All these “Stay positive! Accept the results!” tweets and Facebook posts are toxic.
We all have the right to assemble and peacefully protest, and the notion that Republicans weren’t out protesting either of Obama’s victories is just insane. What else have Republicans been doing for the past eight years?
Voting for Donald Trump was, in itself, a protest against the Obama administration. Furthermore, the truth of the power that Trump just won should worry us all.
An example, if I may.
The 2001 Authorization of Military Force (AUMF) states: “That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
This 15-year-old resolution has been used to authorize military force all around the world, including a recent bombing campaign in Libya, sending U.S. Special Operations forces to 135 countries in 2015.
This is the power that the President has.
This is the power that Donald Trump has.
And I see no future in which the 2001 AUMF is ever repealed.
Who would repeal it? It would be political suicide. That’s easy enough to see.
The AUMF’s vague language and Obama’s history of point-and-click drone warfare will continue to give the President, now a man who once suggested killing the families of terrorists (a war crime), unlimited access to waging perpetual warfare with little or no accountability.
This power is in the hands of a man who suggested arming South Korea and Japan with nuclear weapons. This power is in the hands of a man who suggested that he knew more about ISIS than our own military leaders.
Considering that the United States’ military spending exceeds the next 11 countries combined, seven of which are allies, this spells only one word: disaster.
I’d not be surprised if there were American boots on the ground in the Middle East before the end of Trump’s second year.
In truth, it wouldn’t really have mattered who won the presidency. The status-quo is going to remain untouched even if a space alien who eats babies won on November 8th. We’ve always had a taste for war. We mistake might for power, believing it to be a chance to write history and be the “good guys”.
But, there is hope still on the horizon. Even as Trump’s supposed cabinet is the stuff of nightmares, we can hold on to hope.
Perhaps everything we saw out of Trump during the election slog was just an act. A performance to win media attention and, with it, votes. Perhaps he really does have actual policies swirling around under that plastic bag he calls hair. On some level, we have to hope this is all true. We have to hope he succeeds.
I worry, though.
I worry that he’ll continue the drone wars, that he’ll endanger lives around the world.
I worry that we made the wrong choice.
