Post Election Thoughts

Holy wah, Americans are dumb. We as a people are so good at metaphorically shooting ourselves in the foot it's unreal. Granted, Hillary Clinton had so much baggage that it would have overloaded a Conestoga wagon drawn by a dozen oxen, but still. . . It astounds me that so many people would willingly and cheerfully vote against their own self interests. Worried about Social Security staying viable? Then vote for Republicans who have been trying to get rid of it for the past 80 years. Worried about jobs getting outsourced? Then vote for the guy who has all his own products made in other countries. Concerned about family values? Put the guy who's been accused of raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old, cheated on his first two wives, and is now married to a high dollar hooker who did soft core porn into the White House. The stupid, it burns. . .

Then again, given that for the past 8 years the news media abetted the Republicans in convincing the public we're already living in some sort of dystopian hellhole with rising crime rates, a cratering economy, and misery in general, the results are no surprise. There was evidence all around that the economy was actually doing quite well -- businesses complaining about not being able to find applicants for job openings they had posted, new construction going up, crime rates falling -- but we're all pretty good at ignoring what's right in front of our faces. An alluring fantasy that lines up with what we'd like to believe is always so much more attractive than reality.

Of course, now that the Yam in Human Form has won the election, all the horrible things Faux News has been saying for 8 years were occuring under an Obama administration are about to happen for real in a Trump one. The global financial markets are in a tail-spin, the stock market is in free fall, there's a fair amount of panicking going on. The gullible public may have bought Trump's hype about being a successful businessman, but the actual economic experts know perfectly well that he's an idiot who got lucky by inheriting money and indulging in shameless self-promotion.

I do have mixed feelings about Hillary losing. On the one hand, I thought she should never have been a candidate to begin with. Instead of being as egoistic as any other politician, once she lost in 2008 she should have looked at the calendar and acknowledged she'd had her shot, missed, and it was time to move on, focus on building the Democratic Party as a whole and not just her own machine. She had a chance to work with the party to promote younger politicians, the next generation of policy makers, and instead it was all about Hillary and it being her turn next. Well, that worked out real well, didn't it? The voting public handed her a rather resounding FOAD.

On the other hand. . . Trump. Holy wah. We are so fucked. 

What I'm wondering at the moment is how long it's going to take for gas to hit $5 a gallon. Anyone else want to bet it gets there by New Year's?