Emotional reactions.

Can we have a moratorium, please, on calling the many upset and frightened people, post-election, "crybabies?"

And otherwise mocking and sneering at them, or anyone, for being upset or worried by this election?  Or for coping with it in any peaceful way?

It's dumb.  It lumps an enormous class of individuals into one faceless mass, as if everyone who's upset is upset for the same reasons instead of being upset for a wide variety of reasons.  Furthermore, the sneerers selectively choose their favorite strawman reason, rather than their favorite noble one, and choose to paint the crowd with a wide negative brush.  

Finally, it's unkind.

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I lead a relatively privileged life and so I am not worried, not very much, about coming to personal harm as a result of the recent election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States.  I do not expect to be targeted by any gleeful thugs, nor to have my property or my place of worship vandalized.  

I have a little bit of fear that I might be caught in a situation where justice might require me to speak up and put myself at risk.  This is not much, either.

So on the one hand I am not qualified to comment about the authenticity of the fears other people are feeling.

On the other... I do have some experience with the way that reports of a few frightening incidents around the country -- and there have been such incidents of intimidation and harassment -- have a way of getting under your skin.

I know this, because of trying to be part of the Sane Mom Revolution.  Parents everywhere have been cowed into raising their children with extra shelter, not enough outdoor play, and a ridiculous amount of supervision because of a few frightening incidents around the country -- sometimes directly (you can't play at the park because I'm afraid you won't be safe there) and sometimes indirectly (you can't play at the park because I heard that one of the neighbors once called CPS on a mother for letting her kid play at the park).   Not only that, but institutions are reinforcing it with illiberal rules:  Kids having to be in the direct line of sight of a parent while inside a library, for example.

It's a self-perpetuating cycle of safety fears.  It's very hard to push back against, and it gets to you:  you catch yourself being frightened, even when you know intellectually that the specter of kidnapping and sexual predation is not actually part of a real trend or threat, that it's a bunch of isolated rare events that have been blown up by media.

It still frightens people even if they know that.

And by the way:  it's too soon to know whether the reports of intimidation and harassment are, or aren't, a real trend.

And by the way:  Even the intimidating graffiti and signs that are supposedly "hoaxes" perpetrated by anti-Trump people?  That doesn't make them any less intimidating or scary.  Why should the political orientation matter?  Why does it matter whether the 'Go Home [Slur]' sign-painter wanted to honestly scare you into leaving the neighborhood, or wanted to deceitfully scare you into rising up and fighting back?  It's intimidation either way.   

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The sixth spiritual work of mercy is "console the afflicted."  

"Consolation" can mean helping the afflicted see that the situation is better than it looks, if that is true (and I don't think any of us know yet whether it is true).  To judge that requires a good deal of prudence.  

I don't stake my honor on the claim that I have enough prudence to know.  I do stake my honor on the assertion that it is not "consolation" to call the afflicted crybabies and whiners, nor to dismiss them as not really afflicted.

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I'm having my own emotional reactions to the election of President Trump, and I'll lay them out here frankly.

 

Chief among them is surreal disbelief:  that we seem to be living in a parody sketch.  I really do find myself going about my day busy with things and then suddenly feeling a heavy weight drop into the pit of my stomach and remembering:  No, it really, really happened.  It isn't a joke.  It isn't a Bloom County strip.  It isn't a Simpsons sketch or a riff on The Producers.   Donald Trump is our next president.

Sometimes I start hyperventilating a little, or I tear up.

I know.

Crybaby.

Not.  It's real.  I'm horrified.  I didn't think it would really happen.

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And even though I didn't think it would really happen and so maybe I'm part of the problem, I'm angry.  So very angry.

Not that much at Trump voters as a whole, who voted for a wide variety of reasons and so don't deserve (any more than the sad and angry people) to be painted with a wide and universally negative brush.

I'm angry at all the influential, supremely privileged people -- people even more privileged than me, even less likely to hurt from a Trump presidency than I am -- who thought it was HI-LARIOUS that Trump ran.  

John Oliver will do for an example. In a response to the news that Trump was considering running for president:  "Do it," Oliver challenged, grinning widely as his audience cheered and laughed.  "Do it!  Look at me!  Do it!  I will personally write you a campaign check!  Now!  On behalf of this country, which does not want you to be president, but which badly wants you to run."

Stupid.  Stupid.  Stupid.  Did they not know how this works?  

"I didn't think it would happen."

Well.  Maybe you shouldn't have enabled it then.

This goes for every media outlet who thought Trump was ridiculous and awful and gave him free airtime because he was ridiculous and awful.

This goes for anyone who may have voted for Trump in an open primary in order to make the GOP as weak as possible.  

It goes for everybody who celebrated, or even minimized the awfulness of it all, because it was a sure victory for the Democrats when Trump was named the Republican nominee.

It goes everybody who thought that what was obviously bad for the Republicans must also be good for the country.   

Bad! Bad! Bad!  I'm angry at you.  Could you not see it as simply bad?  Why can we not all sincerely hope, in a first-past-the-post election, that both parties put forth their best possible candidates? 

The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.  

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That's me being mad at entertainment-class liberals.  I'm so mad at the GOP that I am not even in a place where I can effectively write about it.  Really.  Not anywhere near there yet.

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Finally:  I'm struggling personally with feelings that -- I wanted to call them private feelings, but I guess I'm airing them now -- feelings that I can only describe as personally traumatic.

First of all -- this part is an update -- I can't bear to listen to Trump speak.  I make people mute it and put on headphones.  I wait to read the transcript, if for some reason  I want to know what he said.

This is because I had a probable narcissist in my life once, a very deceitful narcissist, who was charming in public and vicious behind closed doors, a wealthy serial adulterer who flashed the keys to his Porsche, who worked behind the scenes to pit family members against one another, who liked to make fun of children, and who reacted with irrational aggression to strangers and family members who failed to show him sufficient respect or stood in his way whenever money was on the line.

Donald Trump reminds me of him, and I can't bear to listen to his voice for that reason.  I know I have harped more than is probably helpful on the theme of "Trump has narcissistic personality disorder" here on this blog.   It's because I have seen the danger of the double faces it presents, and I have been worried since the beginning of the campaign that the "charming" is more visible than the "vicious," because that's been my experience.

The other personal trauma:  I had a really rough time during the week of the tape of Trump leering aloud, "grab 'em by the pussy."

I cried a lot.

I expect there are other people out there, mostly women, probably some men too, who felt exposed and raw every time that piece was played or quoted.

I find myself thinking that I don't even deserve to feel upset because my own experiences with men grabbing me without my consent, verbally harassing me, and in situations where I was afraid to complain about it -- I was not even an adult, I didn't know how to cope with it -- are few and long ago.

But hearing the words over and over again brought it back.

The tape was old news, but it was new news that many people who should know better, people in positions of power, people I knew personally, were today excusing and minimizing the description of assault.  I was harassed and bodily touched as a young and relatively powerless teen.  There are more people around than I thought who today think that this kind of hurting people is normal, even expected.

It was new news to me that people would frame "they let you when you're a star" as some kind of proof that Trump was talking about consent.

They also let you when you're their much older co-worker and they're afraid they might lose their job.

They also let you when you're alone in an elevator with them and you're much larger than they are and they're afraid of what else you might do and so they're just trying to make it to the next floor.

It's not consent.

And it's not excusable.

And it's infuriating, upsetting, and tears prick my eyes, just thinking about how many people... don't think it's a deal-breaker.

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Our job is to do good work.  The year of mercy is coming to an end.  Let's pay it forward.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_of_mercy

For your neighbor's bodily well-being:

1. To feed the hungry.
2. To give drink to the thirsty.
3. To clothe the naked.
4. To welcome the stranger. (Previously referred to as "harbor the harborless" and "shelter the homeless")
5. To visit the sick.
6. To visit the imprisoned. (Previously referred to as "ransom the captive")
7. To bury the dead.

For your neighbor's spirit:

1. To instruct the ignorant.
2. To counsel the doubtful.
3. To admonish sinners.
4. To bear patiently those who wrong us.
5. To forgive offenses.
6. To console the afflicted.
7. To pray for the living and the dead.

 

Comments

[Joseph]

"The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend." Thank you Bearing for all you wrote. Did not vote for either one. Did vote for certain state, city persons.

[Kristin]

Visiting here from Jamie's blog over in Gladlyville.

Thank you for this:

"It's not consent."

Exactly. True consent requires equality, and real freedom. A friend of mine once said, "There's a difference between consent and submission." One is freely given. The other happens when you don't feel you actually have a choice.