After Careful Consideration

It's been an interesting year. Politically speaking I learned how little real integrity we have in our political system. The conservative right sold their soul in support of a candidate who has neither conservative political principles nor the personal integrity they like to suggest is at the core of their belief system. Much of the liberal left did the same thing by supporting a deeply flawed candidate in bed with Wall Street in opposition to one impeccably honest who has spent his whole career supporting the positions they profess to support.

In the general election much of the rest of the nation found themselves supporting a candidate they didn't really like in opposition to one they found intolerable. It's a sad commentary on our system as a whole that we nominated both Clinton and Trump as the best candidate either party could come up with. The one thing it proves is how disenfranchised by both parties that moderates in this country find themselves to be.

The core Trump supporters, the ones who were with him from the start, are ecstatic of course. Against all odds they elected someone who managed to aggravate a lot of the people they are most angry with. He is brash, coarse, and seemingly without either intellect or tact in equal measures. He has made a lot of money conning people, cheating people out of their wages, and taking advantage of every legal loophole that most of America finds offensive about both our business system and our tax system. To those supporters I say congratulations; you elected the worst candidate in modern history. The oft repeated, let's try something different refrain has come to fruition. We have elected someone with zero political experience to the highest office in the land. All we can do now is wait and see if the nation can survive the experiment. I would have suspected that most Americans would inherently understand that there are limits to what is reasonable when it comes to trying something different.

For example, we seem to have a lot of automobile accidents on our highways every year despite all efforts to control them with careful licensing and traffic laws. Perhaps we should start insisting that only people who have never driven a car be allowed to drive from this point on. We could do the same thing with airline pilots, bus drivers, doctors, and all manner of skilled trades at the same time. Obviously, the less experience we have according to Trump supporters; the better you will be at doing things.

I never suspected that what we need to clean up a crooked economic system is one of the crooks that has managed to take advantage of it for his whole life. He will do us proud as a nation with his continous stream of childish rants against anyone who dares point out the idiocy or base repulsiveness of his actions. The idea that a mysogynistic, narcissistic, blowhard of a man who openly brags that his power allows him to sexually assault women will make America great again is one that I wouldn't have considered to be plausible. I also wouldn't have considered it plausible that even a small minority of Americans would think this is true, but that just goes to show how wrong I have been in my judgments.

For all of those who voted for Trump because they hated Hillary worse, I hope we can survive the error of your judgment. For all of those who voted for Trump because you like him or think he was the best person for the job, please read a book or try to get some information from a source outside of Facebook or Fox news. Your ignorance is so deep as to be something that is endangering our survival as a nation. Most of all for all of those who don't vote and continue to suffer because you don't feel like your vote will make a difference, please join those of us who believe in government of the people and by the people in actually making our nation one that you want to live in.