Today I’m taking a “gobsmacked” pass on writing a real blog entry.
Instead I’m just going to hold my little autistic Dar and hug him. Unlike almost every other parent of a 7-year-old that you know, I don’t have to have The Talk with my kid today. I don’t have to explain Donald J. Trump. He’ll never really know who Trump is.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean Trump won’t affect him.
Not sure how obvious it is, but I tend to write these entries on the day that they’re posted. Well, like a lot of people, I’m a little bit gobsmacked by the election results – that Trump is going to be our 45th President. I’m not as gobsmacked as some; I’ve been warning and warning and warning on this blog that middle-income leftists need to understand the profound disenfranchisement in this country. I’ve also been warning that political correctness is out of control, and that leftists need to strike a conciliatory tone in online arguments, not leave them at playing the “you’re racist” and “you’re sexist” cards. And I know that a certain trenchant, smug liberalism played a role in the GOP’s sweep of all branches of government yesterday.
Still, I thought Hillary Clinton would pull it out. I was fooled by a foolish media.
My disabled son just lost some life opportunities. These may be hard to quantify right this moment. My child relies upon a lot of social services. The GOP has tried to cut them before. My child is a second-class citizen in Trump’s America – not unlike Muslim-Americans, Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, Jewish Americans, LGBT Americans, and women.
Most important to little Dar, Trump has normalized bullying. President Trump for eight years? While my child is in grades 2 through 10? How many more times will he be bullied, than if Hillary were President? How many times am I going to see my child come home with scars and marks? The kids already know Dar can’t speak for himself.
So today, I mourn for what my child just lost. In next week’s entry, I’ll move beyond mourning.
