The Day The World Went Mad

I want to start this blog today by saying that I am not American, so I had “no skin in the game” of the presidential election.

If I have been American and I had therefore been voting, my thoughts are as this.  I do not like either candidate.  She seemed completely disingenuous, and Donald Trump is, well, Donald Trump.

Like with the Labour government that is currently ruining our country, I am sad for what the Democrats could be but are not.    Letting millions of undocumented immigrants into the country (like with the UK albeit we are at a smaller scale) and their love affairs with identity politics turned me away from both Labour and the Democrats.

The main thing that would have turned me away from voting for Kamala Harris was the fact that she achieved nothing as vice president for Biden.  Biden himself did nothing good during his presidency and in fact managed to ruin the economy, there was the debacle with Afghanistan (still completely in shock on the one), the immigration situation which went out of control and of course their stance that a man could become a woman.

What made me angry about Kamala was the women’s body autonomy issues and abortion rights.  They have watched for the past four years while the states have taken away women’s rights, not understood how women’s bodies work and have literally watched women die from not receiving medical care.

Kamala used the deaths of those women (and girls) to her advantage on the campaign trail.  Making promises that she knew that she could not keep.  She used their deaths to gain points.  Gain voters.  Despicable in my book.

Then we turn to Donald Trump.  The man is a misogynist, that much is clear and evident.  He is all about the money (although he donated all the money he received in his last term, not taking a salary).  

However.  In his last term, the economy in the US was great.  People could afford housing.  Food prices and gas prices reduced.  He (I still cannot believe it) brokered peace with North Korea.  Even having the guts to step on to North Korean soil.  There was no war with Donald Trump and the troops loved him for it.

Taking that into account, plus his views and immigration and identity politics, ultimately, I would have voted for him.   I did not trust the Democrats, any more than I trust Labour.

Then the 5th November happened.  Election day.  Trump won and the world went mad in a way that surprised even me.  Mainly because of the supposed threat of “Project 2025” and the result which was a rise in the 4B movement.

But we have had no clear evidence that Trump is in any way involved with Project 2025.  He has in fact distanced himself from it and has made comments stating that he thinks that the current abortion limit of six weeks as it is in some states, is too low.

The world did not end when Trump was elected last time.  Things did not get worse for women.  Things got better, for everyone.  He put two Republican Supreme Court judges into place, absolutely.  Would you not expect the Democrats to do the same?

The Democrats have done nothing in these four years except make things worse.  They have done nothing to improve.  We can only hope for better.  Whether it will, or not, will soon come to pass.

That is if Biden doesn’t manage to create World War 3 before Christmas.

2016 - What the Hell Happened?

In years to come, when they look back at 2016, people will ask “What the hell happened”.

It has been the year that the celebrities died en masse.  David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Leonard Cohen, Gene Wilder, Prince, Muhammed Ali, Terry Wogan to name but a few.  Some of the brightest and well loved lights of the music and film industry who will be missed by so many.

The year that the UK shocked everyone, including themselves, and voted to leave the EU by a tiny margin of just 4% of the vote.  The year that saw hate crimes rise by 300% after the referendum.  A year where half a nation believed lies and one racist, sexist, bigoted man over facts and common sense.

The year that America went mad and voted Donald Trump to be their president.  A man who has the attention span of a two year old and is so easily irked that he tweets insults at three in the morning.  As I am writing this, he has just been made “Person of the Year” by Time Magazine.

It is interesting to note that that same accolade was also given to Hitler in 1938.

The year where woman in the UK campaigned to remove tax from tampons, only to be told that the money would be reallocated so that they could pay for their own domestic violence support.  The year where a woman is being sued by her own embryos.  

The year where some states in the US are forcing women to bury or cremate the remains of an abortion or miscarriage.  A year where just yesterday, Ohio put the abortion limit down to six weeks; when most women do not even know that they are pregnant.

The year where millions of refugees have been forced to leave their homes relocate across the Middle East and Europe.  A year where the far right (and the Daily Fail) have got such a hold in some people's minds that they were wanting to check the teeth of migrant children for their ages.  A year where people like Katie Hopkins said "Rescue boats? I'd use gunships to stop migrants".

The year where mass shootings at schools and colleges seemed to happen every other week.  Yet the shooters were not called terrorists, but simply misunderstood and troubled.

The year when a certain footballer's retrial was successful for him, purely based on other men's testimony who were not there on the night, but merely testified that the girl in question liked sex.  

A well loved and brilliant MP, killed by a terrorist of the far right.

I could go on, but you get the picture.  You know.  You have lived it, as we all have.

Looking back, I cannot see much good in 2016, but there has been.  A little.

The campaign on GoFundMe for the rape victim mentioned above that raised over £26,000 to be shared between Rape Crisis and the victim herself.  The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement that is successfully highlighting the prejudice faced by black people by the police and society in general. 

The safety pin movement, started after the UK referendum and continued after the Trump win.  More people standing up and objecting, speaking out against what is wrong rather than watching from the sidelines.

The 2016 Paralympics, where Paralympians for the first time achieved more medals than the able bodied Olympians.  When the world, finally, started to realise that disability is not something that has to be hidden and felt sorry for.

We are better than the year we have just experienced.  We can behave better, we can learn, we can change, we can stand up for what we believe in.  I still believe in people.  We have to stand up to hate.  We have to stand up for the people that need our help.  We have to show compassion.  

To quote Winston Churchill:

"Never, never, never give up."

Dear America

Dear America,

I write to you as someone "over the pond" watching in interest, trepidation and ever increasing horror at the presidential election.

As someone not from the US, you may well say that my voice doesn't matter, my words mean nothing; that I do not have the right to an opinion about things that do not concern me.  But they do.  Because if Donald Trump wins, the whole world is affected.

I do not talk to the die hard Trump fans, or Clinton fans.  Your decision is already made.  There is no changing that at this late stage.

I speak to the undecided.  Those thinking that their voice and their vote do not matter.  Those who are tired of the same elite establishment being in control (although, if you do want to send Obama over here, we would welcome him).

I get it.  I understand.  Here in the UK as you will have seen, we had a referendum to stay or remain in the EU.  The left versus the right.  As the KKK endorses Donald Trump in the US, we had neo nazis, the English Defence League, Britain First; white supremacists; all firmly on the leave campaign side.

We were lied to.  Given inaccurate information.  Practically no information to be fair.  We were given no indication of what may happen if we left.  You could find some of this information if you researched, but many didn't.

The result?  a 51.9/48.1 split and a country that is more divided every day since.  The Pound is shot to pieces.  Racist attacks rose 300% in the week after the vote.  

Since the vote, research tells us that 1.2 million people regretted their leave vote after the referendum.  A tiny  proportion that would have made all the difference.  People who didn't understand fully what they had voted for.  People who thought that their vote "did not count" and they had purely voted as screw you to the establishment.  Then there are all the people who did not vote at all.

Your vote in the election today may well be the most important vote of your entire life.  Please do not squander it.  Please do not think that your vote does not matter.  That a vote for Trump as a joke to yourself may not affect anything.

Your vote matters.  Do not do what we did.  Make it count.  If I lived in the US right now, I would walk through fire to vote for Hillary Clinton.