It’s been just over a week since the United States of America finally, mercifully held its presidential election and with Donald Trump’s unexpected victory, Liberal America lost its fucking mind. I mean, IT HAS LOST. ITS. FUCKING. MIND. I didn’t want to write anything in the immediate wake of the election because emotions were too raw and quite frankly, I didn’t know what to say. You see, I voted for Hillary Clinton. I wasn’t particularly thrilled with her candidacy, but Trump is a belligerent, arrogant asshole. He’s basically every pampered Harbor kid I grew up with in Huntington Beach. Completely privileged and acts like he’s doing you a favor sharing oxygen with you. He’s basically a 70-year-old version of Billy Zabka in The Karate Kid, forever sweeping the leg of anyone who deigns to question his authoritah. Fuck him and the boat he rode in on.
HOWEVER, it’s not like Clinton didn’t come saddled with her own substantial baggage. She’s a bureaucratic lifer, the textbook definition of “Washington insider,” and the matriarch of a political dynasty — exactly the kind of person that people who hate politicians hate. She’s also spent her entire career acting brazenly, arrogantly secretive as if she got to play by a different set of rules — which, to be fair, she usually did — and then played victim when she got called out for it. All in all, a terrible look for someone seeking the highest office in the land. In fact, it’s fair to say that this contemptuous arrogance was her ultimate undoing. She was too good to actually campaign for the deplorable working and lower/lower middle class vote, so guess what happened? They didn’t vote for her.
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Effigy
Willy And The Poor Boys, 1969
Amazon
Since the election liberals have protested in the streets and on campuses, in some cases rioted, furiously donated to various leftist causes, and have gone fully toxic on social media. They’ve even set a Trump effigy on fire right here in Los Angeles. While protesting is certainly an American privilege, they’re essentially protesting the democratic process. When you hold elections, sometimes your side loses. It’s how democracy works. Thus, one of the unfortunate consequences of Trump’s win is that liberals have either painted all Trump voters as racists, misogynists, and hate-ridden xenophobes or made it clear that even if they’re not those things, they’re OK with those things. Basically, they’re acting with the same kind of contemptuous arrogance that caused Clinton to lose.
In The “Deplorables” Get Their Say, an essay written by Craig Bernthal — who did not vote for Trump — he said something that resonated with me. In wrestling with the complicated outcome of this election, he writes:
People were sick of being called racists, homophobes, Islamophobes, and being basketed as deplorables — one of Hillary Clinton’s rare moments of candor. They were sick of a condescending political and media culture which insulted them as “clinging to their religion and their guns” (presumably instead of their safety pins), sick of being told they were incapable of rational thought. I talked with several Trump voters who seriously said, “I don’t think I’m a racist,” and would then lay out a mini-biography of their cordial relations with African-Americans, gays, and in the case of the engineer, the many Muslims he’d worked with and considered friends. They felt bad that they were being talked about in those terms. It was personal. But hoping to prove you are not a racist to a determined progressive is like hoping for a Lion’s Superbowl victory. If you are not consciously racist, then you are unconsciously racist. If you are one of the 54% of white women who voted for Trump, you have “internalized misogyny.” If you are white, you are the beneficiary of “white privilege”; even if you are an unemployed auto-worker or coal miner you are implicated in structures of oppression. People got sick of this and they were not all white.
Reductio ad Hitlerum
Lost in the hysteria of Trump’s victory is that Hillary Clinton ran the worst or second worst campaign in modern American history — either just behind or just ahead of the 2000 Gore/Lieberman shitshow. With leftists comparing Trump to Hitler, it begs the question: If Trump IS Hitler, then why didn’t Clinton run a better campaign? You don’t want Mein Führer Trump? Then, fucking campaign accordingly. Win critical votes. Win swing states. Do your due diligence and stop making excuses. It was Hillary Clinton’s responsibility to make sure she won and she failed. For all of Trump’s flaws, he didn’t steal the election. He won fair and square. And spare me the popular vote nonsense. Both candidates understood that winning electoral votes was the deal when they began campaigning. You don’t get to retroactively change the rules when the election doesn’t go your way.
Candidates aren’t entitled to votes. If they want someone’s vote, they have to go out and earn it.
This brings me to something I said to my fellow liberals* in the wake of the 2000 election and it’s just as relevant now. Candidates aren’t entitled to votes. If they want someone’s vote, they have to go out and earn it. Obama earned it. Twice. Bill Clinton earned it. Twice. George Bush earned it at least once. I don’t care how much you hate him, Trump earned the victory and just as importantly, Clinton earned the loss. This isn’t semantics. This is fundamental to understanding what actually happened.
* I now consider myself a conservaliberal for many of the reasons outlined herein. I’m as liberal as I need to be, but I’m as conservative as I want to be.
In retrospect, Bernie Sanders probably should’ve been the Democratic candidate. Or Joe Biden. But, Hillary Clinton bullied her way to the Democratic nomination. “It was her turn.” She rigged the primaries so that even if she would’ve beaten Sanders in a fair fight, she ensured that it wasn’t fair. She wasn’t gonna be Obama’ed for a second time. That’s contemptuous arrogance.
Contemporary leftist theology has to be called out here as well. You know the real reason Sanders and Biden were never seriously considered as viable Democratic candidates? Because they were old white men and God forbid we have another one of those oppressive patriarchs leading the Dems. The party, if not all of Liberal America, convinced themselves it was a woman’s turn. BUUUUUTTTT not just any woman. Elizabeth Warren is as smart and capable as Clinton — with approximately 4000% less baggage — and maybe possibly considered running for prez in 2013-14. But, she was smart enough to realize that pursuing the nomination AGAINST Hillary would’ve been a suicide mission.
“To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables, right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.”
–Hillary Clinton
Clinton’s sense of entitlement not only demanded the Democratic nomination, but the Presidency itself was a fait accompli. So, she half-assed her way through an election against someone leftists now consider a domestic Hitler. Is it Trump’s fault that Clinton ran a dumpster fire campaign? Is it Trump’s fault Clinton condescendingly called Trump supporters deplorable? Is it Trump’s fault Clinton just assumed Democratic strongholds would vote Dem and didn’t actually bother reaching out? You can blame racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and Islamophobia all you want, but Clinton lost because of her contemptuous arrogance for the electorate. Don’t get me wrong, Trump is equally contemptuous and equally arrogant, but he was smart enough to not take it out on potential voters. Clinton was not. Running the country was her birthright, she was above earning votes. And now, because of that arrogance, Trump is our President-Elect.
Uncle Tupelo – Effigy
No Alternative, 1993
Amazon [CD/Cassette]
Discogs [Vinyl]
Last night
I saw the fire burnin’ on
The palace lawn
O’er the land
The humble subjects watched in mixed
Emotion
[Chorus]
Who we burnin’?
Who we burnin’?
Effigy
Who we burnin’?
Who we burnin’?
Effigy
Last night
I saw the fire spreadin’ to
The palace door
Silent majority
Weren’t keepin’ quiet
Anymore
[Chorus]
[Farrarmageddon guitar solo]
Last night
I saw the fire spreadin’ to
The countryside
In the mornin’
Few were left to watch
The ashes die
[Chorus]
Why?
Why?
WHY???
[Farrarmageddon and out]
Remember when Farrar played electric guitar? That was cool.
We were so innocent back then. We thought we could change the world.
Not silent, not a majority either. Thanks for the music eddication though. Really dug your Clarence White series and very pleased to have stumbled over here.