"This is not who we are?"

[ColoradoHoosier]

I guess we can finally put to rest, most likely for the foreseeable future, that frequently heard refrain... "This is not who we are".
Turns out this is exactly who 'we' are, at least according to the recent election results.
I never for a moment, even after 2016 and Jan 6th, believed this is who 'we' were, but I was wrong.
Stunningly, embarrassingly wrong.
I just didn't grasp the level of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and - most disturbingly, as it feeds the others - the intellectual lethargy and gullibility that permeates our society.
But I do now. There's no longer any doubt about who 'we' are.
So... time for a reset. Time to re-calibrate and realign my assumptions and expectations, and get back at it, as countless others have done throughout history, whenever theocratic, authoritarian, or fascist movements take hold.
Because ultimately, no matter what their initial success, all those movements failed.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. This is *always* who we've been.

[Solly Mack]

3. Yes. Our history proves that.

[LisaL]

2. Yep, this is exactly what we are.

Based on this election.

[Ocelot II]

4. We were bamboozled by the incessant claims of American exceptionalism.

When we older folks were kids in the '50s and '60s we were taught about Manifest Destiny, the notion that as white European settlers moved westward they were entitled to take the Natives' land for their own. We heard about the "savages" who tried to fight off the nice white settlers who just wanted the land they believed was rightfully theirs. Over and over we've heard politicians tell us that this is the best, strongest, most free, etc. country in the world, and we've always tended to believe it. But it isn't. We are just people, not special, no better than the people of any other country - and, as it turns out, just as susceptible to the lies of a demagogue as were the citizens of Germany in the 1930s. And we conveniently forget that we became a great and prosperous nation in large part because our white European ancestors stole the labor of captured and enslaved people from Africa and stole the land of the people who already lived here.

And so, believing as an article of faith that ours is an exceptional nation full of good, honorable and noble people, we were shocked to our souls when we realized that half of our fellow citizens had been suckered into believing Trump's lies and persuaded that he would "fix" everything for them. And by fixing he meant, among other things, getting rid of the immigrants who were stealing and raping and murdering and getting government welfare. He meant making sure women didn't have agency over their own reproductive choices. He meant keeping trans people from playing on sports teams or using the "wrong" bathroom. He identified enough groups of Untermenschen, to use the Nazis' term, to give the disgruntled and bigoted and angry folks among us plenty of other people to feel superior to.

And this election, in which about half of the voters told us that they approve of how Trump others people, shows us once and for all that we are not a special nation. We, as a nation, are no less hateful and degraded and stupid than the people of any other nation. I don't want to hear any more bullshit about American exceptionalism. I don't want to hear one more politician announce that "This is not what we are." Because it's exactly what we are.

[travelingthrulife]

6. Remember the 'melting pot' theory where we all come together from

all over the world into this glorious country and live in harmony. That was all over my history textbook.They simply did not realize that meant non-white people too

[Ocelot II]

7. I do remember. But all the melting was presumably of the various shades of white.

The Germans and the Italians and the Irish and the Swedes would all melt together into a nice vanilla pudding. Just don't throw any of those chocolate bits in there.

[PCIntern]

5. I agree, and thank you for posting this...

I was not able to construct a cogent, reflective post like this so I just didn’t.

The “beauty” however, of this storyline, is that they’re gonna get badly bitten but as usual, we, the other side, will be effectively blamed for the problem(s). We will protest their ignorance, their racism, their greed, but it won’t matter one whit. The trajectory for this nation has been set.

K and big R.