We'll take a cup of kindness yet

Sometimes, it all works out in the end

It's easy, as 2016 comes to a bittersweet end, to be a bit pessimistic about our future, both as individuals and as a nation.  We've just elected a cretin who has not the the intelligence, temperament, experience, or humanity for the job to be our next President.  Democrats lost an imminently winnable chance to regain control of the Senate.  It's possible that a foreign country, Russia, directly interfered in our election and our national media is too happy with its Trump ratings to care much, and republicans, assholes that they are, are fucking proud of it.  We're about to say goodbye to arguably one of the five greatest Presidents this nation has ever seen, a man of integrity, compassion, and wit who bailed this nation out (Thank you, President Obama) in one of its darkest hours who will now have to sit idly by and watch his tremendous legacy be left in tatters.  Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps, and many other of our social safety net programs may be torn asunder as republicans give away even more of our country to the wealthy, who already have so much more than many of them deserve.  The rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer...

And yet...and yet...

Much like It's a Wonderful Life there is every bit as much of a chance that the calamity before us will bring out the best in all of us.  Donald Trump could very well turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to the Democratic Party.  After he's done giving even more to those who have more than enough, maybe more and more Americans will wake up to the fact that so many of the wealthy really aren't that bright and really don't give two shits about the rest of us.  And that, while government has its faults, the problem is really a greedy and hedonistic Corporate America.  And it's entirely possible in four years that we could flip a few thousand votes in a handful of states and take back all three branches of our government, and be the ones who really drain the swamp, and make America once again a nation that works best for its poor, its working class, and its middle class.

Shortly before my father died, as he was in the final throes of lung cancer, I was going through a difficult period in my life, and being the clueless asshole I was, I was complaining to my father, he with the puffy jowls and peach fuzz gray hair atop his shiny head from chemotherapy and a few mere months to live, about how hopeless it all seemed. And my father, a man who was never much like me, a staunch republican and a man who saw the world in black and white, but always loved me anyway, gave me his final gift, when he said to me, "Never stop believing that one man can make a difference."

I intend to spend the next year proving that I haven't stopped believing.

And as the song says, maybe eventually "...We'll take a cup of kindness yet/For auld lang syne..."

Fuck Donald Trump,
And have a Happy New Year,
emaycee