As We Knew It!

I have been very conflicted since Tuesday night when Donald Trump was declared President-Elect.  My first instinct was to leave by whatever means available, my second to stay and fight back.  I had announced my intention to stay and fight back but I realize now that it was my personal fear of going it alone, to a foreign country where I speak little of the language and where I will have limited emotional support and little money.

My second instinct was the right one, to leave for another country and fight from there.  As some philosophers tell us, history repeats itself.  And although there are many in denial, even those who voted for Trump and now say that he really didn't mean it! He did and his appointment of Steve Bannon is the proof. Bannon is a white nationalist, an anti-semite, a racist, a homophobe, a sexual predator, a wife beater, and Trump's newly-appointed chief strategist.

During the 1930's many Germans who hated everything that Hitler and the Third Reich stood for left the country to work from outside.  Those who stayed to fight--there were many, were killed, some sent to the same camps where Jews were gassed, and others were killed outright, either shot or hanged.  Those who stayed accomplished nothing, not even an underground railroad of the type we had here in the United States.  Staying, at least for me, is the coward's way out.  Nestle in, keep your mouth shut, and they won't find you.

I am neither a nestler nor someone who can keep her mouth shut when she sees racism taking over our government and our country. It will be difficult to leave family and friends at my age, but I cannot stay.  The ugliness that is forthcoming will be blinding in its intensity.

Let me tell a brief story.  Shortly before November 8, someone on Facebook, a family member, posted a link to a Mike Pence story, where Pence called Michele Obama our most vulgar first lady.  Today, I saw a picture posted on Facebook of Melania Trump posed naked with another woman, also naked, pushing up against her with the suggestion of some type of sexual activity.  I am open-minded to an extent, but I do have to ask how someone who voted for Donald Trump could support such an accusation against Mrs. Obama yet claim he is not a racist.  It would appear that the only vulgarity Michelle Obama committed was being born with dark skin.  This same person voted for a man who's wife is shown simulating sex with another woman and who himself made two soft-porn films for Playboy.  Vulgarity, they name is Republican.

One more story.  I visited a neighborhood bar tonight and the bartender, a mixed race woman from France, and I suspect not legal, talked to me about the election. We discussed Trump's declaration that the first thing he would do after taking office would be to deport 3,000,000 illegal immigrants.  She asked, naively, but they will all be Mexicans, won't they?  It was obvious that she would be more comfortable if she knew they would be Mexicans, that they weren't coming for her.  But they will come for her, and ultimately for me. But I won't be here.

I will retire tonight to my tears for this country and its future.