The State We're In

I needed to post this somewhere where people could see it. I believe nobody will learn the lessons this election has to teach, except for a very few. I posted this to a secret group on a social media site. I know how social media works -- idiots will take potshots. But I need to put what I see out here in the world. Do with it what you will.

Somebody pointed out this morning that all of the states where things fell apart for Hillary are the states where Bernie won the primaries. Industrial states who have NOT seen any economic recovery, where NAFTA has hit us the worst. Given the choice between more of the same and any fricken kind of change at all, even Nazi change, it's not surprising that things went the way they did in the rust belt.

The Obama recovery happened only in the cities, and hasn't been particularly strong even here. I look at my own town and I see all of these empty store fronts, ones that started emptying out in 2007 and maybe some since, and some that have had 2, 3, or even 4 businesses rotate in and out of them since the crash. There is one place in this area that seems to be doing well, and that is the Biotech area around MIT. If you go over to that end of Cambridge, you will see a whole bunch of sparkling new retail places -- coffee shops, fancy restaurants, clothing stores, even antique shops, and in comparison to that, even Harvard Square looks shabby.

But it's small potatoes for a country that is gasping for breath, for economic life. I can totally understand the Make America Great Again thing on that basis. But Trump's way is the Fascist way, the way that appeals when people don't see any other alternative.

But as everyone here knows, there was an alternative. And Hillary and the DNC stomped it. Decisively, repeatedly, savagely, and with cowardice and arrogance on full display.

And I don't see any sign that anyone in that power structure is taking a lesson here. They will blame Jill Stein and Gary Johnson and Bernie Sanders and anyone but themselves.