Leaving America

I have written in this space incessantly about how the media and the Democrats failed to gain the confidence of the American people and got the 2024 presidential election so damn wrong.  But despite all of that, the fact that Donald Trump is to be the first U.S. President to serve two nonconsecutive terms since Grover Cleveland (and many pundits may find that more interesting than they harmful policies Trump plans to enact in his second term) is ultimately the fault of the voters. 

Look, I know how hard it is for many Americans.  I get it.  Their groceries are too expensive.  They can barely afford their rent or mortgage payments.  Living-wage-paying jobs aren't coming back as quickly as they should.  They wanted answers to these issues from the Harris campaign and she kept playing Beyoncé records at her rallies.  But none of that - not even hearing that horrible Beyoncé song "Freedom" over and over again - is an excuse for putting Trump back into power.

The American voters knew that Trump could, at a moment's notice, suspend the Constitution and declare martial law if demonstrations against him start up in any of America's cities.  They knew that Trump had no liking for women and would likely appoint some of the most misogynistic misfits to his Cabinet.  They knew he had been found guilty of fraud on 34 counts and was a convicted felon.  They knew his policies toward migrants would be cruel.  They knew he planned to roll back environmental and consumer-protection regulations, as he had done that before.  They knew he likely raped a woman.  They knew he blew the national response to a pandemic.  They knew he planned revenge against government officials who had investigated or criticized him.  They knew that his new best friend, Elon Musk, would use his influence for corrupt purposes.  Some of them may have even suspected, as I have, that Musk would help Trump by using his tech savvy to root out average-Joe bloggers like me who bash Trump and a regular basis and have the authorities come after us.  They knew that Trump would appoint someone like Kash Patel to as FBI director - and that's exactly whom he appointed - to go after anti-Trump bloggers and writers.  And they may have suspected, as I have, that Trump would make dissent a crime equal to treason - thus making dissent a capital offense.

But they voted for him anyway.  

Maybe Trump won't have his critics hanged or sent to the electric chair.  Maybe he won't found a secret police in the style of the Gestapo or the Stasi.  And maybe not all Trump supporters are bigots, even as most bigots are Trump supporters.  But the results of this election tell me more about America than I ever wanted to know.  For the longest time, I have grown antipathetic to the United States and I had an increasingly intense desire to separate myself from it.  I think it started with John Lennon's cold-blooded murder in 1980, a murder that could never have happened anywhere else thanks to our lax gun laws.  My frustrations over everything wrong with America and the political and business leaders who have zealously kept the numerous deficiencies of These States in place for the own benefit, coupled with my equally deep frustrations with the stupidity and ignorance of my fellow citizens, had reached a boiling point several times.  But they would simmer down at key moments that gave me hope for the future, like the way the country came together after 9/11, Barack Obama's election to the Presidency,  or the outpouring of demonstrations against police brutality in the wake of George Floyd's murder. But these moments would be fleeting, and America would soon go back to being America.  My last shred of hope rested in the idea that having been President once - and having instigated an insurrection - Donald Trump could only be returned to power in a country with no sense of values and self-worth.  Only a nation of indecent and insane people would want him back in office. 

And here we are.

I wanted to leave the country if Trump was returned to the Presidency.  Now Trump has been returned to the Presidency.  What do I do now?  

I'm actually in a catbird seat to depart for another country because, alas, of a tragic loss.  Since only a couple dozen people follow my blog, I'm not really broadcasting this news to the world, though under different circumstances,  I would not have shared this news, but . . . my mother died this past January.  We'd lived together for over 35 years since I graduated from college.  Now she's gone, and I'm on my own, with my two cats Chico and Claudia as my only company in my childhood house, part of my inheritance. 

My mother despised Trump as much as I did.  Maybe more so.  Having turned 84 in 2023, she hoped to live long enough to see Trump's downfall.  But even before the election, it had become apparent that my mother could have lived to be a hundred and never seen such a thing.  And when the results of the election came in, my mother died a second time. 

It turns out that it's financially and logistically impossible for me to move to another country.  But it also turns out that it's unnecessary for me to leave America.

America left me.