Not Just a Granny

It’s difficult to comprehend that someone who ran his campaign on the ‘values’ of misogyny, hate, fear-mongering, Islamophobia, racism, insidious homophobia, the mocking of disabled people and prisoners of war, with threats to deport people and the determination to build a wall between the USA and Mexico, never mind his views on women, could actually win the US Presidential election. But win he did!!

I’m guessing that besides much of America waking up on Wednesday to what has been a seismic shift in American politics, many Heads of Countries, never mind just ordinary people around the world are shaking their heads in disbelief!

My reaction when I woke on Wednesday morning to the news that Donald Trump was the new President-elect was one of wtf????? Has America gone mad…well half of America anyway! It must be a joke.

Because whatever the USA decides to do affects the UK, I and my family watched the (not so) Presidential race with amazement, trepidation and frankly disbelief. What I find incomprehensible, and it happens here in the UK too, is the mud-slinging. The defamation, the attempts to blacken the name of their opponent, the so-called skeletons that are dragged out the cupboard and flung about left, right and centre, the name-calling and bickering….all in the name of a ‘Presidential’ race? There’s nothing presidential about that at all. It’s horrendous.

What sort of example are these people setting for future generations. Young people who may want to run for the position of President of the United States one day? What sort of message does the constant nastiness and ugliness and name-calling and slander say to the children of the future about the values and behaviour of how adults should behave…most especially in as important a position as POTUS. The leader of the free-world should be setting an example of what it is to be a President. At the moment it’s not a very pretty picture.

I’m not a fan of Hillary Clinton, even though she is a woman, and it would be great to have a woman in the position of POTUS. I find her quite cold. From the perspective of qualifications, she was imminently qualified….especially in comparison to Trump. However, and this seems to have been the crux of the matter in many cases…she is part of the ‘establishment’. She is of a political family. She is the wife of a previous President who not only displayed very un-Presidential behaviour but was very nearly impeached and fired from his job as POTUS. So if people were sceptical of her values, that could be understood. Then we have the deleted emails and the whopping ‘scandal’ that questioned why she had her ‘work’ emails on her home server. Frankly I would have thought that was not allowed, but perhaps she felt they would be safer since apparently the Russians have and do hack into the Government servers. I have no idea if that’s true, but if we read it on the internet….well then it must be!! #not But what left me uneasy is, why did she have to delete her emails? What’s to hide? In comparison to the stuff we heard about the Trumpet, Hillary was a clean slate….or not? So yes, a woman in office would be great, but surely you would want someone who is unimpeachable……

With Hillary as President, I’m guessing it would have been ‘business as usual’. Since Wednesday I have read many, many articles (I’ve shared a few below) written by people, namely women who voted for Trump. While I’m still trying to wrap my head around that, realistically I know that of course women must have voted for him…he’s now the President-elect. But it was the why that interested me. Despite being women, one lady is not only an immigrant but she’s also a Muslim….yet she voted FOR Trump. In my mind that speaks volumes. Now please bear in mind that these are educated women, not the redneck, hilly-billy types or KKK members that people love to paint a picture of, but well educated intelligent women AND THEY VOTED FOR TRUMP!!!

I can fully understand the mindset of people who simply did not want another ‘establishment’ political figure to lead the country. They wanted someone to listen, to hear their concerns, to say they will do something to make their lives better, to pay attention to their pain, and DT did that. Even if it’s most likely to be a lie. He said what people wanted to hear. I read a comment on Facebook by someone who said they would rather have a failed businessman, someone who confessed on TV that he didn’t pay taxes, someone who lied and cheated and treated women as lesser than…..than to have someone who was of the political elite. It seems a lot of other people felt the same way.

Weirdly though, Trump is of the elite, the super wealthy, the establishment….he sold himself as one of the people. Hillary just did not do that.

As for the Trumpet….well, just wow. I can’t recall anyone besides Farage who is so nasty, with such ugly values, with blatant racist views. There are so many instances on live TV that listening to him you could only gasp in horror and shake your head in wonder at the people that cheered and raved and appeared to admire him. I felt dirty every time I listened to him speak. Watching the crowd, I began to have serious doubts about the mindset of Americans as a whole. The not so United State of America.

Ever since the band-wagon started to roll, and as the days and months have rolled by we have been treated to this abuse on a daily basis, one thing after the other from one party or the other. People calling for Hillary to be jailed. People calling for Trump to be jailed. One side or the other making threats, abusing people who didn’t fit with their model of the world, who didn’t agree with what their preferred candidate had to say. One by one I unfriended Trump supporters from my Facebook ‘friends’ list. I didn’t like their rhetoric. I didn’t like his rhetoric. I didn’t want to be associated with people who could support someone with so many nasty beliefs. Much like with our UK Brexit we were fed mostly the nasty side of life, the half-truths, the lies, the half-baked promises and the outlandish. That Farage is a cohort and champion of Trump doesn’t surprise me in the least….you know…..birds of a feather!

In contrast, the people on my Facebook friends list who supported Hillary were of a completely different calibre.  Instead they were concerned, they lauded her values, the positive contributions she had made to society, the groups she had championed. Their attitude was of such a softer and more pleasant disposition, that it was hard to not like the person they supported. I read some really lovely comments about Hillary that I almost quite liked her myself. None of the nasty rhetoric, the slandering, the spite and aggression that came from the Trump supporters (please note, I do realise that not everyone is like that!). But despite all that nearly half of registered American voters VOTED FOR TRUMP!!!

What we saw very little of (read media manipulation) were the good TV interviews, the nice comments and very little by way of actual policies that the two candidates would promote if they won the office of President of the United States.

So waking up on Wednesday I was totally shocked to learn that Trump had actually won.  I spent a few days just shaking my head….trying to understand why? I read as many articles by as many people as I possibly could, from both sides of the spectrum, trying to gain some insight into why and how this had come about.

I recently read this article and truly it amazed me and made me realise that folks in America just did not want ‘business as usual’ despite Trump’s rhetoric, some people were prepared to take the risk. Brave lady.

Then I read another blog post that spelled it out: “Trump seems to have appealed to the disenfranchised, the frustrated, and the many Americans who were disillusioned with an ailing economy, job losses, tales of corruption and a distant political establishment that Hillary appeared to represent.” And that seems to be the nutshell of it; despite his nasty rhetoric. The people of American like the people of the UK (those that voted) did not want ‘business as usual’. They used their voices and they VOTED FOR TRUMP! Just like we voted for Brexit. Okay now I realise that not everyone voted for Trump and not everyone vote to Leave the EU, but that’s the way the vote went. Granted by a small margin…but…..

Then I read this….. http://www.npr.org/2016/11/09/501451368/here-is-what-donald-trump-wants-to-do-in-his-first-100-days and frankly just wow, you can’t argue with much of that! If that is what Americans voted for, then I guess for at least half the population they made the right choice. The question now is? Will he actually be able to do all that he says? Clearing the swamp (as he calls it) is going to require getting rid of people in their Senate and Congress…mostly made up of rich, white families with vested interests in, and I quote what he said: “corrupting influence of special interests on our politics.” A lot of what he ‘plans’ to do is great, makes good sense (not all of it mind – the wall between USA and Mexico is abhorrent to me), and I’m guessing that before too long Trump is going to find out just exactly what it is that US Presidents are up against in the Senate. Much like Obama did. According to Trump’s 100 day plan it is NOT going to be business as usual. Interesting to see that he plans to withdraw from TTIP! Good luck to him. Let’s wait and see how much he actually manages to get done. Mind you he has a lot of experience in saying “you’re fired”. So perhaps he will thin out the corruption and make way for people who are more invested in the interests of the country than in their own personal fortunes. Although from what I’ve read about Trump, that is a contradiction in terms.

So where will it all end…..well I guess we’ll find out in the next 100 days and then the 3.5 years after that. If we haven’t, as some people predict, been blown to hell by then.

I listened to his acceptance speech and thought wow, what a turn around, no rhetoric, no slander…just pleasant you know. My daughter reminded me it was probably scripted.

I thought Hillary’s concession speech was nice. But reading the articles that speak out against her and her policies, I’m left wondering what it is that I’ve missed. I’m keenly interested in Politics and read quite a lot of Political magazines, and I know that in her position as Secretary of State she’s had to make some really hard decisions, but I’ve never, beyond the email issues gotten the sense that she’s evil and more manipulative than what she has to be in her position. She’s raised a strong, beautiful daughter. She stood by her husband through thick and thin. She’s worked well with Obama and for America. But somehow, millions of Americans revile her, some going as far as saying that if she had been elected, she would have started WW3! What have I missed?

One of my American Facebook friends wrote an open letter to Hillary Clinton that I thought was lovely (she said I could share it here…anonymously of course):

“Dear Mrs. Clinton,
I thank you for the service which you have given to our country. You have worked tirelessly many of your years for women, for children and for everyone who needed you. I can never forget being so afraid in New York after the attack in the World Trade Center, it was a comfort seeing you walking with Mr. Giuliani at ground zero (he forgot, but I did not). You were a comfort to the families who lost loved ones in the horrible event.
Being one of the many women who have blazed a path for others to follow, your tenure has been seeped with much controversy and negativity and yet you soldiered on working relentlessly, doing your part to keep the issues of women, children, the working class and the poor at the forefront. You have not lost, you have created a legacy that all women can be proud of. One day, I will tell my little grand daughter of the women who have come before her to make sure the she lives life to her full potential and I will tell her about you.
The curtain has closed for you on the political arena. This may be a blessing in disguise. Go and give to your family, your husband, your daughter, grandchildren, and friends what you have given to us. I am sure they will love to not share you with the public, for once. May God bless you and give you peace.”

And then there’s this: It’s going to be okay?  Probably about the most balanced comment yet on the whole sorry mess. I used to look to America as the land of the brave and free, as a country that had strong, powerful values. My daughter once wanted to emigrate there. I’m really glad she didn’t.

So like I said on my Facebook update on Wednesday 9th… Dear America. Commiserations.

Frankly, my personal opinion is that a lot people have lost sight of real wholesome values, both there and here and pretty much in many societies as we know them. I know each decade has it’s rebellious groups, it’s hate talk, it’s fight against the system, but, this is the era of trolls, of Rap lyrics that talk about fucking, and pimping, of reducing women to nothing more than trash; homies and bitches, of sucking dicks, of ‘going down’ (we know what that means), of killing, of getting your head blown and knifing, and shooting. An era of glorifying rape, drugs, drunkenness and shooting; mass shootings on an unprecedented scale. The era of chasing wealth regardless of who it affects, the Kardashians, of Kanye West, Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother and all the nastiness that entails. The era of social media, of sharing naked pictures, pictures of killing, of trashing and mocking and persuading people to kill themselves. It appears that this has worked it’s way into the mindset of society, and as a result…..the vile, putrefying rhetoric that Donald Trump has spouted on his campaign trail looks normal.

Trump has opened a Pandora’s Box of everything that’s negative about society. The thin skin of self-restraint that governs the behaviour of our society, that keeps most people on the path of moral behaviour has been pierced. His words and actions, similar to some people here in the UK, have sliced open the very thin veil of control that governs society on the whole, allowing those who are not governed by restraint and self-respect to vent their vile behaviours and believe it’s okay to abuse other people whether white, black, gay, immigrant or anyone that doesn’t fit their model of the world.

And then we have the Evangelical nutters!! One of the people I USED to follow posted this on the day: What a HISTORIC EVENT!! God Bless Donald J Trump our new President. America you will be great again!! This was prophesied by many prophets and apostolic mothers and fathers over a year ago! I’m in agreement with heaven!! Come Holy Spirit!! Yes God I’m in agreement!!

Really????? I have no problem with people expressing joy at their candidate winning, after all, each to his own….but to attach that to a prophesy and say that God had anything to do with getting Trump elected….is just astounding.

She went on to say: Walk in hope, not fear! Walk in love, not hatred. May we come together in beautiful unity and may our diversity shine in harmony!!  Hopefully that that will be the way forward and people will indeed be able to come together in unity.

How will this new President pan out. Will he keep to his promises (hopefully many of them he won’t), or even be able to get them through Congress. I have no idea of who he is beyond what he has shown himself to be in open company, on T.V. and for all the world to see and hear.

All I can say is that the hope and light and gentleness, grace and elegance, of decent values and beliefs, of gentle humour, kindness, humanity and charity that Barack Obama and his family brought to the White House will most likely not be seen again…..certainly not for this term anyway.

Yes, I left the ‘s’ off of the word States in the header on purpose, coz from the outside looking in, it seems that your country has become severed at the seams.

And hopefully you’ll be able to put the ‘United’ back into the ‘United States of America’. As has been said; “if you’re not happy with the result, then get up and do something about it.” But please, please don’t allow the homophobic, racist, misogynistic, bigoted, Islamophobic, pussy-grabbing person that’s been elected as your President define your country or your values.

choose love over hate

Good luck….oh and p.s. can someone please hide the nuclear buttons?