Shame, shame on us.
Shame on us for not working harder to elect Hillary Clinton. Shame on us for not doing more, giving more, knocking on more doors, making more phone calls, imagining that the most significant election of our lifetimes would turn out okay so we could sit back and take it easy. Shame on us for letting our emotions sway our votes instead of our intellect. It wasn't hard to see which candidate was capable, which had worked hard in service to the country for decades, and which offered stability and security in a dangerous world.
Shame on our media for settling, as usual, on the easy narratives--Clinton was untrustworthy and dishonest, and Donald Trump was a buffoon not to be taken seriously. Shame on them for giving him so much free air time, because it drove up ratings and profits in the short term are more important than a sound economy in the long term. Shame on them for focusing on Clinton's email issues instead of the very real policy differences between the candidates (or the fact that while Clinton spelled out her policy proposals in detail, Trump was allowed to get away with making vague promises that he (and he alone) could "fix" things.
Shame on Gary Johnson and Jill Stein and their supporters for letting their egos and their pet issues persuade them that it didn't matter whether Clinton or Trump won, because "there's no difference between the parties." There is, and it's huge. And even if there weren't, there's also a difference between the candidates.
Shame on the elected Republicans who knew the dangers of a Trump presidency, but put party ahead of country and refused to fight against him. Giving up presidential power for another cycle would have been a sacrifice, but when we're called upon to sacrifice for our country, that's what we're supposed to do. That's called courage. Very few elected Republicans displayed any.
Shame on voters who willingly ignored--or embraced--Trump's misogny, his racism, his fascist tendencies, his religious bigotry, his anti-Semitism, his denial of science, his incitements to violence, his bullying, his pathetic revenge fantasies.
We've just elected a conscienceless authoritarian white supremacist rapist con man to the most powerful job in the world.
We're the United States of America. We should be better than that. We set a moral example for the world, and now, we've failed the world. Bigly.
Shame on us.
Comments