Reposted from http://ift.tt/2rnF0cE.

Conflict and dissonance.

Hillary in her concession speech, and President Obama in his remarks, made the case for calm, for an orderly transition. The peaceful transfer of power is a cherished hallmark of our democracy. We must honor it. [Redacted] deserves a chance to succeed, because if he succeeds we all succeed. We must keep an open mind, be prepared to offer our support, because we’re all in this together.

On the other side, protestors around the country and the world say: fuck that. By his own words and actions he has proven he has no respect for the nation, its institutions, or its citizens (I’m not counting the minority of aggrieved and poorly-informed voters he conned into voting for him; his use for them is mostly over). He doesn’t respect our country’s ideals in any meaningful sense and is therefore incapable of governing in a way that honors those ideals. He’s a disaster in slow motion. Well-intentioned citizens are no more obligated to help him than they would be to help a tornado bearing down on a schoolyard.

Both framings are true. But there comes a time when you have to choose.

What happens next? Again, there’s dissonance. Kevin Drum, Mr. Calm and Reasoned, says there will be limits to the harm he can do. He outlines a mostly familiar-looking, if awful, scenario in Things We Can Count On In the Next Two Years. A scarier and distinctly unfamiliar scenario is outlined by Leah McElrath, the person whose explanation first made me see how closely [redacted]’s public statements line up with those of sexual abusers, in What’s coming under a [redacted] administration.

Kevin pushes back against some of the scarier predictions; see The United States Is Not About to Spiral Into Fascism and Tyranny (the original title of which is embedded in the URL, “ok-fine-im-going-say-it-settle-down”). And a side of me wants to trust him. But I feel a chill when he gets to this part:

The reason [redacted] is uniquely bad is mostly symbolic: he’s willfully ignorant; he’s vindictive; he’s a demagogue willing to appeal loudly and proudly to racial animus; and he has the attention span of a small child.

The thing is, I don’t think that’s “mostly symbolic”. I think that’s the heart of the matter. That’s exactly what makes the situation so scary.

I’d like to think that my experience living through the Reagan and Bush II transitions has prepared me in some sense. I have some idea what it will look like, what vulnerabilities they’ll try to exploit. It will mostly be the group who allied themselves with him during the campaign who actually run things; Pence, and under him people like Christie and Giuliani and Gingrich; I’m guessing their boss will mostly limit himself to whining and tweeting. It promises to be a true kakocracy, a word I didn’t know until recently.

It’s going to suck. All the current domestic and world problems will persist, joined by new problems arising from greed, incompetence, ignorance, and a crushing lack of empathy at the top of the federal bureaucracy. Policy positions and judicial appointments presumably will reflect Pence’s hard-right fundamentalist/Tea Party ideology; those hoping [redacted] will exert a moderating influence based on his own lack of ideological commitments are fooling themselves, I think. He’ll be who he is. If there’s anything I’m confident of it’s that.

So. Preparing myself as best I can. Good information sources will be important. Organizing with others will be important. Institutions that haven’t been co-opted will be important. Friends and loved ones will be important.

Reposted from http://ift.tt/2eMFH4v.