Election 2016, Coroner's Report, Appendix I

In light of Trump's victory large portions of non-classical liberals have gone completely off the rails. Never mind the wailing and gnashing of teeth on youtube. Rioting has broken out in several liberal cities, and there's even calls for a California secession (I was laughing as I wrote that last one, stupid ass regressives...).

Take a moment for that to settle in. The United States' federal government has made it known that the member states of the US cannot just simply leave when they please. The people who want a "Calexit" are Hillary supporters. Hillary and generally her supporters support strict gun-control, so it's reasonable to say that these people aren't the people who own the guns in this state. I'd like to see them draw me a diagram of how they expect that one to happen. That just goes to show how completely unhinged and off the rails some segments of Hillary supporters have gone, since it's obvious that the ones who are serious about this, haven't exactly thought it though (Odds are there are enough gun owners in California who are loyal to the US to put down any such insurrection from these people without the need for military support, especially given that these people do not want to live in the California that these Hillary supporters want).

Now with all of this going on, I'm wondering how long until the introspection phase sets in. How long until these people take a good long look at the mirror and realize that they are partly the reason Trump was elected. This election season was a wholly toxic one, possibly the most toxic one I've personally seen. But for the Democrats, there was an added twist, they were in the same position as the Republicans were in 2008 in more ways than one. One of those ways was being the party/ideology in power, and passing down moral decrees on the people. The whole "Gamergate" thing, "3rd Wave Feminism", Politically Correct, Safe Space needing Social Justice Warriors, etc. all that culture war crap, all filled the same role that right wing Christians like John Ashcroft filled in society as the Morality Police.

This was a multi-faceted disaster of the Democrat's own making.

I'll focus on the cultural/social part of this disaster here.

From the start Hillary made her campaign about her gender. It wasn't just about her as the individual but about her being the first female president. From the start he campaign was playing the identity politics game. Memory is a bit hazy, but from what I recall of Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, him being half-Black wasn't really a pillar of his campaign, it was a peripheral issue, it wasn't "vote for me so we can have our first Black president", it was vote for me and we'll change the tone in Washington. The man giving us this message just happened have a Black father.

On the surface that doesn't seem like a big deal and it wouldn't be really, but then there's the matter of her supporters, the ones carrying the message (mainly the regressive left). As I mentioned earlier, this campaign was about as toxic as Chernobyl. Whether that was something that seeped from the bottom up into Hillary's campaign, or from the top down from the campaign down to the supporters is moot point. What matters is how the message of vote for Hillary was delivered. It wasn't done in a way of "vote for Hillary because..." but rather "If you don't stand with Her you are, sexist/misogynist!" Any argument against voting for Hillary was casually swept away with a waive of the hand and an unsubstantiated claim of "you're a misogynist/sexist/hate women/support institutional" oppression with a sprinkling of "patriarchy".

But beyond what amounts to name calling, because all of this talk was tied in with identity, the whole thing became personal. And because these people, these regressive leftists, hitched their identity to a particular political candidate, when that candidate is reject, be it though people refusing to vote for them, or... losing an election... they feel that it is a rejection of them as an individual. That what they identify has been deemed invalid. So as a result, they double down on the vitriolic rhetoric, because for them, they are literally defending who they are. Because they feel they are literally defending who they are, they have no interest in dialogue with the other side. Why? Because they are the victim. Oh yes, the mythical Victim, the creature in which everyone needs to just sit down, shut up, and listen to and believe, because allegedly something damaging happened to them and what they have to say is automatically valid because of that sole fact. This gets amplified when the people seeing their identity under attack, are the coddled, overly emotional, hyper sensitive, helicopter parented, participation trophy types to the point where the vitriol gets to the level that it did. People that never learned how to cope with and move on from losing.

Everything is sexist, everything is racist, and they have to point it out. And they did just that.

And everyone got tired of it.

Everyone.

The thing was, they spread this vitriol to beyond open Trump supporters. Everyone from disgruntled Bernie supporters, to third party voters, to the apathetic and indifferent got targeted by this poison. "You don't want to vote for Hillary?! Well you MUST be sexist! You don't like her because she's a woman!" Or better yet the even more convoluted chain of thinking, "Trump speaks out against immigrants, Hillary opposes Trump, you don't support Hillary, therefore you are against immigration and therefore you are racist." Keep saying that enough and people are going to get tired of your shit. Maybe, just maybe get tired enough for vote for the other guy just out of spite.

People will especially grow tired of this, when most of the perceived sexism and racism isn't even there. It's crying wolf when there is no wolf. The people that were howling about this, were literally looking anywhere and everywhere for anything that could even remotely be considered sexist or racist by the most of fringe elements. Eventually, people will stop listening to you, and the louder you shout, the more people just want you to shut the hell up.

When you start lumping everyone into classes based on superficial identities, people will grow tired of your horse shit. You can't just group people by class, and then brow beat that class into getting them to do what you want. It blatantly ignore the individual, by doing that, don't you deny that individual's experience? While at the same time pattering on and on about the individual experiences in your preferred classes to justify your totalitarian positions.

For the most part, no one cares about identity politics. Most person are too busy taking care of their every day responsibilities to care about identity politics. Yet all of these people also got targeted by the vitriol. When you're trying to make ends meet, you don't really appreciate some young inexperienced jackass browbeating because you're not with her, when all you're trying to do is keep a roof over your head and food on your table. These people are either going to ignore you and continue to not care, or they are going to vote the other guy just to spite you, just to give you the finger.

Though, all this rioting, protesting a fair election and calls for secession should have been expected and should be no surprise to anyone considering the deplorable behavior of some of Hillary's supporters during the general election. We have people trespassing onto private property and stealing Trump campaign signs, this amounts to theft as well as silencing someone's voice by preventing them from displaying their support for someone/thing. Then we have an act of arson. Then we have destruction of public property. Even to the point of assaulting and battering a homeless person. Sure there are those on Trump's side that was guilty of the same thing, but that isn't the point. They're not the ones rioting and calling for secession right now. Secondly, I thought "love trumps hate"? Since when is destruction of property and acts of violence on another, a show of love? And all the rioting and and calls for secession just further justify's people's support for Trump in their minds, further proves their point about Hillary's supporters in their mind, as unhinged overly emotional leftists. Third, the Democrats always like to paint themselves as better than Trump's supporters, so when are they going to prove that to me with their actions?

This wasn't just a repudiation of the political establishment. This was also a repudiation of the regressive leftist Morality Police. Americans just don't like being told what to do, they didn't like it when it was conservative Christians during George W Bush's tenure, they sure as hell didn't like it when it was coming from some smug 20 year old career victim who hasn't even completed their Bachelor's. SJW's like Franchesca Ramsey, Lacey Green, Jonathan McIntosh and Arthur Chu have become literally no different than the far right Christian morality crusaders that were out in full force during W's tenure. "Same shit, different asshole" as the saying goes.

The bottom line is that the regressive leftist crybully faction of Hillary's supporters, did not make their case to vote for Hillary, but rather tried to bully and guilt trip people into voting for Hillary, and that just did not work. Not only did it not work, but it poisoned the rest of her campaign (if it wasn't already tainted by other things but that's outside the scope of this particular article).

Democrats need to take a look at themselves and realize, that they in part had a role in driving people into Trump's camp. It's easy to point the finger and blame some nebulous concept like "misogyny" or "racism" or "bigotry" or "Islamophobia" for all your problems, rather than looking into the mirror and seeing where it was that you went wrong, because to do that, is to admit you were wrong somewhere.

They have two years to figure this out and how to reform their party, which factions of the voter base need to be banished *cough*the regressive left*cough*, which platform stances need to be axed and flushed down the toilet.

That said...

Let me step out from the Salty Manx Cat persona. I'm not talking as a cranky white cat with no tail, but rather as my actual self.

I get it, some people are literally in fear of of their life. This was a thoroughly toxic election, where literally everything has been exaggerated, twisted, and taken out of context. an election so poisonous that it has literally brought out the worst that segments of society have to offer. There are multiple lessons to take away from all this. One of them is that you cannot fully entrust your own safety (be it physical or economic) to another. Because to do that gives them all the power, and then what happens when that power is turned on you?

For that reason you'll never see me wearing a safety pin. I'm not going to provide you with a safe haven, and it's not because I don't care about what happens to you, but rather because I have no desire to hold power over you. I won't provide a haven for you, but what I will do, is what ever I can, to help you make yourself safe. Be it help you to pick out a martial art to learn, to helping to pick out a gun that's a good fit for you, all you need to do is ask. You give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, you teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. You protect a man, you protect him for a day, you teach a man to protect himself and you protect him for life. While I can't do much as far as economic security, but even if we've been vehemently opposed on issues before if you're legitimately scared for your life, just ask and I'll help you.

The other thing this election has laid bare is the sheer corruption involved in both parties. On the Republicans side, it showed how out of touch it has gotten with the people. Out of touch to the point that party establishment stalwarts like Bush was just completely run over by someone like Trump.

On the Democrat side, the emails regarding the collusion between Hillary and the party higher ups, showed that this election was nothing about offering the voters their pick of who they thought would be the best candidate the Party had to offer. Instead what we was laid bare wasn't a market competition of ideas, but rather a byzantine power game.

The third point, to come full circle, is the collusion between mainstream media and the political power structure. That said, can you genuinely say that you can trust what the media has said? Personally I'd take anything said by the establishment media with a grain of salt. As the internet saying goes "pics or it didn't happen." The political establishment of both parties has a vested interest in keeping all of us divided, and it's favorite tool to accomplish that division is by leading the charge in "othering", can you really say that you can take what the media is telling you at face value?

That said, we all deserve better than behind the scene byzantine power games. We all deserve better than a political landscape where the way to win is by acting like a pro-wrestling heel from a era referred to as the "Attitude Era".

But as the saying goes, be the change you want to see. As Maslow's Hirearchy of Needs says,

One must satisfy lower level deficit needs before progressing on to meet higher level growth needs.

Safety is one of those lower level deficit needs. Until you fill that requirement, you can't move on, move on to the point, where you can effect that change. The thing is, no one is coming to save you, you have to watch your own back and fight your own battles. Certainly not a politician, and certainly not a media manufactured faux social movement.

And like I said earlier, unlike those politicians and faux political activists who'll tell them they will make you safe, they will provide a haven for you to run to to be safe, I will tell you something those people never will. I will help you make yourself safe, I will help you to make your own safe space. I have no desier to shield you with power (because honestly I'm just too lazy to bother), but rather, I would see you have the power.

Election 2016, Coroner's Report

So Orange Chicken er, I mean Donald Trump got the needed 270 Electoral College votes to be seated as President of the United States for the next four years. Shocking isn't?

Or is it...?

To figure this whole thing out, we need to go to the start of this whole campaign and see where Trump started. Just how the hell did this caricature of a '90's WWE Attitude Era heel become elected President.

The short answer is he came from the same place that Bernie Sanders did.

What do I mean by that? Well lets look back at the mood of the country in 2015.While unemployment was going down since a high point at 2010, and in fact getting close to pre-recession levels, the number of long term unemployed seemed to remain constant, The number of involuntary part-time workers (workers who would prefer full time work, but have been unable to secure it) also remained the same. Average work week in March of 2015 also went down slightly.

So basically things were getting better, but not at the rate people wanted it to. Naturally this would lead to frustration and who else would become the focus of that frustration but the ones in power? Essentially, the "Establishment". What would result in the coming months was growing populist anger at the status quo. The status quo here not being any particular Party, but rather the nebulous concept of "business as usual" in DC. The thought that our elected officials take us for granted or as tools to be used and discarded when done with.

Out of this came two people, two people with a promise to change the way things were done and to give a voice to the various marginalized (perceived or actual) groups in society. Those people were Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Now did it have to be Bernie and Donald? No, they just happened to be at the right place at the right time, were able to read the mood of the country and harness it. Bernie by doing what he can to expand equality of opportunity, and Donald, buy tapping into that deep rooted tribal mentality though his media, on camera experience with Vince McMahon's entertainment juggernaut.

Here we have this growing mass of anger and frustration at a government that it perceives to not listen and to not care about it's concerns. To Obama's credit I do think he was genuine in trying to help the country with RomneyObamacare, but it just wasn't enough, and so Bernie and Donald entered the stage. Bernie appealed to the Super Ego of this growing mass, while Donald appealed to the Id of this mass. The status quo/establishment/whatever you want to call it on both sides feared the both of them, and their growing support from the people.

At this point the Republican Party is throwing everything they can at this interloper. Trump wasn't part of their club, he forced himself in, forced himself in and started rearranging the furniture. They threw everything at him, and when they couldn't stop his runaway train, they jumped ship in a vain effort to stop him.

Thing is, they were the very entrenched political elite that the people were angry at. Jeb Bush? The Bush name is every bit associated with the concept of "political dynasty" as the name Kennedy, or the name... Clinton. Paul Ryan? Same thing, he's associated with Mitt Romney, another perceived entrenched elite. He rolled over them like a monster truck rolling over a bunch of scrapheap, junk cars from the '70s.

While Trump is going all Godzilla on the Republican establishment and swatting down every legitimate attempt to stop him, the Democrats have been watching the utter impotency of their establishment counterparts before The Trump. They start looking at Bernie with the same fear. Only here they don't try to take on Bernie in the open field, they don't want to get burned down the way 16 Republicans got trumped.

For at time it was starting to look like it would come down to which populist path the country would choose to take? Would the Super Ego prevail, or would the Id be indulged?

Enter "dirty" Debbie Wasserman Schults...

From behind the scenes Dirty Debbie worked with establishment darling Hillary Rodham Clinton to railroad Bernie Sanders. And Hillary herself, once denied the nomination against some unknown junior senator with a weird exotic sounding name, would not be denied a second time. Certainly not to some outsider interloper who thinks he can just come in and start redecorating. Dirty Debbie lead the shady behind the scenes efforts to derail Sanders and usurp the votes from his supporters for her collaborator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Which as we all know, knocked Sanders out of the race. Leaving Mrs. Establishment to square off against Herr Populist, in a election with a climate of rage and frustration. And she wasn't off to a good start with the email leaks starting to happen as the election switches gears from primaries to general.

Let me reiterate that... the Democratic National Convention, ran the public's very personification of the Establishment, against a populist candidate, in an election where the tone set is that of populist rage at the Establishment.

No one in the room thought this was a bad idea...?

OK, so we've covered where Trump came from and how he got to the general election despite all expectations and all efforts. But how did he clinch the general election?

He didn't.

This was a case of the Democrats seizing defeat from the jaws of victory.

Let's remember the mood of this election season. Frustration and anger at the established political elite. A sense of being fed up, and mad as hell at the "usual suspects". In this mood, the Democrats nominated they very personification of what the anger was loosely directed at. Worse yet, Dirty Debbie and the DNC hierarchy gave a face to that nebulous concept of "the establishment".

And apparently no one in the room with the Democratic National Convention thought this was a very bad idea and a very risky gamble...?

And in all this, what did Hillary have to offer? What did she have to show everyone that it wouldn't just be business as usual? More of the same insincere politicking, more of Wall Street having a voice in the legislative process, more dirty politics, is what the angry masses perceived that she was offering them. But it doesn't stop there, what else does Hillary have to offer? More war. Hillary is a hawk, a hawk on the same level as the neo-cons that surrounded W. She voted yes on the Iraq war. She supported overthrowing Qadaffi which plunged Libya into chaos and made it into another haven for ISIS. She wants to take a more hawkish approach towards Putin and Assad, with her proposed no-fly zone over Aleppo that would inevitably bring us into conflict with Russia. She got Dick Cheny's endorsement for Christ-sake. More corporate cronyism, and more war, that's what Hillary appeared to have to offer. Maybe there's more than that, but she just didn't sell it.

Honestly she probably couldn't sell it. Simply put, she couldn't sell it because she is the Establishment. Did anyone really think that an angry populist mass would listen to anything the face of the Establishment has to say?

She played right into Trump's hands, and Trump didn't even need to set her up. In an election characterized by rage at the establishment, a loud mouth just bumbling his way though and not giving a single fuck would actually have some appeal, as he would be a person that would shake the ground the establishment stood on, and not just that, but he plowed though with confidence.

It certainly didn't help Hillary's image to go in the identity politics game. By getting into identity politics like with 3rd wave feminism, with the worst of Black Lives Matter (yes I understand it's a loose organization with sane moderates and psychotic fringe elements), she aligned herself with those elements, including the most demented and psychotic fringes of those movements. She put herself in the same boat as the politically correct, university campus Social Justice Warrior types. Hillary always had that party line voters that will vote blue no matter what, but she also had voters that she had to win over. You don't win over voters by browbeating them with accusations of being racist, sexist, or bigots, just because they're not with you. By doing that, you end up pushing the otherwise passive and indifferent potential voter, into voting for Trump out of spite. The far left SJW types are starting to revive more and more backlash, Hillary picked the wrong horse aligning with them.

While Trump was basically a rolling shit show, with gaffe after gaffe, Hillary seemed to be actively antagonizing voters that weren't with Her. She demonized gun-owners as those directly responsible for all the guns used in crime. She demonized those with opposing views on things like the supposed "wage gap" as sexist and misogynistic. She demonized those who don't think minorities are an oppressed second-class citizenry as racist. When it comes to the fence sitters, she didn't win any of them over, she scared them over and/or brow beat them into her camp.

Where as Bernie was running a campaign that was positive in tone, Hillary ran a wholly negative campaign.  A negative campaign that did not work against one Barack Hussein Obama back in 2008 and did not work yesterday against one Donald J. Trump.

So in the end, what just happened last night? What happened last night, was that we had an establishment candidate, with a vitriolic base (stealing Trump signs, arson at a GOP office, destroying public property by wreaking his Hollywood star, an assassination attempt on Trump...) that was more than happy to brow beat both the opposition and people just undecided. To call anyone not with Her, from the apathetic to indifferent to the open Trump supporter, every insult from misogynist to bigot for the sole reason that they didn't stand with their media manufactured messiah. In short, we had not only a toxic candidate with a U-Haul's worth of baggage, who is more than happy to attack, to some extent personally attack, the voters who weren't with her. A toxic candidate who couldn't connect to the voters, who couldn't read the mood of the country and ultimately crashed and burned. We have one Party that was run over by the Populist Ragemobile, and another Party with one faction that put one individual's personal political ambitions before the rest of the country (they nominated Hillary, knowing that things could go badly with her), took a gamble on her ambitions and lost, and now it's the rest of us who have to pay the gambling debt to the casino for the next four years. Just how did the DNC gamble with all of us as the poker chips? They ran the one candidate that could lose against Donald Trump, they opened the door to the possibility of, and now soon to be reality of, President Trump. That is how the DNC put a single individual's personal political ambitions before the country.

Was this a repudiation of the progress made under Obama's administration? No. Was this a vote for misogyny? No. Was this a vote for racism? No. Was this a vote for bigotry? No. Though is it being made out to be that because Hillary aligned herself with the SJW crowd that's always looking for something to be offended and cry oppression over. So as she went down and crashed and burned, she waived those flags on the way down, and the end result is makes it looks like her loss is because this country still embraces those -isms I just mentioned. But make no mistake the far left regressives will certainly scream as loud as they can about it to convince as many people that, this is indeed the case.

What this is, is a repudiation of the Establishment. A repudiation of the status-quo. As Michael Moore (I can't believe I'm referencing that fat bastard but he phrased it best) put it "...it will be the biggest fuck you to the establishment in American history." And a "big fuck you" it was indeed. This was a repudiation of the Establishment and the entrenched elite. This was a repudiation of the moral elitists who seek to put minorities on a pedestal while demanding the self-flagellation White people.

Donald Trump didn't win, he just happened to be Johnny on the Spot when the dust settled after the angry masses stopped swing the wreaking ball around. It could have been the corpse of Bernie Lomax being dragged around by Rich and Larry and it still would have won.

This whole thing is cyclical though, it happened before when Obama won the White House in a landslide and the Democrats took the House and Senate. In 2008 the Republicans were the establishment and were the ones trying to dictate morality to the people (the name "John Ashcroft" sound familiar to anyone?). The same thing happened to the Democrats last night that happened to the Republicans in 2008. They got too comfortable in power.

And that is the ultimate lesson here, nothing is a given. Karl Rove's "permanent Republican majority" was never a given any more than "President Hillary Clinton". Never underestimate a voting population's anger when it is directed at you

To Hillary supporters, take solace in the fact that American politics is cyclical. To Trump supporters, take heed that American politics is cyclical. To the Third Party and non-voters, make sure you got enough popcorn for the next four years because it's going to be one hell of a shit show.