Dear Mr. President

Preamble:

Let’s get some facts established first:

• I did not vote for Trump, nor for Clinton.
• I am not a millenial.
• I am gainfully employed but have seen troubles over my life that have placed me, at times, in less than desirable circumstances from which I had to crawl my way out, dragging a family behind me.
• I am a conservative, not a Fascist.
• As a conservative, yes, I do believe in basic human rights and justices.
• I believe in hard work ~ for everyone.
• I do not believe in the political machine, including the main and mid stream media that snivels around it and has all of us by the balls and is slowly squeezing.
• I believe in peaceful demonstration, as one of our Constitutional rights, but I do not by any means advocate violence of any kind.
• I know that many of you will read this and be insulted, even now, over a week after the election.
• I do not apologize for my opinion, nor my position.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

With that aside, let me continue.

After many days of contemplation, peppered with vicious exchanges with people whom I have called friends for several years, I have decided to express a few thoughts and feelings that I have been harboring.

As much as many of us have tried to keep things civilized in the wake of your election victory last week, it has proven almost impossible.

Actually, if I had to classify it, I would say it is social warfare out there. No longer warfare between the proverbial haves and have nots. Nor between the sexes. And it really is not even a war between the races.

It is a war of principles. It is a war of perceived standards. It is a war between intangible thought processes and subjective belief systems; belief systems that have been grown, pruned, and stunted by untold years of personal experience and the molding of each individual. It has resulted in histrionics of epic proportions, across multiple societal lines.

The war zone is real out here, President-elect Trump, and it is slowly gathering momentum – taking prisoners and accumulating casualties.

It is a war steeped in fear, resentment, spite.

It has made some good people make bad behavior choices. 

Here are some of the behaviors I have personally experienced. Sadly, some of the behaviors I have personally experienced; some of the behaviors mimic what you yourself – and the portion of your supporters constantly spotlighted by the mainstream media – exhibited on the campaign trail.

Name-calling – marginalizing – stereotyping – pitting of one group against another – judging and accusations – assumptions – more accusations – immoral and unprincipled characterizations

The example that you set during the campaign has become an artifact that we, the people, are now forced to grapple with in the aftermath, down in the trenches.

We have been made aware of our divisions. Those divisions have been drawn into the light. Spotlighted and amplified. Somehow, over the course of this campaign year, people with lesser moral character or weak emotional constitution have become indoctrinated with a sense that they can bully and attack and accuse anyone else from the other camp. Fundamentally good people have been convinced that they can now make these bad choices, and that they are justified for doing so.

They have gotten the idea that they don’t have to respect each other’s opinion if that opinion resonates from the other side.

Somehow, people are increasingly getting the idea that it is acceptable now to judge someone based on the group they affiliate with instead of the moral fabric of that person’s  own character.

It has become impossible to discuss rationally with someone from “the other camp” unless that person has embraced a level of maturity that allows them to gracefully accept and move on. Notice that I did not pinpoint any “camp”. It is followers of both camps, plus some, who are behaving badly.

And many are not moving on gracefully.

They are refusing to accept the election results. They are refusing to even give you and your new administration a chance because they are so blinded by the other garbage.

They are finding you guilty before you have even made a move.

 

If nothing else at this point, you have shaken up the status quo. Not surprising, a bit scary, and necessary.

I, for one Mr. President-elect, will do my best to represent a positive front in the turmoil that is raging. Many people of my like mind are working hard to do the same thing. Because, despite some of the despicable things you did and said during the election, those things are no more despicable than many of the things that a multitude of career politicians, including your rivals and those you are currently appointing to your staff, have done for decades. Difference is your actions and words were publicized and spotlighted while the others slithered around in the mud and tried to pretend that they were righteous, good, and doing what they did in the best interest of the American public.

But I wonder, what is happening to principles, standards, love, acceptance?

While many of us wish that we were not beginning a new chapter under such social duress, we are hopeful that as you are sworn in that you will show us a different side than what the media decided to entertain and enrage us with during your campaign and that the changes you evoke will make us a better people and a better nation.

Good luck, Mr. President-elect.

© 2010-2016 Kimberly Yoss. All rights reserved. No part of this online publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior approval from Kimberly Yoss.

Election 2012 Part 1: My Spin on My Apathy

Are you feeling apathetic about the upcoming election? The candidates, their platforms, their tactics, the debates, the general process?

If you are not, my hat goes off to you (if I were wearing a hat). You are a better person than I am.

I hate to even write this, but I am feeling apathetic. In fact, I gave up on our political process years ago.

I am not the only one. It is a well-known fact that since 1968, voter turnout in general elections has declined by almost 10%. In presidential election years, 20% more voters actually show up and vote over the every-two year congressional elections. This means that 20% fewer of registered voters think enough about electing their congressional leaders to actually get out and vote. Check out the URL link to the chart.

There are many myths and perspectives on these numbers. It can be spun quite a few ways. I liked some of the points from the Cato Institute, even though their analysis is almost 10 years old. Here is another URL that you might find of interest if you want to investigate the issue further: http://www.fairvote.org/voter-turnout.

For me, I believe it started in or around the 2008 Presidential election. At that time, I considered myself a Republican. I was convinced that its platform and delivery represented what was best for me, my family, and the nation as a whole.

Was it perfect and complete? By no means. The Democrat platform covered issues that the Republicans turned their backs on, and vice-versa; these were issues that, in relation to my perspective at that time in my life, were important but not show-stoppers. Indeed, the fact that they were even wasting air time was a nuisance.

I used to do my homework, too.

• I listened to the news daily.
• I regularly read several blog sites and political websites.
• I kept up on the fine nuances of many of the issues.
• I knew and could debate the spin on those issues.
• I Googled.
• I nodded my head along with the Sunday morning ‘talking heads’ on shows like Fox News and Meet the Press.
• I could tell you the names of many of those ‘talking heads’.
• I yelled in outrage at the T.V. when anyone said something that I didn’t agree with.
• I voted in every general election, and most congressional elections. But, unless these coincided with a local election, I did not make an attempt to vote in the local elections.

Sometime during the run-up to the 2008 election, though, my resolve faltered. Everything I heard, even from my beloved Republican party, was a lie. The media spin was not only a lie, but confusing. I got to the point where I couldn’t recover from the spin, couldn’t wade through the lies fast enough to form a solid opinion. The right and wrong of the issues became blurred in my head.

I found myself following the party line, voting for the candidates because they were Republican. I was not cognizant anymore of what the issues were or how the candidates stood on those issues; I began making assumptions that sounded something like, “he’s Republican, so he must think and believe what I believe.”

I got lazy. And then I proceeded to vote blindly. No research, no knowledge, no opinion. Straight party ticket.

When things get blurry like that, I need to step back so I can get the big picture.

Fast forward to present time. Presidential election 2012.

Things are not as blurry as they were four years ago. The reason for this is because I am now completely convinced that they are all liars and spin doctors. The politicians, the media, the government. But the lying and the spin is equal opportunity, color blind. It sees no boundaries between Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal. It doesn’t recognize green, black, or off-white. Probably the only instance in our American society that is NOT truly color blind.  

So why are we still pretending that we don’t see it? Why are we still getting wrapped up in debates that we know are fixed? Why do we feel so compelled to argue about issues that we know deep inside will not get resolved to our liking, nor even get solved for the good of the whole, even though our candidate of choice assures us from the podium that he is the one to do it? Why are we still convinced that the president is the only one who matters, when in reality Congress is more powerful? Why are we still believing that the popular vote can change anything at the presidential level when it really is the Electoral College that elects the president?

Because we are human and it is in our nature to be concerned?

Because we are good citizens and it is our civic duty to speak up? To vote?

Probably a combination of both, and more.

But, from here going forward I plan to change that. I realized that what has gone away in our so-called ‘democracy’ is ‘democracy’. We are not by and for the people; we are by and for the people who can swing the vote in a two-party boxing ring.

How does that get changed? I think it has to happen at the grassroots level.

Tune in later this week for Part 2 of Election 2012: My Spin….

© 2010-2012 Kimberly Bluth or Kimberly Yoss. All rights reserved. No part of this online publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior approval from Kimberly Yoss (Bluth).