Trump’s election is the lesser of two evils – it could lead to the collapse of American democracy

Wednesday morning we were all expecting meh-meh same-same. Afterall, every time one opened the New York Times website, the first thing we’d see was that Hillary had a 90% chance of winning. The percentage graph would even pop up in the middle of their articles (now the NYtimes goes from #whatisaleppo to #whatismath). Clinton’s middle-class conservative white war-mongering values are in accordance with the American way of life.

Trump’s election came as a shock, and it’s true, it’s really scary. It is a victory for the most fascist alt-right racist prejudiced misinformed conspiracy-theorist anti-Semitic Zionist pro-gun anti-welfare anti-women Islamophobic xenophobic intellectaphobic sciophobic Americans. He normalizes their lurid opinions and behaviour.
On the other hand, his victory is the call to action that Clinton’s never would have been. ‘Oh woe is me, I live in a state with a Republican governor, they’re going to take away my abortion rights.’ Didn’t you see what women in Poland did in response to a proposed abortion ban?  The Trump presidency is a wake-up call for citizens to NOT accept the decisions of elected officials.
The ‘mainstream media’, so derided by Trump supporters, is insisting that the country needs to heal. We need to accept democracy and allow a peaceful transition of power. In other words, we should take a Trump victory the same as a Clinton victory, and all goes on as usual. Plus ca change, plus ca continue. Already, the same pundits who had been appalled by his history of sexual assault, his call to ban Muslims, his infeasible economic plans, are praising him for his very modest and very presidential acceptance speech. Their desperate attempts to paint Trump, the buffoon of yesterday, into a president who can unite us all are quite pathetic. We are not united, thank god! The ‘us vs. them’ mentality, the Trump supporters’ red baseball caps that scream ‘I am an idiot’, all make it very clear that accepting the ideology of the majority (as democracy tells us to do) is impossible. Will Trump’s victory undo the myth of the American nation-state? I don’t know, but it sure has a better chance than another four years of Clinton. The lesser of two evils.
We have before our very own eyes the fact of the failure of the American electoral system, the possibility of revolution, of overhauling an obsolete system, and a true rise of popular representation over dictatorship of the majority. Of course we are being told to sit quiet and accept the difficulty of democracy like a sour medicine (soylent green!). And here we are, on the road to fascism.

What needs a revolution is the foundation of American democracy: a yes or no question every four years, and obeisance to whatever the question’s outcome. We need the freedom to change the question, the freedom to ask different questions all together.
Clinton had posted on her Twitter these exact words: ‘This is horrific. We cannot let this man become president’. Her concession speech actively allows precisely that. But it comes of no surprise for Clinton to flip-flop on issues. The entire public sphere is flip-flopping, showing just where their true values lie: not in equality, solidarity, the pursuit of happiness (lols), but in the maintenance of the status quo. The New York Times has gone from ‘Never Trump’ to ‘Moving On’. Obamais now exchanging cordial greetings with the man he said was undermining democracy. Even those die-hard Bernie supporters who ended up voting for Jill Stein (there is a third option!) are organizing ‘peaceful protests’, which, for all their noise, ultimately accept that things will stay as they are. At least that’s better than the post-election support groups that are popping up for white women to cry together.

This is the height of the feminization of society, no misogyny intended (but if politically incorrect jokes are unacceptable, then can the president-elect be acceptable?). At least of liberal democrat-voting society. Their way to put up with Trump is by surrounding themselves with cupcakes and kittens and ‘not my America’ hashtags. The same people who have attacked professors’ wives on campuses for saying we can dress however we want on Halloween are staging ‘peaceful protests’ on the man who will register all Muslims, National-Socialist style.
The election of Trump endangers the assumption that an election equals fate. That once democracy has done its job, the idiot in office can do away with health coverage, religious freedom, women’s rights, and all we can do is sit and watch (and for some, cry). That’s what ‘peaceful transition of power’ means. What we need is true change, which comesnot by just protesting, but by disobeying. If the state shuts your local abortion clinic, don’t allow them. If they cut funding, demand that those rich cupcake democrats put their money there instead of in post-election wellness retreats.  If the state says Muslims must register, refuse. If the state raises taxes on the poor and eliminates those on the rich, refuse to pay taxes. Those insisting on the rule of law are the oppressors. The myth of the rule of law is that it means peace, rather than infringement on freedom, police brutality, and continuous destruction of the environment (the Dakota pipeline construction is the best example of all-American rule of law). Time to change from #notmyAmerica to #notmyruleoflaw. Time to shift the rule of fear from indigenous peoples, women, Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, LGBT+ and the uninsured to those in power.

There is a petition going around for the Electoral college to elect Hillary Clinton instead of Trump. It has already reached 2 million signatures, witness to the general desperation to maintain the status quo. ‘Donald Trump must not be president. He represents a unique threat to the stability of the Republic.’ This is precisely why he must be president: it is time for the illusionary foundations of the so-called nation ‘under God, with liberty and justice for all’ to come under threat.