At least a black swan can get me going.
No one likes a know-it-all. I know, because I’ve been one all my life. I’ve been ostracized, bullied, harassed, taunted, excluded and even beaten up by people in the course my life. I learned early on to hide myself because even average people will seek to destroy things they can’t understand. Lack of understanding leading to fear. Correctly predicting the future scares people.
When Michael Moore predicted a loss for Hillary Clinton in this year’s election - many vilified him. I agreed with him and said little. He’s written and spoken about his observations at length, but the nutshell version is that the people in rural America are stuck. There are diminishing economic opportunities in those regions, and they have no idea why. My experience is that they will accept any explanation that doesn’t involve their own culpability. My insulated liberal friends did not want to hear what I was saying. I crave social acceptance and let it go. It never feels good to be right when terrible things happen - and the result of this election is truly a terrible event.
I’ve worked through the stages and I’ve now accepted what has happened. Let me tell you what I think is going to happen now.
The energy that Trump supporters now feel is already beginning to wane. It will be replaced in the next year by doubt and the fear that drove them to vote for him in the first place will soon return. It will creep in the cracks with every misstep he makes as he approaches the world stage and become amplified as nothing changes for them.
After inauguration Trump and the Republicans will wield control in every branch of the US government - and they will use it to do nothing of benefit for the majority of people who gave them that power. There will still be no new economic opportunities for rural Americans. Their communities will still be riddled with drug abuse, neglect, and poverty. In fact, they will be in a worse situation as they will still have no workable health care. The failure of Republican-controlled State governments to create and maintain insurance marketplaces sufficiently sabotaged President Obama’s efforts in that regard. The promises the Trump campaign made will vanish like morning fog in the midday sun.
Instead, the Republicans will do what they always do - use the government to enrich themselves. There will be more national debt, and those who know where the money is going will become vastly wealthier than they already are.
If any in the electorate notice they will be vilified. If the free press does their job, they will likely be imprisoned or worse - just as we have seen during Trump’s campaign. People will remain fearful and angry because nothing is happening for them. The version of America they were seeking has been gone for a long time and is not coming back.
The Republicans at the local level will continue do what they have done in rural parts of states, channel the fear and anger of their constituency in the direction of anyone they perceive to be different. Minorities will be targeted. Policy will be designed for maximum noise to distract the constituency while the wealthy steal more money from our children through creation of national debt. Anything to distract from their own culpability.
More Americans will die. Rural Americans will die from lack of access to health care. The erroneously blamed minority class Americans will continue to die as they have been - but likely in greater numbers. That fear and anger that permeates the right is dangerous and I won’t sugar coat it. They will target anyone gay, black, Muslim, Jewish, trans, Latino, or even liberal, white, atheist, intellectuals like me when we speak out. There is much evidence that the anger that they can channel is deadly and there will be more fear and anger that the Republicans can channel when they utterly fail at governing.
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