It's a gloomy day in the United States of America (and around the world). Last night, around 3AM, Donald Trump was named the president elect of the USA Around 7PM, I arrived at a friend's house for an intimate election viewing party. I jokingly asked him if I should bring a cake similar to a gender reveal cake, to reveal the winning candidate. Well I arrived, optimistic, chicken nugget platter in hand, ready to spend a couple hours and witness Clinton's victory. A few hours later, Trump took Florida, we were all a little spooked, no longer feeling as confident as before. The night progressed. Clinton's path to victory was becoming ever so narrow, meaning Trump only needed a simple combination of two states to reach 270 electoral votes. We watched a couple different live streams, including Stephen Colbert's election special on Showtime. It began funny, as expected, but as it went on it became more somber, reality was setting in. After the program was over, and after we saw the managers tell those at Clinton HQ that it was time to go home, little hope was left. It was late, so I decided to go home, but continue following the election. About an hour and a half after, we got news that Clinton called Trump to concede and that was that.
Honestly, I didn't feel quite as defeated and angry as I expected. Although tears welled up in my eyes more than a few times, I went to bed feeling slightly optimistic and woke up the same. After waking up in the early afternoon and reading through all the reactions in my timeline, it made me realize that things aren't okay. On the one hand, I thought I felt optimistic because it was really the only positive emotion left to feel, and because although I am a woman, a woman of color, in more ways than one I am privileged. & I'm sorry. So, what can we do? This a disaster. This is not okay. I can't even think. I am seeing so many posts saying to mobilize and organize, but people have been organizing. We can only do so much before we are exhausted. Self care is important too. Honestly honestly, I don't even know what to say, what to write. I feel numb. One thing that keeps coming to mind, is that black women were Clinton's biggest voting bloc. It feels like black women are always on the front line, but no one else is ever on the front lines for them. It's despicable. Right now, there are protests all over the USA against Trump. I should have something to say, but I don't.
positive election news:
- tammy duckworth won and will be the first thai-american senator, she is also disabled
- kamala harris won and is going to be the first black female senator since 1999. she is also the first ever indian-american senator
- oregon elected kate brown and she will be the first ever openly lgbtqa governor in us history
- catherine cortez masto won and will be the first ever latina us senator
- sheriff joe arpaio of Arizona lost the bid for a 7th term
- minnesota elects country's first somali-american law maker
- hope there are more that I missed
Sorry you guys, I really am.
On MIKE PENCE (Vice president elect)
On MIKE PENCE (Vice president elect)
“Pence is no Uncle Joe. His record as governor indicates that he is willing to completely undermine the core values of a free country in order to impose his own vision of theocratic control.
While Donald Trump is a bumbling political idiot, Mike Pence is actively against the people and possibilities that we need to help America to have a strong future. His career has been built on hateful exclusion, not intelligent inclusion.
Here are some things that every voter should know about Mike Pence:
- Science and invention helped build America, but Mike Pence is 100% anti-science. He chooses not to accept the preponderance of evidence that supports anthropomorphic climate change, and he thinks schools should be required to teach Christian “creationism” mythology alongside evolution in science classrooms.
- Mike Pence is anti-environment. As governor, he has vetoed every piece of environmental regulation that has crossed his desk. He doesn’t want the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases, and he does want to open up pretty much every part of our country to oil and coal companies. No more wildlands under Pence. He is one of those irresponsible extremists who think that God gave us the world so we could just use it up, and when it is all used up the second coming will occur. There is no Biblical basis for this belief.
- Females make up more than half of the American population, but Mike Pence is anti-woman. He has said the Disney movie “Mulan,” which was based on a centuries old Chinese poem, was the work of a “mischievous liberal” trying to groom young children to accept women in combat. “Despite her delicate features and voice, Disney expects us to believe that Mulan’s ingenuity and courage were enough to carry her to military success on an equal basis,” he wrote on his radio show’s website.
- He obsessively pursues a personal vendetta to take Title X funding away from Planned Parenthood because Planned Parenthood provides abortion services. Title X money CANNOT be used for abortions. Abortions are paid for by the recipient or through private, tagged donations. Taking away Title X will not impact abortion services, but it would leave thousands of women without access to cancer screenings or birth control.
- Speaking of birth control, Mike Pence once again revealed his historical ignorance in saying that condoms are “modern” and “liberal.” He thinks all women should be pregnant unless they can’t afford a baby, in which case they should abstain from sex, even if they are married. That’s right: sex is only for procreation in PenceWorld. If you can’t afford the diapers, then hubby should be sleeping on the couch.
- Mike Pence is also anti-gay, to the point of denial. He doesn’t want the government to pay for cancer screenings, but he does want the government to pay for abusive “conversion therapy” programs that systematically undermine the victim’s self-esteem, and then indoctrinate them into robotic gender-appropriate behaviors. He has signed into law a bill that allows discrimination against LGTBQ customers based on religious belief.
- As governor of Indiana, Mike Pence was personally responsible for an outbreak of AIDS when he refused to allow clean needle exchanges for drug addicts. Instead, he asked people to pray for the addicts.
- Mike Pence is racist. He thinks there is “too much talk” about institutional racism in law enforcement because “police officers are human beings.” His solution is unity through “faith.” The Indiana governor has tried to prevent Syrian refugees from settling in his state because the “pose a threat to safety of residents.” Pence argued that his policy was based on fear, not race, so it wasn’t discriminatory. A Federal Appeals Court dismissed his racist arguments on October 3, 2016.
- A Federal Court also had to block his bizarre anti-abortion law that required burial or cremation for fetuses, whether miscarried or aborted, no matter how far along the pregnancy had progressed.
- Mike Pence is pro-birth, but not pro-life. He once funneled $3.5M dollars from Temporary Assistance to Needy Families into programs that counsel against abortion. He wants those women to have those babies, but he doesn’t care if the kids starve or live on the streets afterward.
- Mike Pence has refused to comply with federal guidelines aimed at reducing prison rape.
When you add it all together, you can see that the most dangerous part of the Trump-Pence ticket is …that calculating quiet man who will be leading the charge from behind. Mike Pence is basically against anyone who is not white, conservative, Christian, and male.
When Mike Pence was a young lawyer on the rise, he challenged a longtime Democratic congressman for a seat in a Republican-leaning Indiana district. He seemed to have it in the bag until voters were stunned to learn that he had been using political donations to pay personal expenses including the mortgage on his house, his credit card bill, groceries, golf tournament fees, and car payments for his wife.”
