Thought I'd cross-post here from FB...

MY THOUGHTS ON THE 2016 ELECTIONS

I voted for Gary Johnson. He truly was a candidate for change. He'd held office in New Mexico as a successful governor. He was a Republican who left that party when they left him. He'd never been a Washington insider. He didn't fit neatly into the left/right paradigm. I also agreed with many of his stances. They all flowed from one basic premise: more personal freedom, less state interference. We are not servants of the state, the state serves us. It shouldn't use its power to coerce our fellow citizens to serve us, either. He wasn't a perfect candidate nor is he a perfect person. But he was and is a decent candidate, a decent person. The Republicans and the Democrats, the media, they all dismissed him. The worst they could say about him was to try to insinuate that too much marijuana had addled him. They didn't want to debate his ideas. They're scared of his ideas.

Gary Johnson was never going to win this election. Things are too stacked in favor of the R/D duopoly. All the pundits howled that a vote for him, or Jill Stein, was a vote for the R/D candidate they didn't like. No. Those votes were for Jill Stein. They were for Gary Johnson. The people who voted third party didn't want what was offered and chose something else. All those who decry third parties and say I wasted my vote: if all you Clinton supporters had voted for Gary Johnson, he'd be president. Better than Trump, I'd say. Think on that. If you hadn't voted "team", maybe you wouldn't be so dismayed today.

What do I think about the actual result? I'm glad Donald Trump won over Hillary Clinton. Make no mistake, I think they are both awful people. If we see the same Donald Trump on the international stage that we saw for much of this election, it will be a shameful sight. But with Trump, there is actually a chance that I'll get something I like. With Clinton, there was no chance. She believes in ever bigger government interference in our lives. She believes in expanding taxes and regulations, among many other things. But, on top of that, she isn't a decent person. In her own way, she's as deplorable as he is. In some ways, worse.

Donald Trump said many awful things during his campaign. He has impugned women, the disabled, minorities both racial and religious. He's had shady dealings throughout his career. He brags of stiffing small suppliers out of money owed. He brags of possibly assaulting women. He has possible unpleasant ties to Putin. He far too casually mentions the use of nuclear weapons. The list is long. The list is shameful.

I didn't vote for Trump. I didn't want Trump as our president. But all of those things? They're what he did as a private citizen. He had limited power over his fellow citizen.

But Clinton? She did all of her dirty work as a member of the government. A certified member of the ruling elite that looks down on many of her fellow citizens as "deplorables" and thinks even those groups that vote for her are pretty dismissible except when she wants their vote.

What kind of things did she do? She lies about things, big and small. Things done in her official capacity. To thwart the Freedom of Information Act, she set up her own email server then lied and perjured herself about it. Her staff lied and perjured and destroyed evidence. The act itself was a crime and the acts committed to cover it up were even more serious crimes. She's venal to the point of turning the Secretary of State's office into a bazaar to the highest seller, even betraying her oath of office for bribes, er "donations". Hand-in-hand with that is running the world's largest slush fund in the corrupt Clinton Foundation. An organization that exists almost solely to enrich herself, employ her cronies, and serve as a lever to obtain her more power and influence. All in the name of charity.

There is plenty more, but you get the picture. I'm sure her supporters would argue every point and probably dismiss them, but what any other partisans believe doesn't matter to me. These are the things I believe. I've done a lot of research over the years, read many things in the public record. Hillary Clinton is the very definition of corruption. A pig rolling around in the slimy muck that fills the nauseating swamp that Washington has become.

To be sure, Trump and the Republicans have endorsed and proposed some awful policies. And I will oppose them if they should try to enact them. But I also disagree more with what Clinton believes, or purports to believe, as a politician. Every policy she supports would see the growth of government to the detriment of the people. Policies that stifle growth and opportunity. Policies that reward the insider at the expense of the outsider, the average person. Policies that will increase our debt and raise our taxes. Policies that serve the union leaders at the expense of the students and the workers. Policies that encourage crony capitalism and twist the free market to serve the insider instead of serving us all. Policies that limit a hundred choices. Policies that stifle diversity of thought and belief. Policies that will continue the terrible record of President Obama. Supreme Court nominees who will twist the words of the Constitution with the sole purpose of cementing his and her policies in place. Appointments of bureaucrats who will continue to erode the public trust and use partisan political decisions that will negatively affect us in a thousand ways. All in service of her political agenda and ideology.

That is why I am glad that Trump was victorious over Clinton. Not because she has a vagina. I'd happily vote for a woman, if she were the right woman with the right policies. Not because of race or greed or anything else. I wanted her to lose because she's a bad person with bad ideas.

With Trump, there is a chance that I'll see policies enacted that I like. There is a chance that our disastrous foreign policy will be changed for the better. There is a chance that Supreme Court justices who honor the Constitution and will support its edicts for personal freedom and limited government. Maybe not. Maybe he'll be the most disastrous president ever. I certainly hope not. I think he won't be.

On the more practical side of things, he's also imminently impeachable. He has no power base in the House and Senate. He has a few allies and the Republicans will work with him, but they won't love him. At least not the him that would need impeaching. They would impeach and, along with the Democrats, remove him. That would never happen with the Democrats. There is nothing that Clinton could do that would make the Democrats side against her. She would have been virtually untouchable, just as her boss has proven untouchable. Except, on occasion, by the Supreme Court which has slapped him down.

But not slapped him down often enough. He has brought the Imperial Presidency to its zenith. He disregards laws that check him and issues edicts he shouldn't have issued. He acts in brazen disregard of the limits on his role and dares his opponents to stop him. They've had limited success in doing so. With Clinton, we'd have more of the same.

The media buoyed Trump at every turn until he secured the Republican nomination. Then they turned on him. They will never enable him again. Clinton, on the other hand, had the media in her back pocket. They enabled her. Covered for her. Lied for her. So, again, an important check for Trump isn't in place for Clinton.

I've seen so much gnashing and wailing over Trump's win. I've seen smug condescension when her partisans thought she was going to win and vicious name calling and blame casting when she didn't. The incredibly over the top reactions I've been subjected to reading are mind boggling to me. Trump isn't a dictator and isn't going to be one. The system of checks and balances we have will hold. But if they don't, his opponents have no one to blame but themselves. They've cheered the weakening of those checks when it suited their ideology. I've always said, the government you empower to do things you like or punish your enemies can use that same power to turn on you. A limited government has limited powers. Think on that when next you wish for some shortcut that enables some change you want or some law that expands government's role in someone's life.

Put down your ashes and fold away your sackcloth. The world hasn't ended. Gays aren't going back in the closet. Women aren't going back to secret abortions. Old people aren't going to be thrown out in the street. Minorities aren't going to be treated to harassment. And despite what one might believe from some of the reactions I've read today, official squads of "pussy grabbers" aren't going to be roaming the streets.

I've read so many comments about how people are ashamed of this nation for electing Trump and complete incomprehension about why he may have gotten the votes he did. Most have made the easy assumptions that fit their own ideological bent. They don't seek to know why someone may have voted in a way of which they don't approve, they simply continue the divisiveness they claim to decry. I have done a lot to find out what they think. I've asked them. I've read what they have to say. Look outside yourself and question why this could be. Don't jump to easy answers. There is a reason why they voted the way they did. Legitimate reasons. They may not be your reasons, but they are legitimate ones. Don't demonize them, try to understand why.

Trump got more of the minority vote than anyone could have expected. More than many previous Republicans. Are they just self-hating?

Aside from a very few, Trump voters didn't elect him because they are misogynists or racists or homophobes or all-around bigots. They elected him because they don't like how things are headed in this country.

They elected him because the trade deals have left many of them out of our shared prosperity. They see their jobs leaving with nothing being available for them. They understand that the sorry education they've gotten and their kids are getting, all from overfunded and underperforming schools, has left them ill-equipped to get ahead in the modern workforce. They see that crony capitalism, not the free market, has left them few job opportunities. They see that high taxes and crushing regulation have destroyed the industries that could give them jobs. They see these same taxes and same regulations preventing new businesses from rising, new opportunities from appearing. They see their communities being destroyed and nothing but the same old policies remaining in place. They were promised hope and change and got no hope and very little change, and that often bad change.

They elected him because he isn't ashamed of his background and they're tired of being told they should be ashamed of theirs. They're tired of being told that not only do they have to accept gay marriage, but they have to celebrate it. And if they don't agree to bake the cake or take the picture, then their opponents will use the awesome power of the government to crush them and destroy their lives. They have accepted gay rights and have accepted gay marriage. They fully embrace equal rights and equal opportunity for all but they don't embrace policies that disadvantage them at great cost and limited social benefit. They want an equal playing field for all, including themselves. They're tired of being told that they have to make amends for things that ended 150 and 50 years ago when they had nothing to do with those things and certainly haven't benefited from them. They’re tired of being told they’re the problem and should just go away. A coal miner, an auto plant worker, a small family farmer, they don't owe anyone a damned thing. They’re hard working people who try to live lives of meaning and decency. They want to be judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

A few more thoughts before I finish this:

When you call Ronald Reagan, George Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney racists backed by racists, anti-science, bigots, evil, or extreme, those terms lose their meaning. When you call them every bad thing you can think of, it loses its meaning. When you say they're extremists, it loses its meaning. These men were called these things when it wasn't true all for political purposes and it lost its meaning. The little boy cried wolf too often.

Democracy means that sometimes you aren’t going to like the results of the election. We, fortunately, don’t live in a one-party state.

Trump is the anti-SJW and I can't wait for the little snowflakes to feel the sun. I hope they brought sunscreen.

For decades we've been lambasted with how awful money in politics is. Well, at least until Obama and Clinton were the big spenders. Then it was put on the back burner. Hypocrisy. And foolishness to boot! Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton flooded the primaries/elections with money and it did them no good in the end.

The Electoral College is a good thing. It keeps every single vote in every single precinct in every single state from being a battleground. If we went by the nationwide popular vote, then every county in every state would be South Florida circa 2000. The EC also keeps a regional candidate from dominating the election or from one region dominating the rest. I am amused to see the disgust by Democrats today with the Electoral College when just days ago we were being treated to Democrats crowing that the vaunted "Blue Firewall" would prevent Trump from winning even if he won the popular vote. That wall crumbled and revealed yet another issue on which they are rank hypocrites.

Speaking of hypocrisy, how about all those Republicans embracing Trump months ago but before when under BIll Clinton, we were told Mr Clinton’s vile character mattered and should disqualify him from office? I guess only the character of your opponent matters.

Anyway. I'm glad Trump beat Clinton. I wish it had been Johnson, but life will go on. Our country has a chance, as it always does, to become better and stronger. Chill out, and if you're lucky enough to live in the right state, enjoy some primo weed.