Uncertain Balance

I'm still not sure how to feel after this past election, but I'm not entirely sure it matters. After what was likely the worst presidential campaign in recent history, Donald J. Trump was elected. The man who insulted just about every non-white male variant that exists attained the highest office in the land and now has the power to shape the United States, and subsequently the world, for years, possibly even decades beyond his tenure. The man who thinks that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese; the man whose entire platform was scrapping international trade deals and jailing his opponent, Hillary Clinton; the man who can only describe warzones as "a mess". It's not an easy thing to fathom.
Every single poll decided that he was the underdog by a landslide. Every single person who has ever studied political science knew, knew that it was impossible for a man of his style of campaigning to win. And then, it happened, and all of us ivory tower-types have to reconsider what we thought we knew.
Maybe it's because we all underestimated the power of his anti-establishment, anti-trade deal message; maybe we all underestimated the inherent racism still firmly entrenched into parts of the United States. Maybe some people just really didn't like Hillary Clinton. It doesn't matter now, really. Historians and political scientists will write books and papers aplenty about the statistical impossibility and supicilious stupidity that was the 2016 election, and hopefully in 50 years, people will look back on this point in history with deep, bitter disdain.
But, we're in it now. A lot of people are afraid of what will happen; I'm not, honestly. It's hard to fear the possibility of something. I'm dismayed and disillusioned at the moment. I suppose the fear will kick in once he raises his right hand, but for now, it's still a foggy notion that the election even happened. It's still a waking nightmare.
Though what do I have to fear? I'm a generic straight white guy. You can go around America and find millions of me wasting time or making money or losing money or flipping burgers and picking up hookers. You can even find a copper-coated jabberwocky version preparing to move into the White House.
Except, that's a lie. I do feel fear; fear for my friends, many of whom are the children of immigrants from predominantly non-white countries, and it twists my stomach to think that just because some spray tanned living word jumble became president that many of them would be targeted in hate crimes simply because they aren't white. Hate crimes have surpassed post-9/11 levels, by some metrics, which is a truly scary thought: the worst attack in American history was going to create backlash, as anyone would expect it to; but an election? There is no mandate for discrimination; everyone retains the right to be safe, regardless of who is president.
I read an interesting interview with Trevor Noah, the current host of the Daily Show. He's from South Africa, the posterchild for racism in modernity, and he stated that racism was never excised in the United States like it was in South Africa. With the end of apartheid, a system of governance based entirely on racism, the tumor was cut: it was held up and displayed in all its failure as a system of thought and left to die. That isn't to say that racism doesn't still exist in South Africa, but it was a moment of ablution that let South Africa face its demons.
The United States never truly had that. Schools had to be forced to integrate in the 1970s, and even today there is a noticeable disparity in race in schools. White nationalist groups still exist and are active around the country.
So, what does the future bring? I don't know, honestly. I wrote more than a year ago that Trump would never be president, and here we are. The bare minimum we can do to make a better life for ourselves and others is to speak up if you see someone getting harassed because of how they look, even if no one else does; you'd be surprised how much one person can inspire courage in others.
Chances are that if you're reading this, you agree with most, if not all, of what I've written. And if so, great, I'm glad, let's be friends if we aren't already. If not, write a comment and tell me why I'm an asshole, but at least do so politely, because we're not in clans of gorillas fighting to defend our territory by slinging shit at each other; we have words, and feelings, and advanced reasoning that lets us settle disputes without laying a finger on each other. So if you have a problem with this post, write it out; if you don't like someone, tell them, but don't forget to ask yourself why you feel that way in the first place.

That's all for now,
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I'm Going To Tell You What I Think is An Unpopular Opinion for My Age Demographic

It's all too apparent to see politics happening all around us. As we head into the next round of politics, there are several issues that really strike me as important to my political opinion, and there's one candidate who is hugely popular with my age demographic who heads up that issue in particular. People my age overwhelmingly support him/her/it, and yet, I think differently. I think the other candidate is better.
Why is that? Well, there are several reasons: maybe because I'm more intellectually incisive than my cohorts. Maybe it's because I'm skeptical of the first candidate. Maybe it's because, in my youthful petulance, I think that anyone who amasses a huge following must be evil. After all, Hitler did the same thing, using his words and his promises to sway Germany to the dark side, and look where it got them!
But really, it's because I'm smarter and more experienced than most other people. In my low 20-something years of life and political experience, compounded by the little sidebar thingy on my Facebook page and my aunt Irma's persistent 'news articles' about the upcoming election, I've been deeply political. It started when I watched John Stewart and took a few classes in college, and from there, I've been very involved in politics: I often tweet my opinion to Chief Justice John Roberts on whatever court case makes the front page of the New York Times.
That popular candidate's ideas won't work. How do I know this? Because someone else said so. What qualifies that other guy to be an authority on the subject? I don't know, I've just heard his name a bunch of times and read some of his articles around, as well as the little blurb under his name at the end of his articles. Looks like he has a master's degree, so he must be right about everything. But he used some numbers and some charts. Anyone who takes the time to make charts is an authority in my book. Not that I've written a book, but I could if I wanted to. A political book.
So that's why I support the other candidate. He/she/it has the best chance of winning the general election, regardless of the genitalia between his/her/its legs. Some have said that he/she/it has flip-flopped on his/her/its positions; for example, in 2000-something, he/she/it said that he/she/it was ardently for a thing, and then recently came out as against it. Also, he/she/it said that he/she/it was ardently against a thing, but is now for it. That's not going with popular opinion; that's changing your beliefs because popular opinion changed.
Now it's easy for me to say that my candidate is the right choice for my demographic; after all, he/she/it has said plenty about issues that affect young people with extensive political connections in the political world of politics, while the other candidate has said, eh, not so much (mostly because I'm cherry-picking facts to make this article as persuasive as possible; he/she/it has said a lot about these issues, actually).
So when you go out to vote in your thing, try to remember what you read here, but more importantly, try to remember me, the contrarian, because I'm honestly trying to build a career out of being 'outside the norm' of my peers. Please. Please remember me.

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Give it to the Man with the Do

Donald Trump is a reprehensible person. That much should be obvious to anyone keeping track of the 2016 presidential race, whether it's disparaging remarks about Carly Fiorina being a woman, or about Hillary Clinton, or President Obama, or Jeb Bush, or Rand Paul, or Bernie Sanders, his aim is wide and his trigger finger is happy. But what's more, the man seems to have a memory problem given his persistent back-tracking on things he said and did. Maybe all his fake tans and teeth-whitenings have flooded his brain with enough chemicals to make a horse think it's a mouse, but you can't fault the man for being able to hold an audience's attention.
He is the banner boy for 'American Exceptionalism,' because a person has to be an exceptional idiot to believe even half of what he says. Much of the reason his supporters say that they back him is because he's independently wealthy, funding his own campaign, etc. etc., even though that has turned out to be false of late.
And yet, polls still say that he's leading, and some of the more mainstream Republican candidates are actively worried that he might even win a few primaries and knock out the traditional politicians. If I remember correctly, Chris Christie and Jeb Bush were speaking recently (separately) in New Hampshire, saying something to the effect of "don't leave our party's fate in the hands of a man who owns a golden toilet."
Like I wrote a few months ago, Trump won't win. He's the kind of candidate who has a strange rise in polls and popularity but then poops out when it comes down to the primaries (or almost immediately after, as Ben Carson found out fast enough). I find it hard to believe that any republican delegates will actively vote for him in the primary states, though if Trump does manage to win a few, it might benefit the feds to keep a close eye on the primaries that will seal the deal for the nomination.
If he somehow does secure the spot, this might just be one of the most aggravating, entertaining, or despondent American elections of all time. Sounds like fun.

That's all for now,
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Hillary Won

I'm an unapologetic Bernie Sanders supporter. I figured I'd get that tidbit of information out of the way before going on, because it may give some precedence to the unfortunate blathering that is to follow.
Two nights ago, the democratic party had its first of six debates (far too few, if you ask me) for the five (or so, it's hard to count Jim Webb as anything other than an aging Terminator) candidates. It was, essentially, a debate between former secretary of state and Bratz doll model Hillary Clinton and Vermont senator and Troll doll hair model Bernie Sanders. The latter is ardently left, the former is ardently ambivalent until public polling dictates her position.
Bernie, as is his schtick, continuously expounded on his main talking points, i.e. inequality in America, prison overcrowding, Wall Street greed, climate change, social security, etc., and they are always his strengths. Unfortunately, as most Bernie Sanders followers should realize, Senator Sanders' points on foreign policy and gun control were weak.
(25:42 for gun control; 36:06 for foreign policy in Syria, 46:18 for Sanders being uncertain about Putin)

To be fair, Sanders has always been a domestic policy guy, but it was obvious that he took the Syria issue to indicate a possible yes/no for boots on the ground. Syria is an intricate problem with enough interests and alliances to make Machiavelli's head spin, and yes, boots on the ground would be a horrible idea, but so is allowing Russia to aid the Assad government.
Clinton was obviously able to pull out her experience as the secretary of state and display (to a minimal point) the intricacies of diplomacy, it was enough to demonstrate that Sanders needed to brush up on foreign policy.
Besides that, while his populist message has a very true ring to it, he wasn't able to touch upon the recent republican battle against Planned Parenthood as Clinton did.
But then again, Clinton demonstrated her perpetual equivocation on many issuing, ranging from the trans-pacific partnership to the Keystone pipeline to Wall Street to marijuana legalization, and has been one of her most contentious points thus far, especially when she said that the TPP was the gold standard for trade.
Of course, there are five more, so let's just wait and see.