Readers of this blog have been very upset by the election and by the results of the election.

There has been altogether too much anger and finger-pointing, directed at one another, not at the source of our mutual disappointment.

I was looking for the right words to address the anger and mutual recrimination. Then I got this message from my son Michael, and it seemed appropriate to post here (I have his permission after having posted it.)

“There never was a war that was not inward; I must fight till i have conquered in myself what causes war” – Marianne Moore

He is a cynic who believes in nothing except his own aggrandizement. In our shame that half of the country voted for this buffoon, we must not give into cynicism. We must have the courage to defend American ideals against their gravest threat ever. If we ever believed in this crazy experiment in self-governance, we must stand up for it now.

Let us be kinder to one another. Let us not forget what matters most. Let us not form a circular firing squad. No more recriminations between supporters of Bernie or Hillary or someone else. Let us remember that our country has survived other dark eras and, with enough pushing, emerged with a vision of what should be, what might be. What we cannot be is vindictive towards our allies. What we must be is informed, alert, organized, and ready to resist what must be resisted. We now live in the Age of Trump. These are interesting times and dangerous times. We must not turn against one another. Let us defend the weak and vulnerable. Let us resist as best we can. Let us be strong enough to know that this too will pass, but only if we make it so. Passivity is acquiescence. We will not acquiesce. We will resist.

Peter Greene is furious. He was fully prepared to start criticizing Hillary Clinton, but he was caught off guard by Trump’s election. What can he tell his students? Should he shield them from the hate and prejudice unleashed during the election?

“I want to be able to tell my black students, my brown students, my gay students, my female students that I’m sorry, that this giant F you delivered directly at them is not what this country is, except that, of course, we just elected this guy, and apparently this is what this country is. I’ve watched the gleeful raised fist, the angry yell, the happy anticipation of telling Those Damned [fill in the blank with your favorite Other] that they can go straight to hell and we are just going to stick it to them now, you betcha. As I contemplate tomorrow’s work day, I have to wonder things like how my coworker who is spending the night at a “Build That F—— Wall!” party will interact with our co-worker whose husband, the father of her child, whose wedding we all attended, is Hispanic.

“This election has stripped us all of so much. While I am generally perceived as liberal or progressive, the fact is that I come from a conservative background and there are many conservative principles that matter to me– yet I saw the GOP leaders abandon virtually every principle they ever pretended to have. I have been churched most of my life– heck, spent many years as a church choir director– and I have been astonished to see Christians jettison beliefs that they have supposedly– but apparently falsely– held for ages, just so they can– I don’t know. Win? And the Democrats, my own adopted party (you can’t vote in primaries as an independent here) have continued to prove that they get stupider and stupider every time, dropping their principles and constituents so that they, too, can get their hands on big piles of money. I hope that this will finally be enough of a shock to wake them the hell up.”

Sanders Statement on Trump

BURLINGTON, Vt., Nov. 9 – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement Wednesday after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States:

“Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media. People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids – all while the very rich become much richer.

“To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.”

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I’m still in a state of shock, after watching the election returns. The best qualified candidate in modern history was defeated by the least qualified candidate in history. President-elect Donald J. Trump appealed to fear of the Other….and won. The pundits and editorial writers will have much to feed upon in the days ahead.

The world is reacting. Global stock markets are in free fall. That affects our savings, our pensions, the equity in our homes.

What does this mean for education? The Republican Party is committed to school choice. Trump rarely spoke about education but this is the little we know. He pledged to take $20 billion from existing federal programs, probably Title I, and give it to the states to be used for charters and vouchers. It will be up to the states to protect what they can of public education.

This will be a boon for charter operators and for-profit entrepreneurs, and we can expect to see religious groups reach out for federal funding. But ultimately the decision about how to spend these block grants is in the hands of the states, a power strengthened by the new federal law, ESSA.

Trump said through a surrogate that he would not put an educator in charge of the Department of Education. He doesn’t like Common Core, but that’s in the hands of the states.

Truth is, he knows little about education and cares less. It didn’t play a role in the campaign. What kind of people will be making decisions about K-12 education and higher education? No one knows.

We will have to rely on the Democratic minority and moderate Republicans to restrain his worst instincts.

I had friends stay over last night for what we thought would be a celebratory evening. They brought their 10-year-old grandson for a sleepover. This morning, as we grownups were moping around, little Shawn shrugged and said, “There will be another election in four years.”

At least, Trump will stop saying it was a “rigged election.”

In the political earthquake that follows the election, we all need to sit back and evaluate who we are, how we can make sense of what happened, how we can survive the next four years, how we can build a viable movement to protect our democratic institutions, and what we need to do to restore hope in the future of our nation. Much depends on whether Trump governs as a pragmatist or a demagogue.

i have to stop now. My brain hurts. I am watching television as I write, and a sunny commercial just aired, sounding like a campaign ad, promoting justice, great schools, a new day. I wondered why anyone would be running a campaign ad on the morning after. The sponsor was Koch Industries.

It takes only about three minutes.

This is a video about children. About kindness. About something so human that it needs no words.

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post writes that Donald Trump is openly anti-Semitic. What once seemed to be a hint of anti-Semitism is now a theme. 
He gives example after example of Trump’s borrowing well-worn stereotypes. 
Well, that is just another example of his unbridled bigotry. He went to Minnesota to warn that the state’s small Somali community was a recruiting ground for ISIS. 
Fear. Hatred. Suspicion. Divisiveness. Conflict. 
We are a nation of many races, religions, ethnicities, languages, and cultures. If we turn against one another, we lose our decency, our sense of common purpose, any common ground. 
Our strength lies in respect for one another and the ability to learn from one another. Together, we can accomplish great things. Divided, we fall. 

Interesting article in the Washington Post about the absence of any serious threat to Hillary Clinton from the left. 
Nader sank Al Gore in 2000, but Jill Stein’s support has fallen below 2%. 
Bernie Sanders was asked about the nasty comments about him found in hacked emails from the Clinton campaign, and he wisely responded that if they had hacked his campaign emails, there would have been some nasty comments about Clinton. 
Sanders knows that Clinton adopted a large part of his campaign themes into the Democratic platform, including the pledge to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. If she is elected, progressives will press her to fulfill her promises. 

The Washington Post article I posted earlier today gave a very compelling portrait of Trump’s supporters. They want the “good old days” to come back. They want an America that is dominated by white men. They are angry about the influx of immigrants from Mexico and Latin America. They don’t like the Black Lives Matter movement. They reject multiculturalism. They are angry because of the loss of manufacturing jobs to automation and outsourcing. They feel cheated. They miss the world of “Father Knows Best.” Their grievances are real, and Trump has fed their sense of grievance with his keen understanding of how to play to the audience. As he often says, “I am your voice.” His empathy with white working-class men is remarkable considering his own privileged origins.

Now he says, to roaring crowds, “It’s a rigged system, it’s a rigged system, it’s a rigged system.” He hasn’t lost yet, and may even win, but he wants his rabid followers to believe that our democracy is hopelessly broken, controlled by unknown corrupt figures.

Voting rules and election monitoring are controlled by local and state officials. Most states have Republican governors and legislatures. Surely they are not rigging the system to favor Hillary. Trump’s claim is nonsensical, and its only purpose is to protect his giant ego in case he loses.

Trump is acting like a big baby, who tears up the game board and throws the pieces in the air if he doesn’t win the game. In his mind, he must win or the game is rigged. It is frightening to realize that 40%

He has an authoritarian disposition and no respect for democracy.

The Republican Party faces a huge challenge in rebuilding after Trump, who leaves a legacy of white nationalism, xenophobia, racism, and misogyny.

It’s frightening to realize that a very large proportion of the voting public shares Trump’s worldview.