{"id":295,"date":"2017-04-23T14:41:16","date_gmt":"2017-04-23T18:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/?p=295"},"modified":"2017-04-23T14:41:16","modified_gmt":"2017-04-23T18:41:16","slug":"mea-culpa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/?p=295","title":{"rendered":"Mea Culpa"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve never been very prolific with respect to posting on this blog, and certainly not consistent. \u00a0Even an election campaign featuring one of the most obviously unfit candidates for President in American history didn’t change this pattern much. \u00a0Still, I wrote two posts<\/a> arguing that Donald Trump<\/a> could not possibly win the election<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Well, I damn sure got that one wrong. I simply could not bring myself to believe that American voters would elect a incompetent buffoon*<\/strong> President simply because he promised things no one actually believed he would or could do and said the quiet racist and xenophobic parts out loud.<\/p>\n

Like many liberals I checked out of politics for a while after the election. \u00a0I simply could not stomach watching Trump’s Keystone Cops<\/em><\/a> transition. \u00a0And of course I went into yet another blogging hiatus.<\/p>\n

Until, a week or so ago I took a look at Foggy Bottom Line<\/em> to make sure everything still worked and\u00a0noticed a rare comment – this one from a Trump supporter:<\/p>\n

HaHa! Don\u2019t you feel stupid.<\/p>\n

He won and you haven\u2019t had much to say since.<\/p>\n

Liberalism is cancer. Hell, you guys can\u2019t even determine how many genders there are. Yet, you\u2019re so scientific and stuff.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time we move on. Nationalism today. Nationalism tomorrow. Nationalism forever.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re losing progressives. Your powers are receding. Your spell casts upon humanity is vanishing. Your grip on Western Civilization is weakening and the forces of the Right are prying it from your pale bony hands. Your protest and lamentations are convulsions, the last final death throes of a rotten and corrosive ideology soon to be erased, replaced, and forgotten.<\/p>\n

We president now.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not much here but name-calling and unfounded assertions about where American voters are politically. \u00a0Yes, Donald Trump is President now, thanks to an anti-democratic election system<\/a> designed to protect the political power of slave states<\/a>. \u00a0But it’s important to remember that no liberal Presidential candidate has lost the popular vote since 1988. \u00a0And if winning the Presidency demonstrates primacy of a particular ideology, I would have been right about Trump – Barack Obama, after all, won the Presidency\u00a0– twice –\u00a0in the name of liberalism (albeit not the most progressive kind). \u00a0So it’s not clear how this very close election – won more or less on a technicality – demonstrates an ideological wave moving right. \u00a0And it begs the question: how long before Trump’s “spell casts (sic) on humanity” vanishes? \u00a0How long before (white?) “Nationalism” loses its new “grip on Western Civilization?”<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, I do indeed feel stupid. \u00a0Stupid because I seriously never saw President Donald Trump coming. \u00a0Stupid because I never dreamed that “nationalism,” (white nationalism?) had gripped so many Americans as a governing philosophy. \u00a0But mostly stupid because I didn’t raise my voice loudly or often enough to help prevent it.<\/p>\n

If progressive liberal ideology is in fact “soon to be erased, replaced, and forgotten,” I don’t intend to remain silent as it does. \u00a0No, I have not had much to say since Donald Trump won the Electoral College. \u00a0I aim to fix that.<\/p>\n

*<\/strong>I mean…the man lost a billion dollars running a casino. \u00a0You have to work hard at stupid to make that happen. \u00a0The only case in known gambling history of the house losing – and bigly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve never been very prolific with respect to posting on this blog, and certainly not consistent. \u00a0Even an election campaign featuring one of the most obviously unfit candidates for President in American history didn’t change this pattern much. \u00a0Still, I wrote two posts arguing that Donald Trump could not possibly win the election. Well, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,70,94,35,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-presidential-race","category-donald-trump","category-right-wing-extremists","category-right-wing-fever-dreams","category-the-founders-and-slavery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297,"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions\/297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foggybottomline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}