In March of 2016, I told my husband ‘If Donald-fucking-Trump makes me have to vote for Hillary-fucking-Clinton, I’m gonna fucking scream!”  (I have a very foul mouth.  just gonna apologize for that in advance).   The very idea of Donald Trump as president was just so-obviously a joke, a scam, it had to be some kind of a trick, right???  It could never happen and I told everyone it could never happen.  I hated the guy, I didn’t know a single Republican who liked him or wanted him as their candidate. It could never happen.  The very idea was appalling.

Fast forward.  It’s November, and 2 nights ago on Tuesday, November 8, I laughed for 8 hours straight.  With glee, and delight.   I know, I’m such a big meanie, aren’t I?  That criticism might actually hold water if 1,234,567,890 people would not have laughed just as hard had Trump lost that night and had nearly that many comedians not spent the last year making fun of the guy and his supporters.  The yukz can go both ways, folks.

I didn’t vote for Donald Trump personally – I live in rural Washington State and my vote is cancelled out by the huge population of Seattle, so I voted my conscience and went Libertarian – but I took great pleasure in his victory.  I went from 100% against Donald Trump to 100% enjoying the hell out of his victory over the past several months, even though I’m really not a fan of the man himself.   Really.  Not.  And I want everyone who is confused right now to know the real reasons why half the nation’s voters just cast a ballot for a guy that most of em don’t even like.  Because I kinda get it.

Over the last few years I have been picking up a disturbing vibe among friends, family, and coworkers who are liberal, and the media/celebrities, that is increasingly sanctimonious, arrogant, and downright hateful to anyone who varies from their very narrow party line (which seems to change by the day, growing ever more narrow, ever more extreme).  It frightens me.  It frightens a lot of people.   We ARE afraid, but it’s not a fear of gay people or minorities or women in power.  We’re afraid because you make it very clear every time you open your mouths that you despise us.

You make fun of us for being fatter and uglier than you are, and then lecture us about body shaming.  You say you want to help the poor, and then make fun of lower middle class people for living in trailers and shopping at Walmart.   Why would we ever vote for you?

Bizarrely, the liberals, media, and Hollywood celebrities  don’t seem to realize how lockstep they all are.   They think this is about emails or some shit.  They think this is because we didn’t like Hillary’s hairdo.  It’s like watching half the country gradually fall under the control of a cult or being taken over by the pod people or something, and everybody on TV is one of them.  These people actively hate our ways, lifestyle, beliefs.  We’re jokes to them and they make no secret of that.    This demonizing process is constant and insidious.  It’s everywhere.

Over the course of the last decade, we have had it rubbed into our faces again and again by just about EVERY possible source that we (and by we, I mean even people who are just moderately, mildly, barely conservative like Mitt Romney)  are all human scum, we’re stupid racists who don’t know anything at all and the only reason we have any opinions is because we are stupid racists who don’t know anything at all.  If we knew anything at all, we would know that people like us are not entitled to have an opinion.

There couldn’t possibly be any actual philosophy or logic being a conservative – or even a moderate.  (remember moderate Democrats?  I do.  That used to be a thing that existed.)  It’s allllll racism and sexism –  there’s simply no other motivation for anything anyone does, no other explanation – if you disagree with me, if you don’t want to do exactly what I say all the time with no questions asked, and not roll your eyes when I piss myself over the word Trump written in chalk on a sidewalk, then you’re a racist.   It’s so fucking obvious.

And when minorities or women hold conservative positions, which they do, well, it’s unfortunate but it’s just a lack of education.   It’s not their fault, they’re just stupid.  Brainwashed, probably.  Stockholm Syndrome.  (cue Hillary: “Now ladies, remember you don’t have to vote the way your husbands do!”)  Oh, and I’m the sexist one.  RIIIIGHT.

You know what they call it when a person who has all the power (like, the media and billionaire Hollywood celebrities) is picking on a person who doesn’t have power?  They call that bullying.  (Remember how bad that is, everybody?   Bullying is like, super bad.)  And when it’s done against an entire class of people on the basis of their belief system, social class, and/or religion, I call that something a hell of a lot uglier than that.

That’s where we are right now.  Most of us have tried chatting reasonably about the issues facing our nation with friends and family online or in person, and been met with prejudice and close-mindedness. Having your closely held opinion that took you many years and hours of research to fully form, immediately discounted, discredited and decried, by people you love and care about, because, racism sexism homophobia, makes it kinda hard to have civil discourse.

Liberals, that is why you don’t understand us.  It is because you don’t HEAR us.  You put your fingers into your ears and repeat racismsexismhomophobia and scream and cry and tear your hair and rend your clothes and foam at the mouth but you don’t listen to what we’re even saying and we don’t have time to shout over you because we’re too busy putting food onto our table.  We don’t talk in soundbites because we’re not good at it and that seems to be the only way you know how to communicate any more.

But you know what is worse than that, is that you don’t question yourselves.  That’s why you’re so surprised right now.  That’s why you don’t get this and fall back on childishly simple concepts like love and hate and pantsuits to explain Hillary’s loss.  You don’t ask yourselves the hard questions any more.  You live in an echo chamber where you just repeat platitudes back and forth and laugh at nasty memes and call that independent corroboration.

By refusing to listen to us, you absolve yourself of the need to question your own views, defend your beliefs, and explain your own hypocrisy, and then you don’t even have the wherewithal to do that questioning yourselves.  That is why it’s so funny to watch the media, who SHOULD be asking those hard questions, be revealed in one fell swoop as biased (and is there a stronger word for biased?? If so, insert here.)   The curtain fell for a moment and it was hilarious.  That is why I laughed on Election Day.  Cause it was funny.

Trump voters feel left out because they are BEING left out, and I don’t mean economically, racially, whatever.  Most of these people are not activists, they’re not radicals, they’re just dudes and gals going to work and raising their families.  Normal everyday people are being politically shut out and culturally left behind.  It’s not a fit of pique that we aren’t getting enough and so and so has a bigger helping of political power than we do.  We don’t even have a place at the table.  The culture wars are over; we lost.   And you never let us forget it.  You’ll settle for no less than unconditional surrender.

In your eyes, we exist to be the butt of the joke and the blame for everyone’s problems.   Oh, and I guess someone has to keep the lights on and the wheat grown and garbage dumped and the potholes filled and do that police stuff, but god those guys are totally such racists, I totally hate them.  Why do we even NEED police for anyway?

People voted for Trump because they desperately want to be heard and that fucker is loud. It’s not because they’re pouting, it’s not because they have any great love for the man, it is because we of the conservative/libertarian bent believe that all of our futures, even yours, Liberals, hinges on stopping this seemingly unstoppable slide left.   We want to be heard and respected, and we are not being heard OR respected despite the fact that we number into the tens of millions of American voters and hundreds of millions of people.

So to me, the election of Donald Trump 2 days ago, I feel like it is a reprieve from what many view as the inexorable march towards stomping out the beliefs and way of life of a whole lot of people.   We have a shot to reopen the debate that you keep telling us that you won.  It’s a second chance for those of us with the ability to stand up and express ourselves, to do so, while we still can.  And it’s most likely temporary, my peeps. Let’s be brave, let’s stop just putting our heads down and hoping this all blows over.  If Americans are in the streets burning people in effigy after a fair and free election, this is NOT blowing over.  This is extremism.  We have to FIGHT.  It is time to fight.

Electing Donald shocked everyone but we have to follow up.  Shocking people is not enough.  We have to start talking.  We aren’t a convenient scapegoat for everyone’s problems, Middle America, we aren’t the butt of their jokes.   We have to demand to be heard and respected and if Donald Trump is the only one of the lot who’s willing to give us a chance to do that, let’s hold up our end of the bargain and be just as much of a loudmouth as he is.  (only let’s say a lot less offensive stuff and focus on facts and logic and reason tho mmmkay???).   We had one match, we made an explosion, but I still got a lot of fight left in me.  I hope you do too.