Home > Messages from the Ether > Doing what I shouldn't do and posting immediately after

Doing what I shouldn't do and posting immediately after

I saw the blame begin immediately last night at The Vortex. Many at the bar started blaming those who voted for 3rd party candidates. I'm reading much on Reddit blaming the result on Clinton for running a poor campaign, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and the DNC for conspiring against Bernie Sanders, and the Democrats in general. I generally disagree with all of these.

I had a coworker who, last week, brought up Trump using overseas manufacturing and said he didn't understand why people were criticizing him for it. This coworker is intelligent and funny and probably a conservative but not rabidly so. I pointed out the hypocrisy of promising to bring jobs back to America while doing the opposite. My coworker just mumbled that he didn't think that was true. This is a guy who--again is intelligent--only gets his news from Good Morning America and CNN. He had also insisted previously that he didn't know, and that few would know, what Aleppo was. It is these people who believe the false equivalence of Trump's and Clinton's faults. I suspect that should have given me pause.

And I dismissed as... quirky? when a conservative friend decided to vote 3rd party because of the Clintons having murdered five or six people. That previous sentence was not a typo.

Ultimately, I think I blame the media. I blamed them, NPR included, after 9/11 for being complicit in the lies that took us to war, and NPR was just as bad during this election for selling the false equivalence. The casual news consumer had no way to come to any other conclusion. Yet what I see as lazy w/r/t dissecting the lies and nonsense, others comment on as condescending towards Trump. It's a lose/lose for reporters I guess.

Notable things:

• Man yells "kill Obama" during Trump's acceptance speech
• Line I heard from WNYC yesterday morning: "isn't Trump tapping in to a common sentiment?" "Yes, and he sympathizes with and understands absolutely none of it."
• Canada's immigration web site crashed, heh
• Samantha Bee was a godsend for this election
• The Kaine, Clinton, and Obama speeches were classy
• The Trump speech was sane (minus the insane threat)

Monday, along with three others, I was laid off. That loss made me focus on great potential for the future.