I've wanted to articulate these thoughts for a month or so now, so here goes....
When Cheeto Hitler won the election, like most of the population I was stunned. Shocked. Horrified. I went to bed despondent. And the next few days included a lot of "What the fuck, America?!" exhortations, even when no one else was in the room.
I still ask that question...but the massive worldwide turnout for the Women's March immediately eased the despondency. So did all the marches and town hall meetings that soon followed. And after ruminating over the situation for a couple weeks, I came to the realization that the Pumpkin Pustule win...might actually turn out to be the best possible outcome for America.
Hear me out: If Clinton had won, she would have faced basically the same problem Obama did after the 2010 elections: a Congress dead set against letting the president get anything done. She wouldn't even have had the luxury of getting major achievements done as Obama did (Obamacare, infrastructure spending, saving the auto industry, etc.) before the Party of No took over Congress. Yes, had she been elected she would have been able to nominate a Supreme Court justice...but you saw what the Republicans in the Senate did to Obama's pick, and they were already making noise about leaving the seat empty if Clinton were to win. She would have had to rely heavily on executive orders, just as Obama did later in his presidency...and look how quickly Trumplethinskin reversed a number of them simply because he could. So what would have happened if Clinton had won the presidency? More gridlock. More division. And more and more Americans becoming disillusioned with government.
But the Tangerine Tweet-Monkey won instead...barely. He did it by losing the popular vote spectacularly, which showed everyone that most Americans didn't want him but that due to complacency and the Electoral College (and a little help from Comey, Putin and fake news), the unthinkable happened. Then the Wee-Fingered Bloat and the Republican Congress started acting on all sorts of shit that the majority of Americans don't want: draconian immigration policies, rolling back LGBTQ protections, killing environmental regulations, repealing Obamacare, screwing with international stability, and so on. And America. Woke. Up.
Suddenly people who in the past perhaps voted for president but otherwise couldn't be bothered with politics are now showing great interest in what is happening up and down the ballot. And they're doing something about it. Protests are erupting daily, in the streets and in town halls, and the Republicans are getting their panties in a wad (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democratic-party-trump_us_58ac7f3ce4b0c4d5105717e0). They're like the dog that caught the bus, and they have no idea what to do with it. That bus is huge and it's not going in the direction they want to go, and they're beginning to realizing it's likely going to squash a lot of them flat.
So what is all this leading to? As long as the Butternut Soufflé of Death and the Republicans continue to behave in ways nobody really wants, the outrage and the activism will continue. The 2018 elections were supposed to be a long shot for Democrats, but now I'm not so sure. I think the Republicans will get the drubbing they deserve for putting Fuckface von Clownstick into the White House, and it should set the stage for an overwhelming Democratic win in the 2020 presidential election (assuming we put a reasonably strong candidate on the ticket). The wave of changing demographics should be hitting pretty hard by then, which should drive the overwhelmingness into overwhelmingnesser territory.
So that's why I think losing the presidency may be the best thing that could happen to us. Instead of an ineffectual, go nowhere presidency and waning progressive involvement now, we could end up with a truly massive sweep of Congress and the presidency over the next four years. Yes, we may lose the Supreme Court seat to a die-hard conservative, and we may end up glowing from a global nuclear war over some stupid-ass tweet our Golden Shower in Chief feverishly whips off after watching a particularly embarrassing Saturday Night Live skit. But if not, the country could...should...tilt so hard to the left that conservatives will flee to Russia in droves.
Stay angry, my friends....
Derek Mathias
2/22/17
EDIT: Here is some more support: http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/2/13/1633273/-Instead-of-diversifying-the-GOP-catered-to-white-racist-voters-Here-s-why-it-ll-backfire
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