the votes are in.

I had the privilege of sitting in a room of about a dozen men and a few of their wives a couple weeks ago.  They were all white, with the exception of maybe two who were maybe Hispanic.  Maybe.  They were all parents, as it was a parenting group.  They were all kind of sort of educated.  High school, perhaps a tech degree and a few had gone to college.  They were mostly union guys, longshore men, factory people, blue collar workers.  All of them who voted in the last presidential election voted for Obama.

And now they are out of a job.  All of them.  Over the past three years, every single one of them had lost their job.  And they blame it on Obama.  So, this election they were all voting and they were all voting Republican.

They're scared.  And frustrated.  And downright angry.  And feeling hopeless.  And less manly than they used to feel now that bacon isn't being brought home so much any more.  But mostly scared.

They are living off the dole, as they call it up there in that neighborhood.  Not welfare.  God no.  But unemployment and special health care and food drive donations and school uniform vouchers and free bus tokens and utility payouts from the local community center and some of them moved the family in with grandmom and and and.

I'm guessing there are lots of these guys all over the place.
The red maps on CNN this morning backs up that guess.
Not all those red votes came from rich people.  Or white people.  Or Christians.  Or (insert Republican stereotype here).

People are scared.  People are scared and hungry and either already or verging on homeless and jobless.  Real people.  People like our dads and brothers and sons.  And mothers and sisters and daughters.  People who had hope for a better life after the last election and were let down.  So, they voted the other way yesterday.

Republicans in office aren't necessarily going to lower taxes or bring back jobs.  Especially jobs for Joe Sixpack or whatever the buzzname was a few years ago.  Factory jobs and manufacturing jobs have been long gone.  Those that remained after Obama was in office were flukes.  Throwbacks.  Dying breeds.  People have been replaced by computers and robots.  Jobs like those available to most undereducated Americans have sort of faded into oblivion in our high-tech lifetime.
Customer relations and data logging and resourcing and manufacturing jobs are overseas now.  Because people overseas accept less pay and lower benefits that we do here.  That's big business for you.  Not caring about the little guy.  Just about the dollars that line the top brass' pockets.  But this isn't new.  I remember twenty years ago my grandmother refusing to buy things that weren't Made in America.  She didn't buy much for quite some time.  She used to buy my clothes out of catalogs, and before I was allowed to try them on, she checked the label.   Lots got sent back.  A lot a lot.  It would take my grandad hours at the hardware store to find something he needed that was made here.  And we lived in a Tool and Die town.  But we couldn't buy anything locally  made at local businesses.  Man, did that make him mad.

Obama and his merry band of Democrats didn't take away jobs.  Greed did.  Need did.  Supply and demand.  Dollars and cents.  Progress.  Regress.  The changing of the times more so than the changing of the guards.

Many of the programs supplied by "the dole", programs keeping people alive and fed and clothed and sheltered are run by grants put out through Democratic initiative.  Your tax dollars at work.  Programs that will likely be closed once the current payouts are dry.

When I talk of these things to some of my friends, some of my family, they assume that the food and the money and the clothes and the whatever is going to drug addicts and lazy people.  No.  It's going to people who are just like us.  Normal people who lived normal lives until one day, they just weren't anymore.  People laid off and downsized and forced to retire without a retirement plan.  There isn't much at all going to drug addicts and lazy people these days.  That's why you see them roaming around.  And on the evening news.  And in the headlines.  Too many normal people are in need of what little there is going around.
Many of the people who accept the dole think that the gifts are coming from the church or the school district or the transportation company or the goodness of other people's hearts.  No.  The church is crumbling, the schools are in disarray, SEPTA is a g.d. mess, and people's hearts can't afford to be that good so much anymore.

It's scary.

No matter what your political affiliation.

Anger and fear and frustration are not cause for tantrums or tears or giving up or giving in.  Not in these times, not in any times.  It's not a time to whine or complain or bitch over the back fence.  It's not a time to yell or scream or kick the dog or slap the wife or spank the kids.  Nor to get drunk or max out the credit card or crawl under the blanket for a year.

Negative feelings are a cue that your body gives you that it is time to act now to change your situation.  To fight or flight, but to never freeze.  Nor freak.
It's a gift.  One that few people know what to do with.  Like a holiday sweater or a subscription to Popular Science.

If you are happy with yesterday's election results, get out there and do something to be sure that the initiatives and platforms that won you over are put into action.  Don't expect the politicians to do it for you.  Don't expect them to stay true to their word.  We've been let down before and it will happen again. 
If you are not happy with yesterday's results, get out there and do something to be sure that the initiatives and platforms that you stand for which will not likely be addressed by the elected officials are put into action.  Don't expect anyone else to do it for you.  Don't expect the officials to stay true to their word, you can make the difference.  Swing their stance.  Be heard.

You are current administration.  Not them.  They are the puppets, you hold the strings.  Keep true to yourself and true to your beliefs and work hard for others to work hard for you.  Be powerful.  Be strong.  "Be the change you wish to see in the world" (Gandhi wrote that.  Not me).
Do you want a greener America?  Start in your house, in your yard.  Do you want a job?  Lay down your pride and start with something small.  McDonald's writes out paychecks.  Surprise!  More tolerance, more acceptance?  Start practicing it yourself.  Love your neighbors no matter who they are, what color their faces are, which way they vote, where they pray, who they go to bed with.

Dog people, love thine fellow cat people.  Cat people, dogs are okay too.  Normal pet people, pull together to fight against people who are into weird pets.  Like monkeys and exotic spiders.  Ick.
 Most of us are somewhere left or somewhere right of the middle, very few of us are way way out there.  We have more in common than we care to admit.  Let's use this time when we all have a voice to figure out how we can pull through this together.

Use your fear and hope and courage and apprehension and victories and defeats to make the world a little bit brighter, to make us live a little bit tighter.