Carolyn Grant
Well, thank God, the abused societal cohort of middle aged white guys can breathe easy again. For a while there, it looked like the voters of the United States would actually elect a woman who promised fairness to all, from LGTB to African Americans to Muslims to Hispanics. Thank God we dodged that bullet and power can be turned over to.... let me list the middle aged white guys America has invited into our lives ...
Donald Trump — serial liar, misogynist, a man with no plan, multiple bankruptcies, a cheater, a bombastic, race-baiting demagogue. As President.
Rudy Giuliani — rumoured to be the top choice for Attorney General. Let that sink in.
Newt Gingrich — Now that Rudy has sunk in, think about the Newt as Secretary of State. What fun he and Boris Johnson will have!
And I'm sure there is an endless list of white guys aged 60 and up to fill the all important positions to make sure no one else — women, LGTB people, brown people and black people — get a shot at enacting progressive policy.
Vlad Putin must be just over-joyed. His dream of reassembling the Soviet Union just took a giant step forward. Who's going to stop him in the Ukraine now? Not his buddy Donald.
I guess there will be a few unemployed pollsters now. How did they get it so wrong? Perhaps that last minute bomb courtesy of the FBI's Comey very much effected the final results. Clinton was in the lead early on Tuesday night, and a lot of that was early voting results coming in. Many of those people voted before the October surprise. The tides began to turn as real-time voting was counted.
If I were a member of the media in the U.S., I'd be very nervous. Trump talked a lot about the Second Amendment and its importance — everybody got to have a gun — but he also talked a lot about how the freedom of the press, protected by the First Amendment, wasn't that great. He whipped crowds into a frenzy talking about the "corrupt media". He's got a tiger by the tail right now.
Which begs the question, what's that angry tiger going to do when Trump starts to bail on his campaign rhetoric? Do you think he's really going to build a wall? Pfft. He's not going to be able to afford it. With an economy just emerging from the doldrums, you have a man with absolutely no economic experience, except a history of bankruptcies, in charge. He's going to be busy enough trying to figure out how to fake it through a job he is massively unprepared and unqualified for.
What's going to happen when he tries to deport the so-called "illegals"? Horrifying.
Should Hillary Clinton leave the country? Because Trump promised she would be in jail if he was elected.
And here's what the American people can look forward to. Obama-care, imperfect as it was, will be repealed. There will be no more health care reform. An attempt will be made to repeal Roe vs. Wade, and it will likely succeed as Republicans now get to nominate a conservative, Christian white guy to the Supreme Court. Goodbye reproductive rights for women. Think gay marriage is going to last? Not a chance. Freedom of religion? Sure, plenty of freedom of religion. If you're Christian. Environmental protection? The U.S. just elected someone who actually said that climate change is a hoax perpetrated on the world by the Chinese. Goodbye Paris Agreement.
Trump supporters like to say they vote for him because he tells it like it is. He told it like it was. He preached hate for minorities, distrust of the press, distrust of the entire system of government. He has unleashed white supremacists, who have been emboldened to emerge from their lairs and spew their hate in public.
You reap what you sow and America has reaped an orange whirlwind upon the world. Thanks a lot.
Carolyn Grant is Editor
of the Kimberley Bulletin