I truly thought we were going to be celebrating the First Woman to be President of the United States. So did the pollsters, the news commentators, the pundits, the markets, the Free world, the Nearly Free world, need I go on...
Why did people vote the way they did? After all the negativity and dangerous rhetoric that has come out of the mouth of Donald Trump, why did people vote for him? His attitudes about women, advocating sexual violence for personal satisfaction, who says that in the 21st century? Who says that in ANY century in this country? As I read back, my last post was all about his trip to Mexico, so I do not need to repeat that.
And then, in the last forty eight hours, it has all gone away, forgotten, parked on the back burner. Hillary Clinton called him to concede. She did not take up his own words and rally the masses to protest. President Obama has too backed off all the charges he has made about how unfit this man is to rule and promised a smooth transition. Mr. Trump himself has made the conciliatory speech of 'uniting the people'. How does Washington change gears so completely?
And what is up with that FBI email stuff and nonsense? Bring it out, take it back, bring it out, take it back... Before I swore off the news, I looked, with pain, at the election maps. I think the margin of victory was too large to blame that as the tipping event.
So then, what was the tipping event? What was it, what is it in Donald Trump that brought so many people out to vote? Can we blame voter turnout? A hundred more million people were eligible to vote than actually did.
I would like to believe the following: "What is wrong with the country that they voted in Donald Trump?" But at the end of this time of reflection and anger and deflation, the question I have left is "What is wrong with me that I am so troubled by the election of Donald Trump?"
I firmly believe that by his words and his actions and his lifestyle that Donald Trump is unfit to govern this nation. To hold what he has said and what he has done up to the measure of the my Christian morality and faith, I find him wanting. I am not saying that forgiveness is denied him, but I have seen NO movement to ask for the forgiveness bought for us by the shedding of Jesus' blood. I have seen no movement to even acknowledge that he has done or said things that are wrong.
Yet, he spoke to people and overcame the offensiveness of his campaign in their lives and attitudes because of something more. He promised to return manufacturing jobs that have disappeared due to automation. He promised to return coal mining jobs that have disappeared due to cleaner, safer ways to provide energy. He has made free trade and Mexico the scape goats for all that is wrong in the economics of this nation.
What need did I fail to take into consideration in this country that I am so troubled by his election? The piece that pokes at my gut is the piece of his being a political 'outsider'. His comments and his attitude, his preference to go off the cuff instead of off the prompter, his willingness to say everything and anything that no one else was willing to say, his willingness to promise the moon, what chord of abandonment and disenfranchisement did he touch in these United States?
He tapped into a source of anger and pain that he claims he can heal. I do not believe that he can truly provide healing, but there is a desperation that people were willing to take him at the word they wanted to hear, filtering out EVERYTHING else.
What is wrong with me that I am so troubled by the election of Donald Trump? I missed the pain and the desperation that my fellow Americans would turn so far outside of common decency to seek relief. Grab a woman by... C'MON!!!
Not since the Civil Rights Movement and the protests against the war in Vietnam have the President-Elect and the country as a whole been in so desperate need of prayer. Because right now, I do not know what else to do.
