Sunday, October 23, 2016

Dustbin of History


Karma soon-coming
in some dark gutter-alley
November 2.9

5 comments:

Bubba said...

That doesn't even look like Hillary.

Dan Trabue said...

Clearly, I did not see this coming. The demographics are against this, and should increasingly be so. I hope the Dems do their own autopsy to learn some lessons from this. I wonder if the GOP will reevaluate their own autopsy, given that Trump won by doing the exact opposite of what they recommended...

Bubba said...

I would hope so, for both parties, but there seems to be so much contempt for the rural, heartland voters who handed Trump this victory, that I wouldn't be surprised if they learn nothing from this.

About demographics, it's worth remembering that these extraordinary changes have been the result of policy, not some natural phenomenon, and this election may, at a minimum, slow those changes -- and it should. The American electorate should have input on so important a subject.

One could have hoped (and some moderately conservative pundits did) that Obama would have fulfilled the promise of his campaign in being a unifying figure. I always thought his biography completely belied that, and I think my skepticism was vindicated. First, Obamacare was pushed through on straight party lines with no real compromise even on federal funding for abortion: the assurances to Stupak on an executive order proved to be a joke. Then, long before things really erupted, it was easy to see the tenor of Obama's term in office with his provocative comments interjecting himself into the arrest of that Harvard professor and the Trayvon Martin shooting.

I actually think Trump might be the unifying figure Obama was supposed to be. He's a rich, loudmouth New Yorker who got along well with celebrities and even civil rights leaders before deciding to run with "R" by his name, and he's not much of an ideologue. He's MUCH more of a fan of big government than I would like, and the size and spending of the federal government absolutely **MUST** be reined in, so I don't think unifying would be worth more government spending, but unifying the country might actually be possible, and it would be a good thing.

(But that would also require soul-searching on the part of the media and the pop culture, but I suspect that the same people who got everything wrong about this election will not hesitate to lecture us about what will happen as a result -- and what we should think about it.)

As a people we should be able to foster cooperation where there's common ground, tolerance whenever possible, and Christian love even for our enemies when we cannot honestly "agree to disagree."

That's my hope AND I try to make it my m.o. in personal relations, but I'm not hopeful about that approach becoming dominant.

Anonymous said...

A woman prominent on social media who pulled for Sanders and then Clinton linked to this article----

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/

Dan Trabue said...

"Dennis" Braveheart?