Rock bottom expectations - how did we get here - or has it really always been this way?
Like all of you, I struggle to make sense out of the election outcome, out of my own life, out of the past, present and future. This is a happy day for my wife and I - our 36th wedding anniversary. And yet....
There's the rub. We who follow politics get involved emotionally. Sometimes we have the courage to do, and act - protest, run for office, send money. Sometimes we just feel exhausted - we read the paper, we come here, we share, we fight, sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't.
We are still a very young country. Things look dark right now, but I've been told by many - we've all read history - that it cycles - that we go through periods of incredible dark, but things swing, and change - the constant is always change (ironic that conservatives hate change so much - yet they can't hold it back. Amazing that they create so much negative change).
I read the headlines here - scan the NY Times, look at Slate, TPM, Kos - my reactions since the election are always the same - why are they normalizing him? Why does anyone believe anything he says? Why does the media push deplorables like Conway and Lewandowski at us? Why can't the media act as if they too will feel the impacts of Trump and Bannon and his potentially cast of deplorables cabinet?
And back to the "and yet" from above - for some of us politics is not our entire life. We have birthdays, anniversaries, get married, watch our kids grow up, fall in love, get or lose jobs. The parallel "real life" goes on and we have to separate the two or else we could go mad. What feels different to me this time is that people will be hurt - lose freedoms, rights, jobs, voice, access, money, joy. How this administration can bring joy and progress to anyone but the top powers that be is impossible to see. Why so many vote against their interests is beyond me. The strong impact of extreme religion - the one issue voter - mystifies me. Leading a so-called Christian life then acting in the opposite bewilders me.
So I will continue to oscillate - the good things in life tempered by the reality of what gets reported in the news (and of course, there is the whole matter of fake news...but let's not lose focus).
Can the world become kind again? Can people return to confidently think for themselves? Can knowledge and education return to where it is valued, rather than feared? So many questions.
I like to think that the lies not challenged during the Bush years sowed the seeds for Trump and what we are seeing. Then I remember back to Reagan and realize he sowed lots of seeds as well. And on and on - we can probably play this game looking backwards for the history of the country.
Anyway - got to go take my wonderful life to lunch, and we can talk about the good things - our kids, what they are doing, our lives together - what we've experienced, and what is to come. It will be a welcomed break in the malaise of post election.
But I have to admit - my expectations are indeed rock bottom for the immediate future. That's my problem - each of us will feel differently along the scale of optimism and pessimism. Anyway - thanks for listening! Just rambling on, as I am known to do now and then!
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This will be a disaster, for everyone but the very top--and if he manages to start a nuclear war, even they will suffer.
I don't know what you mean about the media "normalizing" him. Their job is to report the news, and what he is doing as the President-elect is news. No way around it. They should NOT be editorializing and calling it news. (That's what we have Fox News for. 
