Think Before you Join the Blame-Game

My mother is my editor. Or at least she was, back when the only stories I made were meant to be read as works of fiction. One of her favorite things to tell me, over and over again, as she delved into and tore apart any scene which was blatantly based on an interaction with her, was that I should never write when I’m angry. “Anger makes you easy to dismiss”, according to her. In a way, I understand her point. When you are too angry, you don’t listen. If you don’t listen, how can you be certain that you know what you’re talking about? When you’re too angry, people see you as too emotional to think rationally.

I wanted to hold off on addressing the results of the 2016 election in a blog post, because oh, Lord, am I angry. I’m angry that there are reports of people writing-in the name of a dead gorilla that the world emotionally masturbated over for 6 months. I’m angry that liberals who were shown that Hillary was not enough competition for Donald, when compared to Bernie, decided to make her the Democratic nominee anyway. I’m angry that Hillary won the popular vote substantially, but Donald was still elected. I’m angry that when I write about the results of the election and the campaigns that led up to it, I’m not writing a dystopian novel, I’m writing the reality of our country. More than all of that, I’m angry that everyone is trying to tell each other that there is any one group of people to blame for the uncertainty of our individual futures and the future of the nation.

But I’m not alone; a lot of people have been acting and speaking out of anger, as evident by protests and rallies held across the US since Tuesday. People are blaming those who didn’t vote, or those who voted third party or write-in. People are blaming the Democratic Party and the left for making Hillary the nominee, not Bernie. People are blaming Trump, Trump supporters, Millennials, Baby Boomers, the media, the system, corporations, anyone and everything they can, but we’re all assuming that there IS any one source of blame that we can scapegoat.

Why?

Trump played his part in accordance to the system which worked against him in parts and for him in others. So did Republicans. So did Democrats. So did everyone in this country. We all went with the system while it worked for us, and by and large, most of us were fine with ignoring certain leaks in the boat until we couldn’t anymore. When the issues were too big to ignore, some people took one route towards changing the system, and others took another, but none of us really made any headway in that as of yet. If you need a scapegoat, we’re all to blame.

As such, we’re all responsible for working together to move past this “who done it” phase and accept that this is our reality. It’s okay to be angry, but people don’t always listen to angry. Screaming at each other over whose “fault” the election is solves nothing. We know things are broken, but does it really matter who did it? Or is it more important that we work together and find a way to fix it? You’ll most likely see a large number of people telling each other who failed who over the next few months. But keep an eye out for anyone who has an idea about where to go from here, because the blame-casters don’t seem to have a plan after they decide who to crucify.