Denial — Gee, it’s strange they’re taking so long to call Virginia. And Florida’s weird, despite record minority turnout. Not to worry, the blue wall will hold!
Anger — How did this happen? This is the fault of millenials/Bernie Supporters/The DNC/The third parties/minority voters/uneducated white voters/etc...
Depression — I’m moving to Canada
Bargaining — Maybe he’ll moderate. Maybe they’ll pass immigration reform (I actually heard this on MSNBC last night).
Acceptance — Donald Trump is President and we’re going to have to do a hell of a lot of work to minimize the damage he can do and elect Democrats to wrest away his unilateral control of the government.
We are all somewhere on that scale right now. For myself, I can’t decide if I’m at depression or acceptance, but last night I was angry, I was depressed, and I kept looking for some way out, but there isn’t one. In a few short weeks, the Republicans will control the legislature and the Presidency. They will move quickly to pass Paul Ryan’s dream budget which will kill Obamacare is all but name only. They will block grant Medicaid to the states which will further erode the safety net. They will pass tax cuts for big business and the wealthy. They will eliminate Dodd-Frank and the Consumer Financial Protection bureau. They will defund Planned Parenthood. They will seat a Supreme Court Justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia. Within a few months, we will be back to the status quo of 2006.
With any luck, there will be no other openings on the Supreme Court in the next 4 years, but that’s unlikely. And if a liberal justice’s seat opens, we lose Roe v Wade, we lose many civil rights protections, we lose affirmative action, and we lose the right to marry.
With any luck, the Republicans won’t be able to muster the votes in the Senate to eliminate the filibuster, but if they do then we can look forward to every Republican policy dream being enacted. Look at Kansas for a preview of what we can expect.
With any luck, Trump will not go overboard on his promise to eliminate Obama’s executive orders, but that’s unlikely. You can expect the EPA to reverse rules on carbon emissions, MPG efficiency, and clean water and air standards. You can expect the Paris agreement and the Iran deal to be abrogated. You can expect serious challenges to NAFTA. You can also expect that a Justice Department under Christie or Giuliani to reverse course on criminal justice reform and to treat Black Lives Matter like a terrorist organization. You can expect that Muslim Americans will be treated with a baseline assumption of suspicion. You can expect ICE to expand and to start more aggressive deportations. You can expect the FBI to be used for COINTELPRO, just as it was under Hoover.
And then, there are the black swans. Maybe the right wing in the House decides it wants to spike the debt ceiling. Maybe Trump decides that the best way to deal with ISIS is to drop a nuclear weapon, or firebomb Raqqa, or commit some other war crime. Maybe he gets us into a trade war with China, or Mexico. Maybe Russia invades the Baltic states.
I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next 4 years, but these were the ideas rattling around my head as I tried to sleep last night. What I do know is this — we need to take serious stock of why non-college educated whites defected in massive numbers. We need to do something to address their pain and bring them back to us. We need to protect our brothers and sisters who are black, Latino, Muslim, differently abled, or LGBTQ. We need to stand on the protest lines with them and be willing to march, and suffer, and risk our lives and our freedom along side them, because if we don’t no one will. We need to be ready to face down hatred and bile with strength and determination.
We need to staunch the bleeding in 2018 and win it all back in 2020, and we need to spend the next 4 years creating the country that wants us to win it all back.
