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Courtesy of The Honking Goose who wrote a great post called “why Not My President is Not My Protest” Click to read the whole thing, its an encouraging bit of dialog. Included is an enlightening video called “why the poorest county in West Virgina has faith in Donald Trump.” Watch it, it’s eye-opening.
I’m a great fan of discussion, debate, talking our way through things, so it’s somewhat discouraging to be in what I now humorously call day ten of the hostage situation. People I know, friends, family, acquaintances, continue their onslaught of rhetoric on facebook, protesting the election, calling it stolen, labeling everyone in America a racist, sexist, uneducated, rape enabler, a general all-purpose hater.
People have now taken to wearing safety pins on their shirt, in protest about “no longer feeling safe,” and I’m beginning to grow annoyed, offended, angry perhaps, because for many years now I haven’t felt safe at all, I’ve felt more like an abuse victim trapped in a bad relationship. Where’s my safe place?
How can I speak about the things that matter to me, poverty, foreclosures, suicide, the meth and heroin epidemic, homelessness, unemployment, families, faith? I haven’t been able to for many years. I’ve been effectively silenced. I began this blog a few years ago, as “wailing impotently into cyberspace..” feeling completely silenced, so alone, devoid of all hope. Abused.
I live about as far away from West Virginia as it is possible to get and yet I can so relate to every one of those people. People have been suffering greatly all around me and often when trying to speak of that pain, they have been slapped down and dismissed. That’s what it’s been like here, too. I call it Gaslighting, 1944, Ingrid Bergman.
Gaslighting is when you psychologically abuse someone to the point where they doubt their own sanity. It’s simple really, you do this by repeatedly denying their reality and telling them they’re just perceiving things wrong. Soon they begin to doubt their own perceptions and to endlessly question themselves until they don’t even know who they are anymore. Now that’s abuse.
So when people are hurting, when they are growing poorer by the day, when they are losing their homes, their jobs, their communities, that is a really bad time to tell them to “watch their privilege.” It’s an extra slug in the gut to hear how you’re just ignorant because the economy is actually thriving and unemployment rates have declined. To drive the knife in a bit farther, now call them a racist. And then for the final death blow…. tell them that the Affordable Care Act is the best thing since sliced bread and it didn’t really leave them completely uninsured and now thousands of dollars in debt.
This country has a bright future, we have the ability to make some real progress, to build some peace and opportunity for the greatest number of people, but in order for that to happen people need to start listening to one another. That means some are going to have to set down their “not my president” protests and their rhetoric about hatred and start talking to those who have been watching this whole thing play out for a long time now.
Well said…
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Oh so true…and I feel like I’m in that hostage situation alongside you—having been silenced now for so long and now we are threatened with having our tongues cut out…
I am not uneducated, I am not a racist, nor homophobic or xenophobic…but rather… I am a realist…as in I have two eyes to see and the gift of discernment to know the truth…the rants, the rage, the safety pins, the crying rooms, the marches, the protests, the asylum seekers…it has got to go—if we are ever to get back on track…the focus must be the least of these as well as all of these—the communities throughout this country that feel forgotten or even demonized…are they not Americans???…are not the sweeping plains, those rural areas, not apart of this nation…or is it just those who crowd the cities…
Thank you IB always for your steely wisdom….
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Amen! Thank you for always sharing your heart and your wisdom.
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I just appreciate you being gracious in allowing my 2 cents on your dime as it were– as well as you always speaking the truth even while others cover their ears
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This is the second time I’ve heard something about safety pins…??
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I actually had seen it on a news feed from the BBC reporting about life in the US post election—most embarrassing that those here, there and yon have mouths hanging a-gap over our brouhaha…but it seems that folks have taken to wearing safety pins to show solidarity for immigrants and in the case of Europe, for the refugees…
here it is seen as anti-Trump in fear of some sort of round-up…
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Pingback: “why Not My President is Not My Protest” – janjoy52
I honestly thought about sharing this on my Facebook page and then thought about the backlash that I would get from some of my friends and decided not to. I’m a little gunshy and tired of being called names. I will gladly talk to anyone,but I withdrew from posting anything about an actual opinion on politics.
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First of all, I once again commend your boldness of proclamation, and your insightful awareness of the cultural surroundings that whether east-coast or west-coast inhabitant, we are all Americans and need to be loved, not promote hatred. May God truly bless America!
There is (has been for several years) growing evidence that a few diabolical ‘elite billionaires’ are in collusion behind the whole ‘progressive’ movement.Their goal is to replace American society with a global union. Just as dictators inexplicably rise up over the masses in 3rd world countries, their under-current of selfishness as the prime motivation for their politics also exists in America. Although the mainstream media dares not report this because they are mostly funded and governed by these greedy fear-mongers, thanks to other independent news sources, not only was an election secured, but a real grass-roots effort exists to expose, renounce, and eliminate the crooks who merely say what they think people want to hear – but NEVER really intend to provide actual solutions for the benefit of all.
Recent ads on Craigslist actually offer compensation of $27K – $30.5K for participation in a new non-profit campaign to organize future protests and pass out propaganda – see the details >>>
https://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/npo/5878142108.html.
One must question – who is funding this organization? The compensation being offered implies a tremendous amount of wealth behind it. We need look no further than the back of our dollar bill to see that the top 10% have always wagged the tail of the lower 90%. But now, after slowly infecting American ethics and principles, and finally successfully outlawing godly morals in favor of political correctness bad has become good; good is now evil – the ideology of the 10% is now perceived as that of the majority. But, either I live in a bubble, or such propaganda is mere fantasy. I have NEVER personally spoken to a single living soul that truly believes all this RF being promoted by network media.
Ironically, it is mostly the minorities that have embraced this rhetoric. The 10% have done the math. It is far more cost effective to ‘hand-out’ several millions of dollars in ‘free-aid’ to the few poorest, uneducated, and exploited individuals, than to conduct fair trade guided by legitimate ethics approved by the real majority. Why is it that all the accusations of foul in voter fraud cases all point to minorities submitting illegal ballots? Why are the traditional ‘blue states’ located near boarders (including coast-lines) were illegal immigration is virtually unregulated?
I live in California where Governor Brown passed a bill just prior to the election, that allows illegal immigrants to vote! Don’t take merely my word for it, read it for yourself >>>
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2015/10/12/gov-jerry-brown-signs-bill-allowing-illegal-aliens-vote/.
Brown is in his forth term of office in this ‘blue state’ where the democratic senator who held her seat for the past 26 years was replaced by a democrat who shared the ballot with only another democrat. No other party’s candidate were even on the ballot!
As is posted in your concluding paragraph – “in order for that to happen people need to start listening to one another” – yes, but we also need to stop being ‘content’ to merely follow the ‘pied-pipers’, parroting things not personally researched, and avoid anything NOT clearly true!
Remember – innocent until proven guilty? Now, the opposite is being proclaimed – prove innocence, or be condemned by unsubstantiated rhetoric. That has always been the motivation behind propaganda – Americans just can’t accept that it is now wide-spread HERE! Pray it’s not too late to effectively ‘drain the swamp’!
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You tell it like it is, Sister. Policy makers give us equal rights under the law and legislate things like food stamps and healthcare for the poor, meanwhile poverty is just a symptom and the illness itself goes untreated. This viewpoint is very much marginalized by mainstream society and the press. But it is truly not that complicated, how come the talking heads can’t see that?
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NOT MY BLOG POST!!!
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Thanks for the link to that post.
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Seems like the left half of the population feels the right half should have a right to their opinion – ONLY if it agrees with theirs.
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I’m with you, IB. I haven’t felt like my President represented my interests for the last eight years! So odd that the people who supported Sec. Clinton think they should protest because their candidate didn’t win. None of the people who wanted Mitt Romney or Sen. McCain protested, as I recall. I didn’t see any of the “racist” people who voted for Mr. Trump carrying “Not My President” signs after Pres. Obama won election.
It really does make my insides churn that people are carrying on so. I didn’t vote for Mr. Trump and I don’t think I’d feel optimistic if Sec. Clinton had won, but all this divisive rhetoric is what goads me. People no longer think. They simply react to inflammatory speech.
But about the protests, I do have to wonder where the money is coming from for all those nicely printed signs. Sure, some are hand made, but a lot are nicely printed. Who does that? Who organizes it? And where are the investigative reporters who should be asking those questions?
Not my President! I mean, we have high schoolers who have stayed out of class to march in protest. They aren’t even old enough to vote!!
One of the latest was a brouhaha about a Trump supporter who supposedly said the WWII internment camps for Japanese citizens give precedence to have immigrants register. But lo and behold, when you actually listen to the interview with Megyn Kelly, , it was she who mentioned the camps. The guy may or may not have had the camps in mind. When I listened to the tape, I thought he could just as easily have been thinking of the immigration laws that were passed to keep immigrants out. But Kelly brought up the camps, so the headline of this article now reads, “Megyn Kelly shut down a Trump supporter who said Japanese internment camps were precedent for a Muslim registry.”
In fact, he denied he was thinking of the internment camps. But why should anyone actually believe him?
So no thoughtful, meaningful discussion can take place now about whether or not immigrants should be required to register–because that would be “racist.” Yet all the Republican Presidential candidates, when asked during the debates about illegal immigration, said that one of the big conduits for illegal immigrants is those who come on a legal visa, then stay. How can we ask them to leave if we don’t know where they are? So is it racist to expect people to play by the rules? We can’t even discuss this question, it would seem, without the Not My Pres people throwing up their accusation shields: Racist! Hater! Bigot! Xenophobe!
Yeah, I think, and we lived by your rules for the last eight years and grew quieter and quieter. I’m not thinking protests are the way to go, though I don’t doubt Trump supporters would have protested if Sen.Clinton had won. But I think it’s important for Christians to speak up. We ought not stay silent. But we ought not participate in the argument culture playing by their rules. We ought to speak the truth, but we should do it, as Scripture says, in love. And that will make all the difference.
Becky
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I really enjoyed this post. I am just as outraged at all of the protesting going on as you seem to be. I just wish more people would understand that all of the obnoxious rioting, protesting and looting that we have been seeing in the past few years is not the way to solve any of the real issues that face us.
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Some of those protesters didn’t even vote.
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