When Hillary lost, the world was shocked. I remember going on a train station to work when I saw a newspaper that had already printed out: ‘Congratulations, Mrs. President.”
I kept thinking about that headline today, though I couldn’t figure out why.
Maybe it’s because I’ve started to hear a lot more people mutter that they should have supported Kamala, despite their misgivings. Maybe it’s because people are still incredulous that Trump is not “deporting only the criminals.”
Regardless, I think a lot of us are wondering that right now. It even showed up on Reddit. And you know what? I’ll say it again. As far as Hillary and Kamala go, I’m still with them.
So, what would have happened if Kamala Harris or Hillary had won instead of Trump?
Well, America definitely wouldn’t be in its current position, that’s for sure. We likely would have seen national legislation passed protecting DREAMers, women, the environment, and maybe even some consumer protections.
I think, during their reign, America would be better as a whole. Maybe we, as a collective, would have been able to heal a little bit better. However, the more I look at things, the more I realize the rise of a Hitler-like leader was inevitable.
The moment those women would have left, we’d have had an ultra-conservative in power. Here’s why I say that.
People forgot that Trump was put into power as part of a decades-long corruption of government.
There has been a longstanding, widespread effort to push America to the right — starting even before Ronald Reagan. It started with the religious right, who actively preached to their followers to have kids to outvote leftist ideals.
It started with Jimmy Falwell and his push toward Christian-fascist propaganda. It was enhanced when Reagan pushed legislation that started “trickle-down” (formerly horse-and-sparrow) economics, knowing it’d crush the middle class.
Fuel was added to the fire in the form of FOX News, which was literally designed to be a right-wing propaganda machine. Then, we had Citizens United and Russian oligarchs funding right-wing shit.
The bottom line is simple: America rotted from the inside-out, with the help of people who wanted to wage war on the left. Whether we want to admit it or not, we’ve been dealing with a well-funded culture war for over 50 years.
While mainstream America may not have started it, we became embroiled in it the moment propaganda grabbed conservatives, religious folks, and rural Americans by the balls.
Even if we had another left-leaning president, we couldn’t really negate all the damage done over 50 years.
Or rather, I want to say that she (Harris or Clinton) wouldn’t have been able to negate everything. Congress would likely still be red, and they would still vote in lockstep. The Supreme Court would still be voting on rank-and-file with their right-wing masters.
And what would that cause?
More resentment toward the left-leaning politicians who actually wanted to do right by America. When you pair that with the anti-left propaganda and the infighting, it becomes clear that the period of leftist time would have ended.
We all like to think that the US would be totally different if Clinton or Harris. It wouldn’t have been that different in the end. The truth is, we’d have had the exact same behavior sooner or later.
By 2016, our society was so fucked by propaganda and accusations and infighting, the truth no longer mattered to way too many people. That number was bound to grow.
If nothing else, having Trump in power forced the culture war into the spotlight.
I don’t think most people are willing to accept how much gaslighting Americans have had in the past 20-odd years. We were constantly told there was “no war on women,” up until Roe v. Wade fell.
Now we have an open hunting season on minorities, people trying to intimidate leftists into silence, and threats that happen to teachers trying to do their job. Trump made it possible to force everyone to see the culture war — including those in denial.
The bigger thing here, though, is the way this inevitable presidency will force people to see the error of their ways.
There is no doubt in my mind that the GOP and right-wing of America has turned into a massive cult, with Donald Trump sitting at its helm. Right now, tons of newspapers are showing conservatives waking up to what they voted for.
More importantly, most cults don’t survive much longer after their leader dies. So, by all means, we seem to be on a timer. Even if MAGAts never lose their support of Trump, they will likely wake up once their Dear Leader is gone.
Simply put — the GOP is not charismatic. At all.
There are very few things that will jolt as many people awake as realizing, over the course of being fucked over repeatedly while an uncharismatic leader sits at the helm, that they’ve been fleeced. It will fuck our country up.
We’re at a point where America has been irreparably broken for about a decade.
The more I think about it, the more the GOP’s rise to power may have been inevitable. However, that doesn’t mean that it will remain the status quo for decades — or even years.
It just means that we have to have the country learn the hard way what fascism will cause to us all.
There was absolutely no way to make things better the way things were headed. The propaganda was getting to be too much, the courts were already stacked, and Congress was already ratfucked into a shit shape. No amount of convincing could have been done to get people to vote for their own wellness.
What we are seeing now is a pot proverbially boiling over, filled with all the issues America has been trying to ignore. The only way to make things better is to tear it all down, go through it, and be inevitably confronted with our shadow side — the same way that Nazi Germany had to post-Hitler.
Ideally, this time, we’ll learn to Nuremberg everyone and rehash our constitution to a more modern, harder-to-corrupt manner. Because, well, let’s face it, modern troubles call for modern solutions.
