Reaction

I owe my family and friends an explanation for my reaction to the election. I have been angry. I haven't been able to sleep. Typically a bit dozey at work in the early afternoons, I've been wide awake. Adrenalin is quite the upper.

Unlike a lot of people I know, I always thought Trump could win. Early in the primaries, I had supper with a couple of German colleagues who asked if Trump could possibly be elected. I banged my head on the table and said yes. Unfortunately, yes.

I followed Nate Silver, and always thought Trump's chances were much higher than they ought to be. But I also thought that in the end Hillary would prevail. I believed we wouldn't fall for the flim-flam. Trump's lies and behavior were so outrageous, that surely a reasonable America would reject him and all he stood for. But we didn't. We aren't reasonable.

We will always have an element in America that openly loves to hate. I don't really blame them. I don't think their voices will be all that loud for all that long. They'll get just loud enough that there will be a strong reaction, a blaming of Trump, and then he'll step in and clamp down on them proving his detractors wrong and assuring the rest that he's really not that way. (Big man manipulation tactics 101.)

Trump's appeal to the disenfranchised is clear. It was to be expected. And I get that the middle class resents paying extra for the lower class. (Never mind that the richest pay a lower percentage. That's why they are called the privileged class.)

And I don't anticipate Armageddon. The slow steady growth of our economy over the past seven years is just what we needed. No flair, no bubbles, just easy she goes and a solid foundation. Trump may even be able to get some decent policies enacted. I don't expect much from the playground bully in the principal's office, but there's always the teachers and the school secretary.

I am not cutting off my relationships with family and friends. Many of you are Republicans whom I respect and admire. We don't always agree, but we disagree for the right reason: we want what is best. Some of you could not bring yourselves to vote for Trump in spite of being Republicans (thank you). Some of you didn't think all that much about it. Some of you said, well my pastor and Franklin Graham and James Dobson and Jerry Falwell and Ben Carson told me to vote for him.

And this is where I get really pissed. My anger is at the white evangelical church. More specifically, at their leaders who said Donald Trump was their man and God's man. 

This church has said that a pathological liar and an unrepentant racist is what is good for this country. They believe a leech who brags about not paying his share will bring fiscal responsibility. A man who would sleep with their wives and grab their daughters crotches (provided they were pretty enough) and boast about it afterwards should represent us to the world.

Truly they have their reward.

Some have tried to weasel out of it by saying they weren't voting for that. But they did vote for that. They told us to vote for that. The world was watching, and the church said this despicable, hateful man is our man. He is who we want. The church, after being willing to impose their version of morality on others, has said this is our morality. Give us Barabbas. 

My whole life I've defended the church. I've given evangelicals a pass on their close mindedness. I don't think I can or ever will again. I was part of the problem by letting the church get away without living the Gospel. So I'm angry at myself as well. But I will never again count myself among evangelicals.

And I strongly advise white evangelicals not to make any moral pronouncements within earshot.

I could go on. But it has been said better by Brandi Miller, who by gender and race is more qualified than I am. What more can we say?