I'm not sure if I'm amazingly impressed that you and krues8dr and the like are able to pick up and blaze on at the moment, or worried that somehow I disagree with you both about various things. I think the lynchpin is that I find I no longer believe that America is "smarter than it voted." Because I'm not sure it has anything to do with smarts. Every exit poll I heard was talking about the surprising influence of "moral values" on this election. I feel ostracized and unwelcome by the majority of America, and that feeling has deeply wounded my naive conception of how many people in America were silently with me. People are voting their moral convictions and their fears. I'm made nauseous by many of the first and feel powerless to change the second. So, at this point, I feel surrounded by a country that concertedly wants to go in the direction that, to me, feels the most vile. I don't know how to reconcile that.
Granted, everyone on this list is pretty intelligent and thoughtful, and I seem to be the only person not saying "thank you for making me feel better"-- so perhaps it's just me. I can help out in my community and change lives locally and have it make no impact on my country's belligerent place in the world, the horrors it commits overseas, or the moral mandates it enacts at home. I'm not saying that local change won't make a profound difference, but... at this point when the shock is still new, all I'm feeling is a pervasive sense that every good hope I had for America has just been round up and shot in the head.
Perhaps this is the crash and burn phenomenon you were describing.
no subject
I think the lynchpin is that I find I no longer believe that America is "smarter than it voted." Because I'm not sure it has anything to do with smarts. Every exit poll I heard was talking about the surprising influence of "moral values" on this election. I feel ostracized and unwelcome by the majority of America, and that feeling has deeply wounded my naive conception of how many people in America were silently with me. People are voting their moral convictions and their fears. I'm made nauseous by many of the first and feel powerless to change the second. So, at this point, I feel surrounded by a country that concertedly wants to go in the direction that, to me, feels the most vile. I don't know how to reconcile that.
Granted, everyone on this list is pretty intelligent and thoughtful, and I seem to be the only person not saying "thank you for making me feel better"-- so perhaps it's just me. I can help out in my community and change lives locally and have it make no impact on my country's belligerent place in the world, the horrors it commits overseas, or the moral mandates it enacts at home. I'm not saying that local change won't make a profound difference, but... at this point when the shock is still new, all I'm feeling is a pervasive sense that every good hope I had for America has just been round up and shot in the head.
Perhaps this is the crash and burn phenomenon you were describing.