The myth goes like this: Pandora was the first woman created. Zeus ordered Hephaestus to make her and so he did, out of earth and water. Athena gave her clothes, Apollo gave her musical ability, Aphrodite beauty and Hermes speech.
But when Prometheus stole fire to give it to humans, Zeus wanted vengeance and thus he gave Pandora a box, knowing that her curiosity would get the better of her and she would open it despite instructions not to do so.
When she did, all the evils in the worlds escaped, including death, sickness, famine and what have you. Pandora hurried to close the box and kept one thing left inside: hope.
Today hope seems to have escaped as well.
When Obama was elected eight years ago, there was a great feeling of elation and hope. Many thought it would be the beginning of a new era. Whilst his presidency did not hold the many promises we had hoped for, he didn’t do a bad job. It could have been a marvellous job and one could argue that it should have been. But with Congress and Senate firmly under Republican rule, it’s hard to do what you want to do.
Still, the Obamas as people, as a family, were the coolest family ever to reside in the White House and Michelle as the First Lady will long be remembered as one of the best and most beloved.
It’s hard to fathom how much people obviously detest Hilary Clinton. She’s deeply flawed as a person and politician. But she is also very accomplished. And at least she was a Democrat and the status quo, as flawed as it is, would not have changed much. At least that’s the theory.
But now the Republicans are in power, as much as they have ever been. They can do as they please and overturn pretty much every piece of progress that has been made during the last eight years. Regardless of any antipathy one might have for Trump as a person, Republican policies and Republican rule in the US are not a good thing. We can expect Planned Parenthood to be defunded. Who knows whether gay marriage will be upheld? Immigration laws will become impossible. Universal healthcare will be overturned.
And that’s just the beginning of it. If ever any of Trumps campaign trail ideas and promises will be made the law of the land, Muslims will not be welcome and black lives won’t matter.
We cannot now foresee what the future holds. If his dangerous insanity, at least the one he spouted everywhere during the last 18 months, will take a foothold and spread further divisiveness, the future will look dire. Perhaps the Republican Party will rein him in, use him as nothing more than a figurehead. God knows he has no political acumen and he’s not even a good business man. But the Republican Party is conservative at best and is now leaning so far to the right that progress is out of the question. Whatever policies they are overturning or adding, the country is likely to be thrown back decades.
Whatever hopes disillusioned voters might have had when they cast their lot for Trump will be sorely disappointed. Trump does not stand for hope and he will not make America great again. Of that I have no doubt.
At the same time I do believe that the DNC has brought this fate upon itself. Constantly underestimating their opposition, fighting dirty and setting their hopes and the fate of the country, even the world, on the shoulders of a woman so hated and vilified, one is inclined to say that they asked for it. How they could not have seen this is beyond me.
Had they nominated Bernie Sanders as their candidate, today would look rather different. I have no doubt that he could and would have won this election. This wasn’t about the lesser of two evils. It was about the establishment. Hilary Clinton is the embodiment of the establishment that people, voters, have become so disillusioned with.
So is Trump, for that matter, though in a very different way. But because he’s not a politician and he speaks without thinking, he gets the popular vote, “because he says it like it is”.
Of course, this is all moot now. The voters have chosen. The establishment deserved to fail. But it is impossible to say what the prize for that will be.
2clouds 