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Post by simpleton01 on Nov 10, 2016 18:06:58 GMT
Trump voters will not like what happens next By Garrison Keillor
Opinions November 9 at 8:39 AM
Garrison Keillor is an author and radio personality.
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-voters-will-not-like-what-happens-next/2016/11/09/e346ffc2-a67f-11e6-8fc0-7be8f848c492_story.html
So he won. The nation takes a deep breath. Raw ego and proud illiteracy have won out, and a severely learning-disabled man with a real character problem will be president. We are so exhausted from thinking about this election, millions of people will take up leaf-raking and garage cleaning with intense pleasure. We liberal elitists are wrecks. The Trumpers had a whale of a good time, waving their signs, jeering at the media, beating up protesters, chanting “Lock her up” — we elitists just stood and clapped. Nobody chanted “Stronger Together.” It just doesn’t chant.
The Trumpers never expected their guy to actually win the thing, and that’s their problem now. They wanted only to whoop and yell, boo at the H-word, wear profane T-shirts, maybe grab a crotch or two, jump in the RV with a couple of six-packs and go out and shoot some spotted owls. It was pleasure enough for them just to know that they were driving us wild with dismay — by “us,” I mean librarians, children’s authors, yoga practitioners, Unitarians, bird-watchers, people who make their own pasta, opera-goers, the grammar police, people who keep books on their shelves, that bunch. The Trumpers exulted in knowing we were tearing our hair out. They had our number, like a bratty kid who knows exactly how to make you grit your teeth and froth at the mouth.
Alas for the Trump voters, the disasters he will bring on this country will fall more heavily on them than anyone else. The uneducated white males who elected him are the vulnerable ones, and they will not like what happens next.
To all the patronizing B.S. we’ve read about Trump expressing the white working-class’s displacement and loss of the American Dream, I say, “Feh!” — go put your head under cold water. Resentment is no excuse for bald-faced stupidity. America is still the land where the waitress’s kids can grow up to become physicists and novelists and pediatricians, but it helps a lot if the waitress and her husband encourage good habits and the ambition to use your God-given talents and the kids aren’t plugged into electronics day and night. Whooping it up for the candidate of cruelty and ignorance does less than nothing for your kids. We liberal elitists are now completely in the clear. The government is in Republican hands. Let them deal with him. Democrats can spend four years raising heirloom tomatoes, meditating, reading Jane Austen, traveling around the country, tasting artisan beers, and let the Republicans build the wall and carry on the trade war with China and deport the undocumented and deal with opioids, and we Democrats can go for a long , brisk walk and smell the roses.
I like Republicans. I used to spend Sunday afternoons with a bunch of them, drinking Scotch and soda and trying to care about NFL football. It was fun. I tried to think like them. (Life is what you make it. People are people. When the going gets tough, tough noogies.) But I came back to liberal elitism.
Don’t be cruel. Elvis said it, and it’s true. We all experienced cruelty back in our playground days — boys who beat up on the timid, girls who made fun of the homely and naive — and most of us, to our shame, went along with it, afraid to defend the victims lest we become one of them. But by your 20s, you should be done with cruelty. Mr. Trump was the cruelest candidate since George Wallace. How he won on fear and bile is for political pathologists to study. The country is already tired of his noise, even his own voters. He is likely to become the most intensely disliked president since Herbert Hoover. His children will carry the burden of his name. He will never be happy in his own skin. But the damage he will do to our country — who knows? His supporters voted for change, and boy, are they going to get it.
Back to real life. I went up to my home town the other day and ran into my gym teacher, Stan Nelson, looking good at 96. He commanded a landing craft at Normandy on June 6, 1944, and never said a word about it back then, just made us do chin-ups whether we wanted to or not. I saw my biology teacher Lyle Bradley, a Marine pilot in the Korean War, still going bird-watching in his 90s. I was not a good student then, but I am studying both of them now. They have seen it all and are still optimistic. The past year of politics has taught us absolutely nothing. Zilch. Zero. Nada. The future is scary. Let the uneducated have their day. I am now going to pay more attention to teachers.
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Post by peggs on Nov 11, 2016 0:31:33 GMT
Thank you, simpleton.
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Post by miles on Nov 11, 2016 1:01:13 GMT
Yes thank you Simpleton. I've read it 3 times now, it just gets better. "Resentment is no excuse for bald-faced stupidity." That sums it up well.
On a side note, I have started reading short horror stories. They are oddly comforting.
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Post by bimble on Nov 11, 2016 4:37:55 GMT
I like GK. Thanks for posting it, Simps.
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Post by cicadashell on Nov 11, 2016 13:35:36 GMT
hello simpleton, and thanks for that, it was amusing. i also am anticipating that mr. trump will be the most despised president in history, once his supporters realize he has no intention of really doing anything for them, and their lot continues to worsen.
i am reminded, however, of why i pass over prairie home companion on the radio dial. mr. keillor can afford to take a brisk walk among his heirloom tomatoes more readily than many others in this country. he writes eloquently of his weariness, but appears to be advocating retreat at a time when fighting for social justice is suddenly a lot more important. i'm being forced to look at my own complacency differently now.
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Post by donavan on Nov 11, 2016 14:56:45 GMT
I'm not too sure about that. We had the despised Margaret Thatcher who inflicted untold harm to the people she claimed to be helping. And she was in power for over ten years.
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Post by miles on Nov 11, 2016 16:51:27 GMT
I'm not too sure about that. We had the despised Margaret Thatcher who inflicted untold harm to the people she claimed to be helping. And she was in power for over ten years. I think this will be an experiment in contrast in our collective mind sets. I think the US population has a very short attention span and zero patience. They want what they think they are entitled to and they want it now. Obama worked miracles bringing the nation back from catastrophe. There is little gratitude expressed now for his selfless actions. Trump's actual policies, which will be whatever the republicans put on his desk, will backfire and crash the wider economy (not to mention kicking 20 million people off their basic health care, like my wife and I.) The complaints about the aca will fade as the new reality of the insurance companies returning to all their most despised practices after it's repeal. All the winning and prosperity will go back to the 1% and the lower and middle income supporters will not just be disappointed but ANGRY. They wanted to stick it to the elites and will see that the elites RELISH complete conservative rule. This election is a defining event for the young too. The president that most defined my political awakening was Richard Nixon, I've been a left winger ever since. So I believe the Trump presidency will radicalize a generation, not to say that the klan won't pick up some of the deplorable's kids.
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Post by miles on Nov 11, 2016 17:07:02 GMT
hello simpleton, and thanks for that, it was amusing. i also am anticipating that mr. trump will be the most despised president in history, once his supporters realize he has no intention of really doing anything for them, and their lot continues to worsen. i am reminded, however, of why i pass over prairie home companion on the radio dial. mr. keillor can afford to take a brisk walk among his heirloom tomatoes more readily than many others in this country. he writes eloquently of his weariness, but appears to be advocating retreat at a time when fighting for social justice is suddenly a lot more important. i'm being forced to look at my own complacency differently now. Is it complacency or is it beating your head into a wall of stupid? I agree that dropping out into privileged communities is less than a progressive attitude (and not available to most of us.) The idea that the racism and misogyny of Trumps supporter's will allow us to reach out to them is naive. Unite the progressives, people of color, and women and let the heartland see how going back to 1950 works out for them. See Kansas for example. Support the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, build coalitions and fight bad policies and racism. I don't expect his followers to join us. Some will, both most will stay with their tribe.
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Post by donavan on Nov 11, 2016 17:07:21 GMT
I hope you are right. For me Trump is pretty much irrelevant. He's just put a show on and won the contest. Now the right wing politicians take over the show. You have more faith in people than I do. Will people who fell for this, get angry so quickly. Politicians have a way of telling people they are better off whilst the reality is different. Always amazes me how people don't make the connection. But should I be surprised? After all you made this guy president. Which was a pretty stupid thing to do. So why are those same people all of a sudden going to switch on?
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Post by miles on Nov 11, 2016 17:13:48 GMT
They will get it when their pay goes down, medicare is slashed and the cost of everything goes up. The Brits are much better at stiff upper lip, and sacrifice. The truth still is that MORE PEOPLE VOTED FOR CLINTON. The people didn't elect Trump, the system did.
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Post by donavan on Nov 11, 2016 17:27:49 GMT
Same over here with the Tories. More people didn't vote for them. But they take power and people lose jobs, houses, benefits, have wage cuts. Contracts are ripped up and pensions robbed. Health care gets worse with austerity for the poorest. The rich get richer and more corrupt avoiding taxes. And we bend over and ask for more. Hope you guys are different but I have my doubts.
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Post by Jeff Truzzi on Nov 11, 2016 19:21:45 GMT
I just email'd this GK article to Simp the other day! Great minds….
My gym teachers never beat me up. Surprisingly, because I sucked at sports. (Everything but soccer. You know how often we played soccer in ten years of school? Twice.)
But I watched them beat a lot of other people up. One guy in 8th grade called our Filipino teacher "Pineapple Man" and he got thrown across the locker room.
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Post by miles on Nov 11, 2016 19:22:14 GMT
We are in the same boat, just another couple of nations ruled by the most greedy and sadistic authoritarians available. I never believed in all that american exceptionalism crap anyway.
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Post by Jeff Truzzi on Nov 11, 2016 19:24:35 GMT
Our Electoral College games the system against third party candidates. And those who win the national popular vote but lose the Electoral vote. Like Gore in 2000.
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Post by miles on Nov 11, 2016 21:42:11 GMT
Our Electoral College games the system against third party candidates. And those who win the national popular vote but lose the Electoral vote. Like Gore in 2000. Additionally the representation of actual ec voters is heavily in favor of low population states. Wyoming gets 3 votes so their voters count for more proportional votes to a state like California by a huge amount. There are also states with double the population of Wyoming that also get 3 votes. Likewise Democrats have gotten the most votes for the House of Reps, but lose because gerrymandered districts don't have to be of equal populations, and inner city votes count less.
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