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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