TRUMP TRAUMA

Pollsters, pundits, politicians, and even the President have been commanding us on the losing side to accept the result, get behind the winner, support Trump as the rightfully elected new “leader of the free world” (gag!).  Their hastily revised message that the law has been followed, the people have spoken, and this is the way it’s always been done – as messy and maddening as it may be – does not at all console me. 

It is as if they are saying, this is democracy at its finest.  Well, I call bullshit, this is a massive failure of democracy.  The US has become a demagoguery!  The system has allowed the election of a hate-spewing, fear-mongering, bigoted, racist, misogynistic, egomaniac with no political experience whatsoever as POTUS. Trump has never had to compromise in a corporate position, either, running his real-estate empire by dictatorial whim.  Will he govern by late-night tweet?  God help us!

Actually, this was exactly why the Electoral College was formed in the first place (in 1787), to protect the fledgling US of A from undue influence by its uninformed, biased, self-interested burghers:

"A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated [tasks]… the people trusted (them) to cast a responsible vote for president.” Alexander Hamilton declared that the selection of the president should be “made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station.”  (from Wikipedia)

But it long ago became a puppet organization that just mucks up an already uber-cumbersome process.  And today’s EC, with its current winner-take-all policy, has failed us once again; the lackey electors can no longer exercise discernment or responsibility or analytical skills and in effect negate all those votes in their state’s minority.  The federal institution intended to ensure competency in the highest office in the land is basically now controlled by the lowest common denominator of the public: angst.  

Each time I have to explain the Electoral College to the Swiss, who enjoy the most direct democracy in the world, it is painfully clear that it should be dismantled posthaste, but with its Constitutional coat of armor, nobody has had the guts to even attempt to attack a rewrite. 

 

This is by far the most grievous aspect of the 2016 election: Hillary actually won the popular vote!  She received over 3 MILLION votes more, 47.8% to his 47.3%.  And of course she was the infinitely more capable candidate.  If ever personal foibles should have been forgiven and professional aptitude preferred, this was it.  Why can’t Americans be more French and give a laissez-faire shrug to the petty as long as policy is thoughtful?  What difference does it make from whom the head of state is getting head as long as (s)he has the people’s best interests at heart?  Server, schmerver.

Hillz and I share not only a gender but also an alma mater, and I was especially stoked at the idea of a fellow Wellesley alum becoming the first woman prez. And so while I’m ranting, I have to ask: Hey, my smart, savvy, educated, Caucasian sistas – WTF?!?! Tell me these exit poll stats ain’t true! 

·      53% of white women voted for Donald Trump

·      42% of all female voters chose the Republican

·      45% of college-educated white women also voted for him

DJT has gotten away with outlandish, unfounded, malicious claims based purely on his personal feelings towards not just HRC but every minority group.  He polluted the political atmosphere with libelous and scandalous remarks that incited animosity and malice.  We have deviated from the HOPEfulness and positivity (Yes, We Can!) of the Obama era and are to be led for four long years by a deviant whose followers find today’s racially, ethnically, culturally diverse landscape anathema.  The thought of gay marriage, transgender strides, gun control, a mosque in their neighborhood scares the bejesus out of them. 

The hate-induced incidents of blatant discrimination that have been horrifying us since Tuesday are indicative of the country’s current mood and, there’s good reason to expect, harbingers of what is to come. The perps are taking their cue from the top down, from a top dog whose vitriolic bark has penetrated the national consciousness and incited rabid resentment.  And I fear that the leash our system of checks and balances is supposed to provide will not be strong enough to keep the snarling hound from wreaking massive injury to civil liberties across the land.

The international high school students whom I advise here in Zurich are not sure if they want to go to college in the US any more.  Muslim friends in NY are seriously inquiring about the possibility of moving to Switzerland.  Colleagues of color are revising business plans in response to Trump’s xenophobia.  I am grateful that my family in the States, in particular my college-age son and niece on urban campuses, are lily-white Christians (and how dispiriting that such a thought even crossed my mind) – they just need to be sure to keep their ACLU cards firmly in their pockets.  

So it’s a tragic time in America, and those of us who want our government to be inclusive, compassionate, progressive, cooperative, tolerant should be allowed to wallow in our grief.  We need time to process what we truly believed was an inconceivable and preposterous scenario: President Trump. 

I may have emigrated 30 years ago, and even officially (and very reluctantly, thanks a lot, Uncle Sam) relinquished my US citizenship 5 years ago, but I will always be an American at heart – and this heart is in agony.