They Chose Oblivion

Again, where to begin? Again, my news feed is filled with pessimism, cynicism, fatalism, and apathy. Only today the cries are amplified, as are the memories of 2000. It is happening all over again. All we heard about in 2000 was that George W. Bush was a "compassionate conservative" whom you'd like to have a beer with. We heard next to nothing about how he actually governed Texas, or ran his businesses, or his personal life. Instead, we heard endless tirades about Al Gore the "serial exaggerator" and was boring. Then Gore was tarnished by both the real and made up scandals of his boss. It would have been impossible for media to address at length every awful thing about Donald Trump, but they didn't even try. Nothing lasted, not even the Access Hollywood tape where he just flat out admitted that he likes to molest women and was proud of sexual assault. 

But now we're stuck with him. Because dumbasses and obnoxious pricks along with white supremacists projected all their vengeance fantasies on a vulgar talking yam. I shouldn't really speak to what motivated people to vote for another born-rich failure, this time from the big city. But, there was this little voice in the back of my head that really feared this outcome. After growing up and living/working around the xenophobic white working class types for so many years, I was left with the profound impression that had George W. Bush just out and out went racist the way Trump did, he would have taken the Rust Belt outright and not even needed to have his brother, among others, steal Florida for him. As it was they reveled in the fact that we were killing muslims overseas, and when hurricane katrina drowned New Orleans they shrugged as black people died and made fun of or showed their utter contempt for looters. I heard endless tales of how black people were moving up from Milwaukee, sucking up welfare dollars, having lots of bastard kids, driving up rent, driving down property values, committing crime, stealing white women, you name it. My conscious mind thought, 'but that was a long time ago, surely people can't think that way anymore' but obviously, that is exactly what they still think.

These people chose to act on their hate. They projected their desires onto Trump. What they want is for the "other" to go away. Cut off food stamps and section 8 rent vouchers so nonwhite people can't live near them and will eventually starve, and definitely start executing drug dealers. Trump has talked so much that these guys must have heard something they liked. Obviously this is not the limit of racist appeal, jobs are important but also they hear tax cuts and think that magically those tax cuts for the rich will drop prices for things they want. They also magically believe that tax cutting republicans will get around to dropping taxes on alcohol, cigarettes, sugary drinks, and anything else that they blame "liberals" for. Then there are the guns. I knew guys who slept with loaded pistols under their pillows in case the proverbial home invader (no need to worry about what race the intruders will be) breaks in. Faux martyrdom and comic book heroism barely disguised the glee in their eyes when they thought about shooting a darkie and getting away with it. Liberals and Democrats are always one step from taking their guns or preventing them from buying more. None of the guys I knew were against abortion, far from it. As long as they were not white, abortion and birth control should be encouraged, or even forced.

And the thing is, none of them had the self-awareness to realize this is racism. There was always some kind of rationalization, "they are bad people, I know good ones, I shouldn't have to pay taxes so free-loaders can mooch," and so on. That little voice should have gotten more attention but what good would it have done? And I have to eat my words, I was wrong. No matter how much they formerly tried to deflect or play the victim or even try to convince themselves that it was not racism that motivated so much of their mean-spirited personalities, that's what it was. I heard it all, either through unintentional eavesdropping or direct yelling, but that is the past. The future will not see any attempts to disguise it and trump supporter is thy name.

Most of them are just suckers, too stupid to be trusted with anything. I should never have underestimated how ridiculous and petty most of these guys are, because I read comment sections. It was all right there, no matter how much I tried to assure myself that they were multiple sock puppets for the same dumbass living in his mom's basement or Russian intelligence operative and there were most definitely that, but stupid is infectious and getting away with the racist comments on news stories emboldened the type of shithead I used to work with to no longer look over their shoulder before telling a racist joke. The mask is off again, this time nobody cares.

Democracy has failed, the children of darkness destroyed the foundations for decades by dumbing everything down. Too many people who should have known better sold out for a sweet paycheck or some petty privilege. And now we pay the price. Don't talk to me about the inherent goodness of people or how superior liberalism is for defending individual rights, liberalism is for grown ups, what we witnessed was the temper tantrum of large children. And when children do that, you just have to take it away. They chose oblivion, now we all stand at the edge of the abyss and wonder how long we have or by what method we get pushed in.