P&J #1** – Dick Bernard: Post 11-8-16; "a house divided…."

As of Nov. 16, Hillary Clinton is up 671,246 votes over Donald Trump in the U.S. popular vote, tallying over 60,000,000 votes in all; but Donald Trump has won the electoral 290-232. About 95,000,000 didn’t vote.
It’s time to read carefully Article Two of the U.S. Constitution: u-s-constitution-art-II001*. Perhaps the hated “Obamacare” will be dead. (I comment on this one at it’s end.). Slated to be over is attention to this nonsense called Climate Change, and other things. As we have all been told over, and over, and over, the last eight years were a “disaster”, “believe me”.
The word count at the end of the last paragraph is much too long for Twitter. For the brave who open the above links, there’s much more, and I hope a few of you do. The content behind the links are worth the time to read and think about, seriously.

In an earlier post I noted a personal post-election shock response akin to post-9-11-01. Back in those days – it was Sep. 24, 2001 – I opened an e-mail platform for those who wanted to share feelings. The first couple I wrote are here: Post 9-11-01001.
Pretty soon came P&J** (Peace and Justice) #1, and there was a lot of conversation on-line for a long time. Perhaps 150 people on the listserv. About a year ago I delivered two boxes, perhaps 1,000 pages, of e-mails from that post-9-11-01 series to the Minnesota Historical Society for archive. In some later day, maybe somebody will take a look at those boxes, which are a history – as I recall – of about the first year after 9-11. We on that list were on the losing side of the majority opinion, then. War on a credit card won. We were set to “Make America Great Again.” Afghanistan Oct 7 2001001
2001-09 is not remembered fondly.
After September 11, 2001, our nation took the course we seem to know best: beat the hell out of ’em, whoever ’em was, then (in Afghanistan, initially; Iraq a short while later).
It didn’t work well, as those of us remember the next 8 years know especially well; and it carries forward to today.
But memories are short. We can very well be beginning a repeat performance of post 9-11-01, only this time we simply escalate a long-standing internal civil war within our own country.
Nowadays, of course, communications have changed. E-mails are for old duffers like me. Blogs like this are too long for most readers. Already this is too long for most of todays readers (newspaper columns for commoners like me are limited to about 600-700 words.)
Now, things like Facebook (founded 2004), YouTube (2005), Twitter (2006) are still current, but almost old hat. iPhone (2007) and its variants are the rage. We have more ways to communicate less; we can pretend other opinions don’t exist. Fantasy can trump reality.
But we need to connect, far beyond headlines, and much more personally including with people of differing points of view. We need to take the time to understand what has happened, and why it happened, and mostly to be accountable for what happened, and will happen from today forward. The accountability piece is important, and difficult. It is so very easy to blame somebody or something else.
There are many issues. We avoid respectful talking and listening.
Today’s Trump (and Republican) “style” of winners and losers terrifies me. The polarization is dangerous in the communities which we call the United States, and Planet Earth. Raw anger has overwhelmed basic reason.
We are at another fork-in-the-road moment for our nation, and for those of us who don’t like what just happened, this is no time to sit on our rear ends and blame whomever.
It is time to get to work.
* – If interested, look here. Personally, I have signed on to this, at least to make my feelings known.
** – I’ve done this blog for a half dozen years. It has always been open to constructive commentary from individuals who wish to post. I almost never have someone “take the bait”. How about you? It must be constructive and fairly short (this one is about 500 words in total, for perspective.)
Related post and links here.
COMMENTS:
from David: Lots of things to think about as we contemplate the presidency of someone so clearly unqualified to do the job. Not the least of which is what the Democrats need to do to field candidates and policies that connect with the angst felt by many in this country.
During the final debate, Trump floated the idea that should he lose the election, he might not accept the results as legitimate. Criticism rightly came from thoughtful folks on both sides. I fear that supporting the idea of trying to persuade Electors to vote against the results of their respective states would only confirm the fears of those who felt that the election would be “rigged.” Clinton won the popular vote but lost the election due to the arcane Electoral College system. We don’t have to like the man, but Trump, according to the rules of the game, won, and is now President. If the results were reversed, Trump winning the popular vote, Clinton winning the election via winning the most electoral votes, would those now signing the Change.org petition support a call to overturn the results of the Electoral College? I doubt it.
I was amazed that there wasn’t a popular uprising against the Electoral College system when Gore won the popular vote but lost the election to Bush. It appears that the general public is pretty much satisfied with the system. If not, we should change it via a Constitutional amendment. But, just because we’re deeply disappointed in the results, let’s not support a movement that calls on us to change the rules of the game after the final whistle blows.
Response to David: It is good for as many people as possible to understand what is in Article II of the Constitution of the United States. In our current system as it is, it is a pipe dream to imagine a major amendment to the existing Constitution or Bill of Rights passing muster, regardless how necessary. It would take a cataclysmic event, and speaking for myself, I don’t want to see that to get change. This is a good time, however, to call attention to the problems with the Electoral College as it pertains to an election for President of the entire United States of America. Just my opinion.
from Jeff: For all the angst about rural vs urban, about angry white working class, etc…. it really gets down to the enthusiasm gap, Clinton did not inspire enthusiasm like Obama did for the Dems. As a result in places like Detroit, ‘Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and I assume in Miami and other place, the number of votes for Clinton were nowhere near what Obama got, and in the outstate areas people who voted for Obama as “change” particularly in 08, voted for Trump as change in 16.
As for me, I am historically trained and keep up with history in my reading, from many eras. To me I have to reach to the past to reconcile the present and consider the future, (though I know that every time is different), I am seeing a Trump presidency to follow 3 possible previous outcomes.
Hitler 1933+
Nixon 1968+ (hubris, racism, white rural backlash, protests)
Reagan 1980+ (tax cuts, increased spending, deficits, except this time Russia is not the enemy)
We can survive the last 2, I hope. I don’t want to think about the first one.
from Jane: BIG fork in the road! Plus it’s starting to be even more of a swamp than ever as people object to Trump stealing the election — but it was okay for Clinton to steal it. Plus Trump is now consulting with John Bolton, psychopath extraordinaire. America is in big trouble now.
Fr. Joe in a message to his parishioners Sunday, Nov. 13, 2016: gillespie-nov-13-2016001