tomorrow we will pick up and fight. tonight we cry.

[jeliza]

So barring a miracle, Trump is winning.

All the kids Muslim and Latinx school friends are going to go back to being terrified, and with cause. We've got Republican majorities in the Senate and House, so they'll probably manage to get the ACA repealed, which means half the people I know lose their insurance. Trump said he would have a Roe V Wade litmus test for Supreme Court justices, so outside of those states (like ours) where abortion is a protected right things will get really fucking dicey.  The number of LGBTQ legal protections that were by executive order rather the federal law are presumably toast. Let's not even talk about the "bathroom bills". And since Trump is a lazy asshole who was upfront when he asked Kasich to be his running mate that he wants the VP to do most of the work, we get Pence. Pence who tried to mandate that all fetuses who did not come to term for any reason must be given funerals. Pence who is pro reparative therapy including electroshock for lgbt kids. Pence whose eagerness to cut public health spending led to a massive spike in HIV infections in Indiana's poorest counties.

And we'll bomb the middle east EVEN MOAR that we were going to (continue) to do under Hillary.

And the already existing increase in hate crimes will likely mirror the Brexit phenomenon and massively spike.

Washington will be relatively insulated on most fronts. Except maybe if Trump follows through on the leaving NATO thing.  And my inherited nest egg (which I need becuase it's not like I can sock away a retirement fund from the not-very-much I make now) is already worth at least 10% less, and the market hasn't even opened yet.

I am so fucking sick right now.

Comments

[garpu.livejournal.com]

I got family in Texas I'm scared shitless for. (My uncle and his Latino husband and my aunt, who needs health insurance to live.) I think we in New England and the west coast are going to be relatively OK. Not so sure about everyone else.

[boonedog.livejournal.com]

I worry about middle America too. Hopefully though the other two branches of government will not let Trump's one branch of government do too much damage. I do worry about my friend's trans son in Texas and whether or not his healthcare will continue. But I think we're pretty safe in Washington state.

[boonedog.livejournal.com]

We don't know that any of that is going to happen yet.

So far Trump has proven to be a complete liar and blowhard. We have no idea what he'll do. Pence is horrid and I worry about his theocracy shit too but they are only one of three branches of the government.

And the good news is, all three branches are Republican and they are all about state rights over federal control. And our state has voted in our same progressive government again this election. Bottom line is NO ONE is going to hurt our kids. We won't let them.

And try not to imagine all the horrible things that will happen because if they do actually happen we will all be so spent from panic we won't be affective against it.

We are stronger than this and let's focus on what we can control which is our immediate community and make sure that is a safe place for our kids.

=big hugs=

[jeliza]

Eh... our current crop of "Republicans" doesn't give a shit about states rights when it comes to minorities they don't like/pushing an extremist Evangelical agenda. And they've spent the last four years trying to repeal the ACA and successfully undermining abortion rights; it's not clear Trump would have won if it weren't for the Voting Rights Act getting gutted and the resulting large scale voting suppression, which they didn't even pretend wasn't the goal. (Republican election boards flat out stating they are eliminating early voting and removing polling places in order to discourage minorities from voting. Utterly bald-faced.) I'm assuming we will get at least halfway back to where we were under W, which was bad.

I'm not trying to be too doomsday about it, but the last time we had a Republican president and Congress, they started the Great Recession. And I need to be prepared.

I hope to hell Obama does a recess appointment to the Supreme Court, and someone more liberal than the compromise candidate the Republicans had approved and now are refusing to even consider.

Definitely the relative safety of Washington State is a good place to fight from. I'm a lot more worried about my friends elsewhere, many of which were already struggling.

[boonedog.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I do totally understand the worry of the current Republicans not acting like Republicans at all and pushing their fundamentalist agenda. I'm not quite so worried about abortion rights (I find it hard to imagine abortion would ever successfully become illegal in this country and I'm not too worried about stupid shit like having to have an ultrasound before an abortion - in the grand scheme of things that is not such a huge deal) But what I worry about it that is a stepping stone or jumping off point to start restricting all of women's healthcare including contraception.

Hopefully the Republicans in Congress that hate Trump will not play nice with him and that will slow things down. And he's such a loose cannon he may not even go after his weird sexist,racist shit he said in his campaign. There is a very good chance he was just lying about all that and just wants to get in to office and use it to make more money.

[jeliza]

I don't think actually wanted to be President -- I think this is a publicity stunt/advertising that overachieved. R thinks there is a chance that after he has to deal with the realities of the job that he might just bail. I can't decide if I want that to happen or not.

I think he definitely ramped up his race rhetoric to match what was working; I think his primary concern is money; he's definitely always been this sexist, though, and he did lose that lawsuit because he was systematically refusing to rent to black people. I think the direction he will go, ultimately, with who is flattering him the most.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, basically.

[boonedog.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that sounds like a good plan -hope the best and prepare for the worst. I hope he doesn't bail because then Pence would be president and he scares me more than Trump. Trump actually doesn't scare me as much as the Evengelicals who want to make this a "Christian Nation" - so I have to say I'd much rather he be president than Ben Carson. But I can totally see where R. is coming from and if that happened I wouldn't be surprised.

Well, all us progressives better start complimenting him up and down and make sure he does what we want! ;)

[boonedog.livejournal.com]

Thank you by the way for having a civil discussion about this. It was very frustrating on FB when "friends" started telling me it was morally reprehensible that I wasn't completely panicking and coming up with as many intricate doomsday scenarios as I could. Yes, I have concerns, but nothing has happened yet so I'm going to save my energy for if/when it does.

[jeliza]

Mourn, then organize. Mourning is definitely a thing, and that fear needs to go somewhere, but then we have to collect and look at the task at hand. I don't think intricate doomsday plans are that useful; we have some solid data about what is being targeted/has been targeted before, and have a guess where to concentrate our efforts.

We have to find a way to talk to at least our friends, even if not our enemies (that's advanced work I'm not sure I can do.)

[boonedog.livejournal.com]

I think identifying our friends vs enemies is a good first step. A lot of my acquaintances have said that everyone who votes for Trump is the enemy - but in my case two of my good friends voted for Trump. Their reasoning has nothing to do with racism or sexism, it has to do with believing he will fix the economy (I may disagree with them on that but that happens in politics - people disagree - and I can forgive a disagreement on economics). These are also two friends who are very supportive of Everest and would be horrified if his rights were taken away. So, the whole "who is our enemy" thing is becoming quite problematic. It's easy to see that people like my brother are the enemy because he thinks that we need to fix whatever is wrong with Everest and make him be a girl again ... but on the outside my brother is a progressive and a Buddhist and very anti-Trump. So, I think it is going to take a lot of discernment to figure out who the real enemies are. It's sadly not as simple as their religion or who they voted for.

[eub.livejournal.com]

I really think Clinton got the numbers about right, when she said the deplorable Trump supporters were about half. It's not all. Might be as low as a third.

The way to distinguish is going to be to see who becomes disillusioned, and who doesn't -- and I don't mean they're gullible, but that they're getting what they want.

Unfortunately, Trump can't deliver on many of the decent grievances (pulling out of NAFTA won't roll manufacturing industries back in time), but he can deliver on a xenophobic attitude, social sanction for "un-PC" nastiness, and a pass for government Christianism. So I'll watch who's satisfied with what's delivered.

[eub.livejournal.com]

I have a slim hope that somebody like Susan Collins is going to decide this kind of Republican Party isn't hers anymore, declare herself Party of Lincoln, and caucus with the Democrats. But can you possibly scrape together three to flip the Senate? And she would take so much hate, it would be unreal.

Other than that, I think Pence shows how the deal goes: Trump gets what he wants, the pseudo-Christian right gets what they want. So many Republicans were willing to deal even when he was a losing candidate, I'm afraid few will resist now that they can say the people have spoken (and the elector mechanism). We'll see if it's enough.

At least people like McConnell made an immediate point of stating that the U.S. is committed to NATO. The Senate can't make Trump defend Estonia, can't pull his finger off the nuclear button either, but it's something.

[jeliza]

Some of the #nevertrump republicans appear to be holding the line as well: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/nevertrump-republicans-are-calling-out-their-gop-colleagues-supporting-trump

[eub.livejournal.com]

Yeah, can anyone think of an example of the states-rights folks standing up for the rights of states to do something they hated? I'm not coming up with one.

I'm not afraid for my community and my kids, and I am very grateful to Seattle while knowing Seattle doesn't protect all its residents as much as me. I'm afraid for other people, who thought a place like Raleigh was a safe place to have a family. Wouldn't be wrong to focus on my immediate community if that were the way I could most effectively help, but for me I see more opportunity in a wider focus. It doesn't make me panic, not yet anyway, but it does make me give (um, tomorrow) to national organizations.

[jeliza]

I am thankful for our bubble, though I know some folks are already feeling trapped. In other parts of the country, the expected hate crime spike went right on schedule, with bonus Kristallnacht references. Just like Brexit, although our Poles are probably safe, at least as long as they are men.