah, I have become extremely agitated about this election. Maybe more than you. I need to work hard at not going nuts over this.

I have been tracking the numbers, for instance on Nate Silver’s Five Thirty Eight site. When one is retired, one has time to do such things.

I have extrapolated Hillary’s average daily decline over the past couple of days: by November 8, she will have lost the election.

So we have to seriously consider that America will have elected a severely unbalanced, politically utterly ignorant “fascistoid” aberrant personality, who has already announced an agenda which will be utterly repressive, unjust, militaristic and plutocratic, which will do NOTHING for the suffering blue collar workers who overwhelmingly vote for him.

We will then have to somehow adjust to an America which, for the first time in its history, is governed by someone with clear fascist characteristics.
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