Hanukkah Reflections

The truth be told, Hanukkah is a very minor holiday that celebrates an event that was not a big deal involving people who were not so very nice.  However, while I would ordinarily downplay this as an excuse to light beautiful candles, which I love, and to eat fried food, which is yet another pitfall of the holiday season, this year I feel differently.  I remain quite upset about the outcome of the presidential election, where we as a country managed to elect, not by majority vote, a man who is frightening.  He is openly racist, degrades women, people of color, immigrants, disable people, you name it he thinks it is beneath him.  The people who claim that this is not what the take home message from the election is, that it is the decline of working class white Americans and their anger at being abandoned that elected such a man.  I say bullshit.  These things were not deal breakers for them, and that reflects their values.  They are much more willing to accept the fiction that this sort of man would care at all about them, that he would not rob the country blind, which will leave them even worse off, that his cabinet wants to take every little thing they have left, and leave them without healthcare, retirement money, and jobs with a future.  I only hope that we still have the ability to vote when he is done with us, and that he will unite progressives and force them to action in a way that no other man has.