In case you're wondering what happened yesterday:
A bunch of Americans decided they hated their government enough that they would try to destroy it, and so they elected a petulant manchild who was raised to think he was entitled to anything he wanted provided he paid or bullshitted enough for it. Donald Trump was not elected wholly by racists and misogynists and preppers and others for whom he validated the uglier aspects of humanity. Yeah, they helped, but he was also elected by throngs of people so enraged at the politicians who'd failed to deliver on false promises that anybody who appeared to them even remotely to be an outsider seemed preferable to someone who'd built a career within the system.
Donald Trump, of course, is not an outsider; there's no such thing as a billionaire without vast political connections. But he positioned himself as one. And he catered to that anger. And he told those people exactly what they wanted to hear:
That all of their unfulfilled expectations were someone else's fault, and that he could fix it.
Trump understood that, for many, the American Dream is no longer about working hard, or creating one's own opportunities, or taking upon oneself the responsibility not just for one's own success, but the success of the community as a whole. He understood that, for many Americans, the real dream is to have one's own entitlement, naked self-interest and complete abdication of accountability justified.
Trump gave those Americans someone to blame — politicians, immigrants, Muslims, gays, pro-choicers, whoever — for whatever way in which they felt they weren't getting what they deserved. That he was plainly the inevitable product of a system a whole lot of people have been perfectly willing to let fuck them for generations didn't matter at all.
So let me ask you:
Who are you blaming for Trump's victory today?
Racists? Misogynists? The poorly educated? Third-party voters? The Berned who spurned? Hate itself?
Who are you blaming, and who are you hating?
Because that's exactly what got us to yesterday.
It's time to accept accountability for that. Enough with the fucking "hey, I always told people it was really possible" and "hey, I voted for Clinton even though it broke my third-party-loving snowflake heart" and "hey, I liked a million progressive groups on Facebook." Whether or not we're really responsible in some way for putting a bomb in the Oval Office, let's just assume we are. Let's assume we got it wrong somewhere, and try to figure out where, and start working from there.
Because it's gonna be a long four years. Hate's not gonna get us out of this, and neither is trying to head off any possible personal accountability for where America ended up yesterday by saying we didn't support the candidate that became the president-elect. It's still our country, our community, our responsibility.
What happened yesterday, happened. Today we start dealing with it.
This article appears in Nov 10-17, 2016.