A lot of people who used to like me don’t like me anymore because I didn’t vote for Trump, and I didn’t pretend he was a good candidate or a good person, and I refused to make excuses for his behavior, as “conservatives” are apparently supposed to do now. I just couldn’t do it. Nonetheless, I couldn’t vote for Grandma Hillary either, so I was pleasantly surprised that she lost. Whew!
As Election Day 2016 approached, I had been mentally preparing myself to endure at least four more years of listening to that woman, after the previous quarter-century of listening to that woman. So the outcome was a relief, despite my numerous misgivings about the winner. It was only the second-worst thing that could’ve happened, and I accepted it instantly. And since the election, I’ve tried to look on the bright side of what has been, by any measure, an unusual presidency.
None of my qualms about Trump have gone away since he was elected, and he’s added several new ones. But whenever I get bummed out, I just take one look at this and remember that it could’ve been worse:
I questioned her health at the time, and I was yelled at by the same people who are now questioning Trump’s health. Funny how that works.
Not everyone has been so sanguine about Election 2016, of course. To some people, it still isn’t over. We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of Hillary Clinton not being sworn in as president of the United States, and a few diehards are still coming to terms with it. They’re still grieving, and they’re stuck in the “Bargaining” phase of the Kubler-Ross model. They’re still trying to make the world fit within their outdated view of it, and their mental contortions can be painfully amusing.
For example, just look at the sort of nonsense they’re publishing these days at The Thing That Used to Be Newsweek:
Oh. Okay.
Let’s take a look at this intriguing theory, courtesy of Newsweek’s Maya Rajamani:
Lawrence Lessig, the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, penned an essay for Medium in October outlining a series of hypothetical scenarios that could take place should the ongoing probe find that the Trump campaign actually conspired with Russia to influence the results of the election.
If Trump did conspire with Russia, the president “should resign, or, if he doesn’t, he should be impeached,” Lessig wrote in his essay. Vice President Mike Pence would also have to either resign or get impeached, which would make Speaker Paul Ryan the president of the United States, Lessig wrote at the time.
See? It’s simple: If there’s proof that Trump is a Putin puppet, and if he then resigns or is impeached, and if Pence does the same, and if President Paul Ryan appoints Hillary Clinton as his vice president and then steps down so she can have the job she thinks is her birthright… it could definitely happen!
Or how about this scenario: Hillary calls up her old friend Doc Brown, and she jumps into his flying DeLorean and goes back to April 2015, and she shows her younger self a map of Wisconsin and says, “You’d better talk to these people, or you’ll get clobbered by the one guy you want the Republicans to nominate. Yes, him. Seriously. You will lose to him.”
Or maybe she could travel to an alternate universe where people actually like her. Or somebody could create a Black Mirror virtual reality where she’s Queen of the Universe and everybody has to do what she wants. Or some other sci-fi premise.
Let me address this to my dear friends on the left, with very little malice and almost no scorn: You need to get over this now. It’s over. It’s been a year. A year! You #resisted, and nothing changed. You can’t have what you wanted. He’s not going away. Now it’s time to pull yourselves together.
Or, y’know, don’t. If you’re really that set on putting Hillary in the Oval Office, if you really want to prove that she was robbed, nominate her again in 2020. Set up a rematch. These days, I need all the laughs I can get.
Update: This might explain why Newsweek is publishing clickbait that seems designed to make you think they’ve lost their minds. It’s their new business model!
Asked a Newsweek insider about that Trump/erectile dysfunction story
This is brutal pic.twitter.com/iHFSWuMz4W
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) January 18, 2018
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