Sackcloth and Ashes

The wailing, gnashing of teeth, and the donning of sackcloth and ashes Wednesday morning continued the Democratic trend of disparaging your opponents, questioning their morals and intelligence, and generally promising retribution for the heinous crime of disagreeing with them. It’s very clear that while the Republicans learned the harsh lessons of the 2020 election, the Democrats have not. Of course, Biden won in 2020 so the Democrats just knew they had no lessons to be learned.

And they continued that trend Wednesday. As is my habit, I went on to FB to find the anecdotal statistics regarding election reaction. What I’m seeing is (mostly) no gloating from Republicans and a TON of anger combined with concerned head-tilts and disparaging comments regarding a little over half the country.

Yes, you all DO think the rest of us are garbage, you think we are stupid, you don’t understand how black people can vote differently than you told them to, you don’t understand how women of any color could stray that far off the reservation and vote for a (ewww, ick) man. Admit it.

What you really don’t understand is how people can have different opinions when yours is so very moral an so very intellectually superior.

And just stop with the concerned head-tilts over the direction of the country. If the state of the economy – illustrated in the continually downward revised jobs reports (go look them up. Your team snuck out late-night revisions showing more job loss), the ever-increasing price of groceries, and much more – if that doesn’t concern you, then you are one of the elites.

The number of posts ranging from puzzled insinuation of the stupidity or brain-washed nature of opponents, to outright name-calling regarding the “obviously” low levels of intelligence among Republican voters is disgusting. All these posts are from people who won’t call me stupid to my face, but who will, with a condescending tone, ask why I believe whatever it is, tell me they’re happy I’m no longer teaching, or wonder how someone “so intelligent” could ever vote for Trump.

In response, I ask those people: How can someone as intelligent as you claim to be, vote for the continuation of disastrous border policies, the encouragement of rabid anti-Semitism on college campuses, the blatant racism of DEI policies, the general weakening of the U.S. on the world stage, and the ongoing destruction of our economy? How do you not understand that government overreach is a YUGE problem in this country?

How do you diversify the physical characteristics of your workforce, but not the sources of your information? How do you explain your ongoing love of your own, acknowledged, confirmation bias? How do you accuse Republicans of being brain-washed, but refuse to see your own lockstep actions regarding Harris?

I won’t ever get any answers to those questions, or rather, no-one will do so out loud. No, I won’t be gloating on FB. I am greatly relieved at the outcome of this election, and I recognize that there is a ton of hard work ahead of us to even begin digging this country out of the hole that the Democrats have shoved us into.

A good start would be if all those celebrities who threatened to leave the U.S. (again) if Trump won, actually did so this time. George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Barbra Streisand, everybody else who said that – you said you’d go, keep your word and inflict your nasty, condescending know-it-all crap on some other country (if you can find one to take you).

One thing I think I will do is return to questions of the economy, culture, etc. in about three years and see where all these despairing, arrogant Democrats stand then. I will also be continually providing links to news sources which counter the mainstream media in the hopes that at least one person will maybe, perhaps, glance at a headline (a girl can dream, right?)

Here’s an example of one statement I will be asking about. These comments were posted this morning on a post with a picture of a crying Statue of Liberty (of which I’ve seen several):

FYI, Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale based on what she saw happening to women in AFGHANISTAN under the Taliban. But never mind…

The question I will be asking is – do you believe this prediction came true? I really want to see the answer. And if it’s anything along the lines of “yes, at the time I did,” my follow-up will be “Why? You predicted this outcome in 2016 and it didn’t happen. Do you just recycle predictions in the hopes that they do come true and prove your longed-for dystopia?”

The relief is palpable and I think that if some of my Democrat friends were truly honest with themselves, they feel a sense of relief as well. Democrats – y’all KNOW that this country was totally going in the wrong direction, but your overwhelming fear of losing friends was too strong for you to stand up for your values. Although, I’m willing to bet that if you had, you’d find a hella lot more support than you might expect.

One sign pointing me to that theory is the total destruction of Amendments 3 and 4 in Florida, and the passing of Proposition 36 in California, reversing Prop. 47 there (Prop. 47 effectively removed shoplifting and other activities as crimes). In addition, Gascon, the Los Angeles DA lost his race. This is a good thing. Even in California they are fed up with radically progressive politicians and policies.

I went grocery shopping Wednesday morning and damn was it quiet out there. Costco was at about two-thirds of its usual crowds. I got through check-out without waiting in line… AT ALL. I mentioned how quiet it was to the woman checking receipts at the door and she told me that Tuesday had been crazy. At HEB, the cashier told me the same thing. Over the weekend, I noticed a huge crowd at the gun counter in Scheel’s and one of the salespeople told me that gun and ammo sales had skyrocketed in the weeks leading up to the election. I wonder what Tuesday looked like at Scheels. Oh, and the crowd buying guns was a cross section of every demographic in this country – white, black, Asian, Indian, male, female. So, no, it wasn’t just knuckle-dragging, trucker cap-wearing white males.

The feeling of relief in the air Wednesday morning was noticeable. Not a lot of sackcloth and ashes in the real world outside of social media.

We as a country stepped back from the brink on Tuesday. Let’s hope we can continue that trend.