President Orange Buffoon

So Trump won the presidential election here in the United States.

I wish I could say I was surprised by that. I wish I could be as angry about it as so many people out there seem to be. But I'm not, and I can't be, I'm afraid.

There are a lot of things about the election we had on Tuesday that I could probably put in sentences that begin with the phrase “I wish I could” because there are a lot of things I really wish I could be about how this election cycle has come out that I just can't be. There's a reason for that, and I'm really hoping it's a good one

You see, I've been in existence as I presently am for, well, it's close enough to forty years now that we'll just call it that. In that time, I've seen and been subject to quite a lot of idiocy and dumbfuckery. I'll even admit that I've committed what is certainly my fair share of it over the last four decades. That's why I'm as sure as I am that a reasonably substantial amount of it at least started off as well intentioned, even if the outcome was dubious in that regard.

It's also part of the reason why I know only too well what it's like to be mired in the good intentions and attending effects. I've usually done what I could to do what I thought was helping others when I could, even when it turns out I wasn't. I've also spent a good deal of time on the receiving end of the bargain, too.

This is where we start to get close to what my point in all this might be, more or less. In many cases, as I've gotten older, especially, it's come to occur to me that people who might indeed mean to help or assist me are doing so on the assumption that something that might be an issue or problem for them is also one for me as well, when that may not be the case. Based on that idea, it often feels like otherwise well-meaning folks will come sweeping through to correct what they see as problems only to wind up either making a tough situation worse or winding up causing problems that might have been solved beforehand or avoided entirely.

As a result, it's lead to my finding myself in what I've come to refer to as Helper Dalek situation. It's essentially a situation where some person or group will show up, either because I asked them to or just on their own, to assist with what might actually be a problem. What might start out as well-meant help somehow morphs into something that might feel somewhat more comfortable accompanied by bellows of “We must help! We must help! Assist, assist, ASSIST!”

One good example of this is my apartment. The best way to describe it is that it's in sort of a state of non-traditional cleanliness. I rarely bother making my bed because most of the time when I'm thinking about it, I'm either just getting in to go to bed or just getting out to get on with my day. Especially with the latter part, I'm usually just short enough on time that making the bed look nice is not a priority, considering that I'll be getting back in soon enough anyway. The same tends to apply to dirty laundry. The clothes I need to wash are usually at least gathered into one area for ease of collection, assuming I haven't managed to get them put into some sort of carrying container as part of other goings on around the place. The same holds true for my dishes, which I do wash on an almost daily basis, hard as it might be to believe sometimes.

This comes in contrast to my parents' house where, generally speaking, a person would be hard pressed to find an unmade bed, or a dirty dish any distance from the kitchen sink or dishwasher, or dirty laundry not in a basket or hamper. Pretty much everything has a place to be in, and is there.

That last sentence there is something that applies to both my place of residence and my parents', even though our ideas of how that actually looks are vastly different. Mine is noticeably less structured and strict than theirs, even if it does make it a little harder to vacuum and dust as often as I should, and now that I'm thinking about it, I should probably clean the bathroom in the near future, too.

My parents and I have had some rather vocal disagreements about my housekeeping meathods and other lifestyle choices over the years, but I'd like to think we're still on reasonable, if not good, terms after it all. I'm sure that at least part of the reason for that is that over the years, we've all changed and adjusted to see things closer to how they really are. I can admit that there are things I can do better, make look nicer, and I'm hoping my folks are coming to understand that maybe my ways aren't as chaotic and disorganized as they may seem.

After all that, I'm sure there are plenty of readers out there who are wondering just how I'm going to tie all this into how we've managed to choose an overgrown four year old with a bad spray tan as the leader of one of the most powerful countries in the world. Well, it's one of those “I wish” statements I started this entry off with, because I know there's really not an easy way to do it

I think part of the reason we've got “The Donald” as our leader elect right now is that at least half the country is looking for and hoping beyond hope that there's one and only one quick and easy way our of what is undeniably a bad situation for a lot of people. That's a dangerous way of thinking, simply because there isn't just one way of living that will work for all the different groups of people in the United States, let alone the whole world.

Donnie Boy has always presented himself as the sort who thinks that his ideas are the only ones that are right, and workable for everybody because he's a straight man who had the good fortune of being born into a a rich white family, presumably of Christian or Catholic faith. That's why he's always seemed to me to be the sort of guy who thinks he can do what he wants with women and generally anyone he thinks of as less than him. Which would be pretty much all of us, really. If you're a woman, you're a toy; if you're anything other than straight and white and whatever faith he happens to be, you're bad and wrong and deserve to be treated like crap because you're lower than dirt.

If this kind of thinking is allowed to continue for long enough, even the people who might think having Trump in the White House is a good idea will come to realize that most of us don't have a place in his One True Vision, that the large majority of us, even those of us who happen to share a lot of physical similarites to him, don't work or fit into his One True Way For The World, and it will only come back to bite us all in the ass eventually.

I want to be optimistic here. I want to think it'll take longer than four years for that to happen. I want to think we, as a nation, will survive this surge of mass insanity and that our own idiocy won't end us before it wipes us out

Unfortunately, I've seen too much idiocy to hold out much hope. I've seen fuckwitism on a daily basis and heard blatant gibberish allowed to continue unabated like it was good and necessary and even pleasurable on far too many occasions.

There's part of me that wants for this all to just be ended, wiped clean so we can start over. I know that would end badly for a lot of people, myself included, but I still have a part that wants for that very thing to happen.

So, what do we do now? Well, it's too early to tell just yet. The only thing we really can do for the moment is just carry on as we have been.

It's too early to say we're all doomed right now, but we'll know soon enough, I'm sure.