The election of Donald Trump…

What does it mean for our country?

For one, its the culmination of an alternate reality built by conservatives, incredibly rich people like the Koch’s and the Republican Party. They have been nibbling at the edges for many years. Tobacco, climate change, anti-Clinton, anti-Obama – the approaches have been many and the result is what is now a complete meltdown in truth versus reality.

We are living in a dangerous age. I find myself occasionally questioning what I know is fact as disinformation and propaganda are being ramped up and Donald Trump is being normalized.

How did we come to a place where a serial liar, a man who is so crass, so explosive, so inflammatory, a serial sexual assaulter, a conman, a man who routinely doesn’t pay his bills, who has gone bankrupt multiple times, who has no governmental experience has  become president elect.

How did we come to a place where Russians interfering in our election is considered by many a partisan affair. Something to put aside because we can’t dare question the validity of an election that had so many oddities.

We haven’t seen Trump’s taxes. We don’t know what his ties to Russia are. We only know that Trump and many of his Republican supporters are willing to put Russia above our own country and to victim blame. It is the DNCs fault, it’s Hillary Clinton’s fault, it’s John Podesta’s fault – we can’t know… but we can. Hillary Clinton won by almost 3M votes and she lost by just under 80,000 across 3 states. Can anyone doubt that Wikilieaks effected such a small number of people? Can anyone doubt that the unprecedented interference by FBI Director Comey had some kind of effect. Fake news, slanted news, an obsession with Trump, voter suppression. There were many factors and they all put this election in question.

Trump has so many conflicts of interest. We don’t know about most of them. We know that he has ties to Russia. We don’t know how many? We know his son said they were perhaps too closely entwined with Russia? We know Trump said that he had conflicts of interest with Turkey that would make it difficult for him to set policy.

If Trump is tied to Russia deeply and it comes out what will we do? Can we stop him? Will we ever know? Would the intelligence agencies prosecute the President Elect or the President?

Norms have been undermined to a point where I don’t know if we can get them back. Trump and his ilk have trampled on the truth and too many Americans were/are willing to follow them down a rabbit hole. For many Truth has become what Trump and co say and not what is actually based on facts. So if Trump says they should admire Putin and not trust American intelligence that is what they will do. I truly can’t understand why.

How do we do this?

How does our country come out of this?

This rabbit hole could drop on us.

We can become a totalitarian, fascist country.

It happened to Germany. It can happen to us.

We have to be aware as many say – we have to “Stay Woke”.