I Didn’t Cry in the Bar When Trump Won This Time
Created using Midjourney because there were no good Creative Commons images for crying in a bar
I was actually afraid to go to El Rio last night, which is a terrible feeling considering it’s one of my favorite bars in the world. My wife and I had our first kiss there and even had our wedding reception under the twinkling string lights of its spacious backyard. I love that bar.
But I really didn’t want to be there for Election Night. I didn’t want to jinx things. I’ve spent far too many Election Nights at El Rio and had my heart broken seeing candidates and propositions I believed in lose at the ballot box. I was there in 2016 when Trump won the first time, and found myself weeping, snotty, sniveling into Astrid Kane’s shirt.
I didn’t cry in a bar last night though. In 2016 most of us were blindsided by Trump’s win and the seething anger and resentment that his campaign had unleashed. Not this time. We’ve spent the past eight years watching it grow while right wing media and influencers fed the petty hate machine. Horrible things that would’ve tanked any campaign ten years ago were uttered on a weekly basis to a crowd who either cheered along or simply shrugged. We knew what was at stake this time, we’d already survived one Trump presidency and been subjected to three of his harrowingly vile campaigns. And while the constant debasement was no longer shocking, we were still able to think, maybe, finally, this will wake people up.
Nothing did. Not the convictions, not the rape, not the easily debunked lies, not the insane yammering about immigrants eating pets, not the simulating of a blow job on a microphone, nothing. Not a fucking thing could change the mind of his followers. Somehow, they actually seemed to grow. As we see today, Trump at least didn’t lie about one thing: he really could shoot someone on a crowded street and not lose any voters. In fact, they’d probably justify it by saying the person was transgender or an immigrant or a journalist or a Democrat.
Yesterday, while walking to the Election Day Luncheon at John’s Grill, I watched a construction worker apply a Trump sticker to his hard hat, on Market Street, during election day, in the middle of San Francisco. He did it slowly and precisely, reveling in the act as people passed by on the way to vote, or get lunch, or get high.
It struck me that right here, in the center of San Francisco that someone who was very likely a union member, was proud to be voting for Trump, a person who has been vocally anti-union for his entire life. That’s when I knew we were fucked.
For anyone that’s been paying attention, it’s obvious that working class people have been moving to the right for a long time. Decades really. But it’s really been during Trump’s reign of error that the shift has become so complete.
I blame the Democratic party. (I also blame the social media platforms for allowing themselves to be manipulated just to make shareholders wealthier, but that’s for a different essay). To be honest, I despise both parties. The Democratic party has a terrible history of racism, sexism, homophobia, islamophobia, antisemitism, xenophobia, etc. and the only thing worse than it is the Republican party. The difference is that the GOP is willing to exploit anything to win. They realized a long time ago that if you win, you get to call the rules of the next game. And if you push the bullshit a little further each time, and you keep winning, you can fool the other team into playing by rules that you no longer even pretend to follow. Just ask Al Franken.
Since the Democrats have decided to play as the good guys, there’s no way they could’ve won. You can’t win a game where the other team doesn’t follow the rules. And the thing is, none of us really gave a fuck if they were the good guys or not. We want affordable housing, healthcare that won’t bankrupt us, education that won’t give us crippling debt, food that won’t poison us, and corporations that won’t buy elections. Being the good guys, the respectable party, wasn’t going to win this election and right now there’s gonna be a lot of finger pointing – people blaming Jill Stein or blaming pro-Palestinian protestors. You know what would’ve won this election though? Giving people the things I just listed above. That’s because these are all the same things Trump’s voters want too.
I don’t hate his followers. To a large extent, I feel where they’re coming from. We’ve all been so thoroughly screwed over by the wealthy and the corporations and both political parties, that we should all be on the same side. We should be collectively pulling down the exploitive system that keeps us struggling while the 1% get richer and richer. The right calls them “elites” and the left calls them billionaires. But they are the same thing. And that’s why Trump won. Because he knows that, or at least the people in charge of him do.
Divide and conquer. It’s the oldest trick in the book. Convincing people that the person on the rung below them is the cause of their problems, while you’re the one actually harming them, has been the key to success for tyrants for millennia. It’s how fascists get their followers to do unspeakable things. And Trump, being the natural predator that he is, is the perfect candidate for fascism. It’s just bewildering how successful he’s been at it, considering he’s an absolute buffoon.
Created using Midjourney because there were no good Creative Commons images for Project 2025
As a Jewish person, I hate Hitler, but at least him and Mussolini had pizzaz. Trump is a sloppy, orange, mess who still hasn’t figured out how to do his makeup right despite wearing it every day for decades. But a fascist he most certainly is. He’s been telling us he is one all along, even saying he will be a dictator on his first day in office.
The GOP have already taken the White House and the Senate. If they take the House of Representatives, this will have been our last real election. Sure, they’ll let us pretend our votes still matter, but they will gerrymander, pass laws, stack the Supreme Court, and make it so that anyone who isn’t like them can never win again. They’ve even told us they’re going to do this. It’s called Project 2025.
So where do we go from here? To be honest, I don’t fully have all the answers, but I just saw something posted by my friends at Indecline that said this:
Fascism is deathly allergic to compassion and empathy. Fascism hates joy as an act of resistance. Never forget that.
Take the time you need to reset. Get outside. Get your closest friends around a table of food. Let your emotions get the better of you, but don’t let them turn you apathetic. Read, exercise, fuck, and remember, we are ungovernable.
After that we have to organize, collectivize, and build up solidarity networks to look after each other. And then most importantly we have to figure out how to reach across the divide. We need to find ways to get all those people in MAGA hats to realize that a better world isn’t made by demonizing other working people, no matter where they come from, who they love, or what gender they are. The only people we need to take our country back from are the corporations and billionaires who profit off our struggle and suffering.
After spending a few hours at another Election Night party, we ended up going to El Rio after all. We knew the jig was up. We knew that Trump was gonna win and that the Senate had been lost as well. But we wanted to end the night with our allies from so many other political struggles.
This time there was no weeping. Sure, there were forlorn looks, and lots of sadness, but looking around the room, there was also the feeling that all we had was each other and that together we’d get through this. It’s the only option we have.
Howdy! My name is Katy Atchison and I'm an Associate Editor for Broke-Ass Stuart.
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