America likes to pretend itself to be a ‘shining city upon a hill.’ What the predominately rich white men and their partners don’t want you to notice are all the slums under and surrounding the hill from where the wealth is extracted. The traditional center of power in the USA (White, Wealthy, Heterosexual, Cis-Gendered, Native-Born, “Christian,” in quotes because they sure don’t act like it, Male) loves to talk about ‘Leadership.’ However, one does not need to take but a cursory glance to understand their idea of leadership, which means they set rules that don’t apply to them, which primarily benefit them. If the rules must apply to them, it comes at a dire cost, as American Men are used to being in control and do not take being told ‘no’ well, even if the message isn’t ‘no’ but ‘and.’
American Men just elected a seventy-eight-year-old convicted felon, sexual assaulter, and someone who committed fraud so much they’re legally not allowed to operate charities or sit on boards in the state of NY (and so fled to Florida where they are living in breach of contract). American Men just elected someone who was the principal cause of six bankruptcies, two impeachments, and one assault on the capital. Why? Control. American Men are terrified about losing control because that’s how they view leadership.
American Men clearly don’t give a @#$% about women, as it is American Men who sit on panels dictating what Female Care does and does not look like. As women are in critical need of care, doctors are too afraid to perform the medicine they are trained to do because of the law American Men put in place. Then, in an ultimate act of dismissal, American Men victim-blame, saying that women should have practiced abstinence or some other excuse, absolving themselves of responsibility and, therefore, guilt. If the cause was rape? God has a plan, no reprieve.
Victim-Blaming is a regular tactic by American Men. Immigrants are simultaneously lazy mooches stealing your tax-dollar funded support program resources despite being non-citizens AND incredibly crafty, hard-working entrepreneurs taking your jobs. No businesses are ever blamed for hiring processes, by the way, because that would shift the blame to American Men. Transgender people are blamed for simply existing and are the McCarthy Era equivalent of a Communist despite being a tiny fraction of the population.
While American Men are spewing hate, anger, and fear 24/7 through their media systems, creating dangerous Tribalism conditions, the damage goes far beyond victim-blaming. American Men are placed above everything. Suppose people want to fight for climate-based initiatives. In that case, American Men howl in opposition, claiming to have clean air, water, and soil and not having multi-billion dollar disasters annually, is going to tank quarterly growth reports, which is a cardinal sin—American Men over the environment. Suppose people want to fight for fair wages, against corporate greed (including price gouging), for unions, against monopolies, and for sensible regulation. In that case, American Men say any and all of those things once again interfere with their status quo—American Men over the workers. Suppose people want to abolish the anti-democratic electoral college, vote for ranked-choice voting, have universal health care, improve education, and fix infrastructure. In that case, American Men cry that it will cost too much in taxes when, in many cases, the taxes are cheaper than the premiums, saving people money overall and the tacit admission that having a happy, healthy, educated, mobile populace is disadvantageous to them politically—American Men over the public.
American Men failed us ages ago, and this election was just another reminder. Sexual harassment used to be the norm in workplaces, and there are still those who scoff at the suggestion that it is true or argue that culture wasn’t harmful; they voted. Every inch of progress people who didn’t neatly conform to the center of power have made is constantly under threat, and American Men needing to control every aspect of life for their gain at the expense of everyone else has turned this country into a toxic wasteland where crime does pay, where people have every reason to feel unsafe if they look, speak, or believe differently from the traditional center of power, and where accountability is only for us lessers. The list of things that would have ended the campaign in previous times would take ages to count, but seemingly only emboldened American Men who once again showed they view equality as oppression. The thought of The Shining City being more than JUST on the hill was too much for them. American Men have shown they’re ready to abandon international partners, cozy up to dictators, implement radical policies that will cause generational damage, and hurt themselves as long as they can prevent someone else from shining, too.