What fresh hell is this

Had lunch today with the work group and got into a conversation about Trump and the man sitting next to me said he understands that I am emotional about how horrible he is, and then he patted my arm in a consoling way.  He meant well, but I was like, Hey, I'm not being emotional, this guy is scary. He's dangerous and unstable. He's tweeting now about starting an arms race again, echoing what Putin said hours earlier. I'm not sure that he's ever had an original idea that he executed. I mean, I believe that he has an actual personality disorder, and not one of the easily treatable ones, but more like a classic narcissist who only sees himself reflected in the world around him, and sees people and situations as tools to improve or threaten his situation. The other part that worries me greatly is that he seems easy to please and easy to anger, and therefore, easy for intelligent people to manipulate. Tell him he's smart and he loves you. Tell him he's an idiot and he says you're an idiot and then exacts whatever revenge he can muster. That ability to take revenge will grow stronger when he's the president. He will be harder to stop.

The other thing that worries me is that I don't understand why the electoral college can't vote against him. What's the vote from the electoral college for if not to stop an unfit candidate from taking office? What would qualify as unfit? Isn't having never held office, having a demonstrable track record of inciting anger and violence, losing the popular vote by nearly three million votes, possibly being involved in  tampering with the election, calling for the assassination of your opponent, not releasing your tax records to show  you have no conflicts of interest, being sued by thousands of people, declaring bankruptcy multiple times, illustrating on a daily basis that you can't control your temper, bragging about being a sexual predator, refusing to stay in the White House or to hold press conferences, disavowing the threat of climate change, wanting to roll back laws that keep businesses and banks from bad practices, running on a platform of lies, and requesting publicly that another government interfere with the election enough to give the electoral people pause? What would disqualify a person then?

 I wish there were one or two things I liked about him, but there are none. I worry that he's going to strip people of their rights, not just women, but LGBT individuals who are not a threat in any way to anyone, and Muslims who simply practice a different religion and people of color other than white who are struggling too. We pay so much attention now to income disparity as it relates to white people, but black people struggle as much and more. Racism is still a problem, and so is sexism. I can't even be articulate about these issues, because I thought we figured this out already. I thought we understood that it's not good for the country if one or two percent of the population makes most of the money, if schools aren't properly funded, if basic human rights aren't protected, if freedom to practice religion is stripped, if gay people are seen as flawed, if all immigrants are labeled as terrorists, rapists, and drug pushers. It's really like time travel--like the country wants to get into a time machine and go back to the 1950s when white people were the majority of income earners, women stayed at home to have babies and didn't work, and black people feared lynching.

Are there no smart people out there who can find a way to fight this? I feel like the people who could make a difference have been sucked up into a vacuum and we're not hearing from them. I fear that this way of conducting politics--via lies and tweets and total spin--is becoming normalized. Is that what Americans want? A president who flies by the seat of his pants and blurts out bullshit in 140 characters on a regular basis, alarming other countries and making claims he can't back up, and feeding this feeling of distrust and paranoia on all sides?

Where are the feminists? Why isn't anyone talking about the rampant sexism that allows for a total charlatan to beat a candidate whose only real handicap is that she's a woman?  I truly believe that if any other male opponent had run against Trump, that man would have won. By virtue of having  a penis. Because most of us, men and women alike, still believe that men know better, can govern better, have greater sense, are more inherently competent than a woman is. It's not true, and I can't imagine a male who exemplifies this more clearly that DT.

After lunch, the man who said he understood that I was emotional (a very nice person, I like him), said, I don't like him either, you know. I voted for Clinton. I said, Oh, okay, good. Glad to hear it.