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I just... I have been trying to see the positives. I have been trying to see how or why this happened. I just... I can't. This is unbelievable. This is not the America I knew. This is not the America I love. My America is a land of hope and optimism. It is a cultural meting pot, where anyone who is willing to put the work in can make a living for themselves. It is the America that allowed gay marriage within this very decade. It is the America that elected a black president. However, I see I must have been truly blinded by hope.

Does this mean America can't be this again? No. And, in many ways, she is still my home. But, I have a lot of fighting to do to bring that America back. Where freedom of religion is respected. Where we can have civil discourse and respect for differences of opinion. (And yes, hypothetical Trump supporter reading this, I do see the hypocrisy in my statement, thank you.) I have to fight to bring back the country I love.

I may have scared some of you in the Discord chat last night. I won't be killing myself over this. It's depressing. World shattering. Disillusioning. But not worth ending my life over. If anything, I now have a lot more to live for. So, I'm sorry if I scared anyone.

My final note. Trump may become the president of the United States, but he sure is not mine. And I will make sure he knows it.

Canon and length?
On one hand, I started uni two days ago. On the other, I need something else to do, so.

I've got a mission I've been working on.

I've got the rough draft to just about where I want it, and I was hoping I could get a few of you fine folks to beta for me?

Might provide a little (much-needed) levity in what is rapidly becoming a darker time. If it doesn't, I think it's better I know now. I'm especially looking for suggestions on character interaction and plot, though SPaG is, as always, of utmost importance.

My email is rovingj.t.x@gmail.com. Please let me know if you're interested in taking a look.

Thanks!

Matt posted it on Discord, so if there are more like this somewhere, he will be the one who can say it.

Everybody underestimated the ability of the GOP to get its followers to march in lockstep. The revulsion at Trump and Trumpists was evidently public handwringing by people who had no intention of voting any other way. And since they had power at state and local levels, because for some reason the American left is really, really bad at voting down-ballot, they were able to gerrymander and suppress and initiate ridiculous laws based on fear; not the fear that there was going to be fraudulent conduct at the election, but fear that their party was going to lose. Even when its Presidential candidate is on trial in December for child molestation and its VP candidate wants to run mains electricity through the genitals of queer youth.

The disenfranchised tried to vote for a better future, and were systematically denied the opportunity to do so. I can't believe this is the case in America, wherein democracy is one of the most sacred principles - oh, wait, yes I can, because American democracy is only a sacred principle as long as everyone involved is a white man. Or orange man, as the case may be.

Love does not inherently trump hate. Voting trumps hate. Throw yourselves into activism. Throw yourselves forward. I plan on running for local government in my constituency and I urge you all to do the same. We win when we can do what the right does - take control and get people voting down-ballot en masse. Then we can break the back of the GOP, a party so in thrall to its worst excesses it might as well replace its policy lab with a meth lab. Then, and only then, can people who view voting as a lifestyle choice rather than a means of making the country better one soul at a time chuck ballots at Jill Stein and Gary Johnson and every other nonentity with not a snowball's chance in a blast furnace of forming a bloody government.

The American people are derelict in their duty, which is the duty of all humanity, to create a better world. The greedy and the stupid have won today. Now is the time for anyone who genuinely believes in the idea of America, in the ideal of a democracy run for the benefit of the people it governs rather than corporate institutions, to get out and be active. I said it after the 2015 general election, I said it after Brexit, and I'll say it again:-

This fight is over. The fightback begins now.

... than the Brexit/demographics charts.

Does your source break it down into other groups, or is it just the 18-25s?

hS

Yes, the news is depressing. But in two years, we have a chance to cut this off at the knees. Figuratively speaking.

I keep trying to think through this. Apparently, both sides of this divide are terrified of the other. I know why I'm terrified of Republican platforms - this election especially.* But… why are they afraid of us? I don't want to take their freedoms away. Not to go to church. Not to proselytize. Not even, believe it or not, to own guns. I'd like to see fewer domestic terrorist attacks, so fewer high-magazine guns. Maybe more checks against domestic abusers and people with violence problems buying them. But, as someone who's lived a long time in a rural area, I fully understand the necessity of some gun ownership. And that is honestly the norm - "ban all guns" is a radical and not well supported position. I can't think of any freedom of republicans that I don't support. Not one. I just want more people to have a voice.

Seriously. I know there are some republicans on here. Help me out, guys. Why are you afraid of Democratic positions?



* Pence literally believes in conversion therapy. Shock therapy at that. Trump wanted to deport all Muslims. And Mexicans. And those of Mexican descent. More wars are scary - partly because of the American lives, partly because of the civilian lives lost on the other side. They're likely to cut funding for education; I fear both the broad costs to society and for my personal future, since I am an educator. They are likely to promote policies that lead to unplanned pregnancies, and cut funding for even early abortions.

Here is how the 18-25 voted for this election:



I guess you can have hope for the future of the country at least.

Apparently there are a lot of people here that are either outright racist/xenophobic/etc. or willing to tolerate extreme levels of that sort of thing. I don't really want to think that we're not upholding the values we claim to share.

I'm also a bit horrified that the racist cheeto might actually start a nuclear war, since he didn't seem to get the Mutually Assured Destruction concept during his campaign.

(and also we can't learn from history, since we basically elected something like a fascist, with a theocrat for VP)

Being basically socially unactive and all. But I still want to wish you the best of luck.

Especially if they're disabled or mentally ill, because, you know, ew, amirite? We wouldn't want to waste precious money supporting them so they can live their lives with any sort of dignity, that would be just awful for the country.

Just... y'know... I knew people felt this way. I just didn't know there were really so many of them—or, to be as fair as I can possibly bring myself to be, so many people who find other things to be more important than life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and justice for all (to mash together some of the words we supposedly believe in here). WHAT other things, I'm not sure. Avoiding war with Russia, maybe, I saw someone mention that? But then, I'm afraid Russia's going to start World War III and we're going to get dragged in on the wrong side of it.

... Gah, I have to go shower and get ready for work now. At least I know I'll be in a supportive, safe environment there. Just. GAH.

~Neshomeh

... just flippin' hate poor people. Polish? British? Doesn't matter. We want to kick you out and take away your money, accusing you of benefits fraud - while at the same time looking down on you for not being sneaky enough to exploit the system properly.

The reason for that, I guess, is that our non-white migrants have historically been professionals (rather than, y'know, slaves and people crossing an immediate land border, per America), while our poor migrants are largely from Eastern Europe. So there's far less of an ability to subtly focus on race, and most people's first thought when you say (for instance) 'Indian' is either a doctor or a taxi driver.

There's some broad generalizations in what I just said, of course. But I think the core of it is true.

hS

Approximately 50% of our population believe that non-white people are crack-snorting criminals who are stealing their jobs and also mooching off their tax dollars at the same time somehow.

Hell, some of these people might not even know they're racist, because it's all in code. It's hard to fight that.

... Going on about "code" probably sounds like some whackadoo conspiracy nonsense, but it's true. If you analyze the populations in question when we talk about people on welfare, people who go to jail for drug-related crime, illegal immigrants "taking our jobs"... it's mostly people of color, because they are marginalized and poor and have fewer opportunities that come at greater cost than the rest of us.

Maybe now it'll come out into the open again, and maybe we'll be able to do something about it. I don't know.

~Neshomeh

We may have taken two steps back, but hey, a half step forward is still moving forward. It's still kinda sad that we'll have to wait two more years to try and take another half step, though.

I'm reminded of how people in Russia voted for Pikachu because they were so upset with the government as it was. I get it, people, you're upset and all. But really, what part of working with what you've got do you not understand? Sometimes the choice we have to make isn't what we want, but that is no reason to pull such a dick move out of pure spite.

I can understand if there was no way you could vote, but sending in a joke candidate just to flip off every candidate in the running is Not Cool in any way, and would more than likely give the majority vote to the candidate with the biggest vote tally e.g. Trump. It's like they say, those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

The UK, according to the 2011 census, is nearly 90% white.^[Wikipedia] According to a report from Parliament,^{[parliament.uk]} 6.3% of the House of Commons is non-white ('ethnic minority' is the usual phrase) - 41 MPs. 21 of those are women, or almost exactly half. It admits that 'Prior to 2010, there had only been two black female Members and no Asian woman had been elected', but still.

Up in the House of Lords - you know, the unelected relic of autocratic blah blah whatever - the numbers are almost identical: 51 ethnic minority Lords, 20 of whom are women. That's out of 800, so it's 6.4%.

Twenty. Twenty of the members of each House of Parliament are ethnic minority women. And that's 90%-white Britain. America is 12% black, and not even 70% 'non-Hispanic white'. Why are you doing so much worse at this?!

hS

One country elected a bad leader. Throwing 7 billion people under the bus just because of the actions of 60 million is an overreaction. That's not even considering all the people of the future who apparently are also "beyond redemption," whatever redemption means to you. (It also shows a remarkable lack of understanding as to what other species are actually like. Humans aren't great, but human men don't regularly murder the children of women they're attracted to in order to get her to have kids with them. Male felines do. And the only reason ducks aren't required to register as sex offenders is that they lack the sapience to take responsibility for their actions.)

It also deserves to be pointed out that frankly, in the list of human crimes, this is extremely small potatoes. That's not to say it's good, but compared to the kind of things humanity has already done, it's nothing. If you're sheltered to the point where you've never heard of things like the Rape of Nanking, that's good for you. But if we really are beyond redemption as a species, this was not the deciding moment. It's not even close.

Racism (not to mention sexism) didn't die with the civil rights movement, it was just driven underground. It speaks in code and acts in the name of the "war on drugs," among other smokescreens.

Apparently sadness and anger makes me want to be poetic. Ugh. >.<

~Neshomeh

You've only elected one black woman to the Senate before now?!

hS