Appalled

[xela]

After avoiding the news even more than usual all day, I decided around midnight to check the headlines before going to bed.

I've been trying for an hour and a half now to write something coherent. It's midnight on election night. One of the two candidates is a turd with legs. And the election is too close to call.

I've always believed that the vast majority of people were fundamentally decent. And that given accurate information they would make a real effort to do the right thing. That only a small minority — 1%, maybe at most 5% of people — are truly nasty.

I've been trying my damnedest to avoid the news for better than six months now. But even hiding under a rock I have been unable to avoid learning information about Donald Trump that I would really rather not know. Information that would lead any decent person to back away slowly.

And roughly half my fellow citizens — not 1%, not 5%, but near to 50% — just don't give a fuck.

My faith in my fellows has withstood some pretty severe blows in the past. But I don't think it's going to make it this time. Faith of course is just another word for credulity, and I've long been aware that my optimism about humanity rested on poor foundations. That said, I almost wish I had Faith in the more conventional sense. Almost.

---

Above edited for typos, 2018-01-01. Otherwise, as originally posted 2016-11-09, 01:43 EST.

Comments

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Shitting hell, after what happened with Brexit, I have no faith in the general public beyond that they are fundamentally stupid. The UK is committing economic suicide and everyone is going to suffer for it. Ludicrously, many people in the UK voted for Brexit because they wanted to bring down our right wing government. That worked, and it was replaced by a government even more right wing than before - a far right government. Fucking idiots, it's like burning down your house and then being forced to live in the smouldering ruins for the rest of your life just because you wanted to irk your neighbours.

Trump getting in will be this situation x 10. With a possible added World War.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

It was my shock at Brexit that made think seriously for the first time that I might be living through the sort of pandemic of political stupid that swept the world ninety years ago.

Then I patted myself on the head and told myself there, there. You're just overwrought.

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[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

I suppose I can take some comfort, then, from the thought that amidst the self-immolation of my country, people find my thoughts on the disaster worth reading.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

I hear you, dear friend. Around the world we're all in this.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Sam.

[noire.livejournal.com]

Said far more cogently than I've been able. I salute you, we who are about to die...

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

Thank you. For all that I was flailing to write it, I've been trying to articulate some of these thoughts for weeks. When the Billy Bush thing forced its way into my attention and even that didn't push Trump's poll numbers off a cliff, I was pretty sure that come the morning after the elections — this morning — I was going to have to rethink my faith in humanity. But I never imagined it being crushed on this scale.