Monday, December 12, 2016

"Get Over It"

In a discussion thread about the potential consequences of a Trump presidency, one commenter offered me this hoary advice:
Get over it. Let a businessman take a crack at it.
I am certain many others have encountered similar admonishments. But what is this really telling us to do? In the interest of saving everyone's time, I have compiled a list of things that we are being asked to "get over":
  • that members of the FBI up to and including its director materially tampered with the election by selectively releasing information about one candidate.
     
  • that Russian agents hacked one political party with the intent of damaging that party's candidate and influencing the outcome of the election. The beneficiary of this responded to this not by condemning the cyberattack, but by attacking American intelligence services.
     
  • that the "businessman" in question...
    • has global financial interests and has refused to divest himself from his businesses, release his taxes, or offer any other assurance that he will put the country's interests before his own.
       
    • has been embroiled in more than 3500 lawsuits, declared bankruptcy on multiple occasions, and in at least one instance, committed outright fraud.
       
    • bragged proudly and publicly about adultery, sexual assault, and lechery.
       
    • did no preparation for the job of POTUS.
       
  • that the "winning" candidate lost by almost 3 million votes, but will be installed as the victor thanks to an antiquated system designed to empower rural white slave-holders.
     
  • More repugnant than anything else, we are being asked to "get over" the fact that seemingly normal people made common cause with literal Nazis and Klansmen -- i.e., actual villains -- in order to elect a racist, plutocratic, authoritarian degenerate. 

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