Even darker: it's deja screw all over again, but even worse than last time

 Congratulations, Trump voters. I'm very much afraid that this is what awaits most of you, and unfortunately most of the rest of us too:

(If the embedded video doesn't play, here's a direct link. )

And yes, I know I cited this very video in my Election Day post on November 5. But it bears citing again, just because.

* * * * *

One of my Whirled posts in the early daze following the disastrous 2016 US presidential election was titled, "You want it darker." That was a reference to the title, and title song, of a then-new collection by Canadian songwriter/singer/poet/novelist/artist Leonard Cohen, who had passed away just one day before the aforementioned disastrous election. Having been a lifelong Cohen fan, I was as devastated by the revelation of his death as I was by the news that Mango Mussolini had won, and I wrote at length about both events a few days after the "Darker" post.

Well, Leonard, things have just become even darker. Trump won. As CNN summed it up:

The former president will return to the White House in a moment of historic consequence for American democracy. He’ll head back to to the nation’s highest office four years after losing the 2020 election, attempting to overturn the results, facing two presidential impeachments, a criminal conviction and many other criminal charges.

Yes, and now we get to see just how far into fascism this country will really descend. It doesn't look pretty. We were screwed in 2016, but it looks as if we're even screwed-er now.

But we're not storming the Capitol, and Vice President Kamala Harris has delivered her gracious concession speech. It's a speech that's far more hopeful than I feel right now, but maybe I'll catch up to her optimism at some point.

It's not that none of us saw this coming. After 2016, and then eight long years of hearing Trump's increasingly unhinged rhetoric that still didn't seem to alienate his cult followers but only made them love him more, we always knew that another Trump victory was a distinct possibility. Yet it was still a shock.

Journalist Jonathan M. Katz wrote in a "morning after" piece for The Racket:

The thing I knew most of all, the thing that is the most embarrassing to confront in the cold light of this unnervingly hot November day, was the lesson that decades of imperialist violence and dehumanization abroad comes home, sure as the sun, in the form of fascism. I wrote a whole book about it, a book that is still very much in print. For years I was bellowing at anyone who would listen: No, we are not immune. Yes, it can happen here. There were many off-ramps we could have taken. I wanted to believe, even still, at this late date, that somehow a loud enough series of warnings — from the former president’s former staffers, from the former president on the campaign trail himself — would spur enough people in enough states into action. What I did not know, and what I should have known, is that these warnings wouldn’t be enough. We will know soon enough if the critical margin who meandered into his camp, and those who did not go to the polls, understood what they voted for and will like it once they see it in action. But for now, it was not a dealbreaker, and that was enough.

You can lead voters to the truth, but you can't make them think. Especially if they're devoted cult members, so blinded by the orange that they can't see the multiple shimmering colors of that truth.

I know that it wasn't just the hardcore cultists who pushed Cantaloupe Caligula past the finish line. Other voters were sucked in by his erratic messaging and relentless fearmongering, many if not most of them no doubt driven by the same cognitive biases that I discussed on my previous post (here's that link again): negativity bias ("awfulizing" the current administration, the state of the economy, etc.); and euphoric recall (forgetting how genuinely awful the first Trump administration was).

Some have suggested that a combination of irregularities in tallying the votes, various forms of voter suppression, and foreign interference were the real causes of Harris' defeat. If there's even a remote possibility that any of these things occurred, or there's any doubt about the results, I would expect legal challenges and recounts.

For now, I'm going to take Trump's "victory" at face value, even though it casts a horrendous light on the faces of millions of American voters. Is this really "who we are" as a country? Jordan Zakarin, writing for Progress Report, says we might as well own up to it.

Americans knew Donald Trump, were fully aware of his mendacious personality and mental instability, the hateful crew of ideological madmen who accompany him, and had a clear idea of what he'd do in office. And they chose to make him president again, anyway.

It’s a painful thing to admit, but this is just who we are as a country, at least right now. A majority of voters experienced all four excruciating years of Trump’s presidency — the scandal and corruption, mass pandemic deaths, the elevation of three vicious Supreme Court justices, and an actual attempt to overthrow the government — and either enjoyed the depravity or did not see it as a dealbreaker when they chose a new president.

But in a thoughtful piece on Meidas News, Ron Filipkowski suggested that it wasn't just the Trump voters who are to blame, and he offered a list of the major mistakes and missteps by Biden, Harris, and the Democrats that helped lead to the unfortunate election results. Several of these blunders were in essence messaging failures; numerous opportunities were missed to adequately counter the attacks and outrageous lies by Trump and the republicans. It's a list well worth perusing.

Like Harris, however, Filipkowski refuses to give up hope, viewing the devastating loss as an opportunity to revive the Democratic Party. After all, as the sub-head in the article says, we do have the talent to win, and win big.

The Trump presidency will likely be a complete disaster for the country if he is able to implement even 10% of what he has proposed. The people he plans on bringing in to the government are arguably even worse tha[n] he is in many respects. I believe this second Trump Admin will seek to radically transform our institutions, alliances overseas, budget and tax code, economy, environmental regulations, health care, the food supply, separation of church and state, along with all the usual drama that surrounds Trump and his minions.

While all of that is bad for the country, so much so that many of us have dedicated our lives over the last 5 years trying to prevent it, it will also provide an opening for Democrats to reposition themselves to take back the presidency, House and Senate in 2028.

But we can only do that if we stick together, remain united while hashing out differences in good faith, and broaden our coalition. Americans will be hungry for a change after four more years of MAGA and Trump toxicity, and we have to be a party that appeals to them for reasons other than the fact that we aren't them.

It won't be easy, but it's doable, provided of course that dissenters don't all get thrown in jail by the Mango Mussolini regime before they can accomplish anything.

Jonathan Katz, whose "morning after" post I quoted above, concluded his post with this:

The main thing I’m keeping in mind is that this is the same country it was yesterday. We are just now seeing it in a new light. Tens of millions invited this future in, yes, but ten of millions more tried to choose a different path. We may be more constrained in making them now. But there will still be many more choices to come.

Let us hope. I'm grieving now, but as I said eight years ago, I am definitely not giving up. And as I also said eight years ago, I don't want you to give up either.

Before you leave...
All politics aside, this has been, for several reasons, a nightmare of a year for me personally. Money, alas, cannot make the nightmare go away, but it can make it far easier to bear. Now more than ever, donations are urgently needed and profoundly appreciated. Here are some ways to do it:

• New: Venmo -- username @Connie-Schmidt-42. Here is a direct link to the Venmo page.
• New: PayPal -- Here is a direct link to my PayPal page.
• Old but still good: You can click on the "Donate" icon that currently appears on the right-hand side of every page of this blog on the Web version. There's also a donation link at the end of many of my older blog posts. In the case of both the icon and the links on the older posts, as well as the link in this sentence, this is also a PayPal link, but it references the email account of my husband, RevRon -- which is cool, because it all ultimately goes to the same place.

NOTE: If you are donating by PayPal, please specify that your contribution is a gift, which it is (as opposed to a conventional purchase, for which PayPal deducts a percentage for their fee).

Whether you can donate or not, thank you for visiting this Whirled.