Even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.8 million, many Americans were completely floored by her electoral college loss in the 2016 election and spend the last week mourning their disillusionment. I voted for Hillary but I did not feel the smug assurance of well-paid pundits and my fellow liberal voters - I knew that she might lose.
A recent SNL skit about the 2016 election starring Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock highlights the denial of Democrats, liberals and other Hillary voters over the surprise victory of the most boorish, bigoted, divisive and unqualified candidate ever to run for president of the United States. Joined by several white friends who were certain of a Democratic victory, the characters played by Chappelle and Rock maintained their doubt about the outcome.
Clearly, many of us had our heads in the sand - and in the aftermath of this democratic disaster, reflecting on what our future might hold, it looks like we're doing it again.
We can discuss the various causes of this astonishing and embarrassing result, but we might be wiser to consider what comes next and what we need to do to prepare for it. By providing non-stop coverage of "expert" pollsters and the obnoxious and spiteful Tweets of Hillary's opponent, the corporate media helped to get him elected.
Perhaps their lust for profit clouded their judgement.
Neither the election nor the media are "rigged" in spite of his paranoid claims, but they are part of the "elite" that drove many working-class voters, women and other minorities to vote against Hillary Clinton. Now these handsomely paid pundits are parroting their assigned kumbaya lines about accepting election results and a smooth transfer of power, but in the streets it's a different story.
All across America, people are protesting his electoral college win and the ugly, frightening words and ideas that inspired it. Meanwhile the media and many liberals are replacing their heads in the sand and pretending that everything is going to be OK, that the reality TV host didn't really mean all the racist, sexist, violent and threatening things he said. But many of us are sure that everything's gonna be just fine.
But then there's the appointment of Stephen Bannon of Breitbart News Network, an organization that promotes white nationalism and other bigotries according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
I'll bet there were plenty of Germans were in denial in the 1930s and we all know how that turned out.
In spite of recent calm and measured interviews we have no reason to believe that this "man" will (or is able) to change, to become more stable, moderate and thoughtful. This is simply wishful thinking on the part of liberals who are sometimes too tolerant, too willing to consider all sides of an argument and too reluctant to condemn that which is dark and threatening. This "man" has promised to revive our pathological program of torture but, like the election results, we refuse to believe it because we feel so cozy and safe with our heads in the sand where we don't have to see the angry and venomous hoards who voted for him - and who promised armed uprising if Hillary won the election.
We didn't hear too much concern about that before the election, but now that many Americans are protesting her loss, the media focus is on the horrors of broken windows, blocked traffic and lost business - hardly comparable to armed resistance and promotion of bigotry.
The ugliness has already begun and he's not even in office yet. What will awaken the Pollyannas of the left and center who voted for Hillary?
It is not only naive but dangerous for us to pretend that the hatred and ignorance inspired by this "man" will soon pass and that nothing serious and irreversible will happen during his tenure. The misinformed and bitter anger of his heavily armed supporters has already been well stirred and documented. We'd be wiser to reflect on what could happen once he's in office and what our most effective response might be.
Perhaps it's time to wake from our sleep of denial before it's too late.
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