The Witness Chronicles, 11/7/24

The bros kick ass, our ass

Photo by Rhii Photography on Unsplash

The Triumph of Bro Culture

And it is uglier than we can imagine

As they say, hindsight is 20/20, but in hindsight this election was always about keeping women out of power. We have an incoming President who is a very public misogynist and an incoming Vice President who clearly believes women mainly exist to stay home and have babies.

And they won with that message. In the last hours of the election Vance called Kamala Harris trash multiple times, and that pretty much sums up how this is going to go. It will be interesting to see the data behind who voted, particularly among women.

There’s no point in a blame game now. What’s done is done. Kamala’s slogan was We Won’t Go Back and it is more relevant than ever, but now the way forward is much more challenging and that challenge is to the women of this country and those who support them.

Bro culture at its worst is borderline violent, childish, bullying, and willfully ignorant. But the bros who helped this happen were something else. Highly successful billionaires, mostly from tech, who resented having any regulation for their businesses because, as we know, they know better for the country. Smart asses.

As I write this the finance bros are having a party with the Dow up 1400 pts. This makes little sense given that even Goldman Sachs predicted that Trump’s tariff policies would destroy the economy. But those finance bros also helped him get elected.

Given that it is nearly 2025, the fact that the belief in the supremacy of men is still strong is sad and terrifying. Trump and his campaign made a big bet that bro culture was their path, probably because it is where they are comfortable, and it worked.

Women need to find a way to unite and that path is not clear. I don’t have any mansplanation for how that could work. For Trump to win so clearly, a lot of women had to vote for him. I’d like to hear their justification for making that choice in the privacy of the ballot box. But it’s done.

It is possible that, as Trump has stated more than once, you will not have to vote anymore. Actually you may not have the option anymore. When dictatorships pretend to have elections they are a sham and everyone knows it. Vladimir Putin, our new ally, won by a reported 97%, a ridiculous exaggeration but one that served his needs.

Bro culture supported a man who went to great lengths to avoid serving his country in the military, a draft dodger who went on to mock soldiers for their sacrifice. Bro culture supported a convicted felon who lost multiple lawsuits over his abuse of women. And bro culture turned on everyone who is not a bro, dividing the country in ways that will never be undone.

Thanks guys.

It’s too soon to see the future clearly. We know the many threats and extensive plans they can now enact and it is questionable whether the rest of us can do anything about it, especially if Trump continues his gospel of fear, hate, and vengeance, things bro culture thinks represent strength.

We’ve elected a puppet but not a harmless puppet, more like one from a horror film. Exaggeration? Not if you’ve listened to his words over the past nine years. The man is filled with rage at those who won’t worship him. And a man who is unlikely to serve out his term, given his age, signs of mental decline, and who is in terrible physical shape.

And that means President Vance, which scares the hell out of me. This is a well educated man who openly declares his disdain for women, over and over again. Trump tried to disavow the autocratic Project 2025 but Vance has been all in and Trump no longer needs to pretend he knows nothing about it.

I see Trump as a puppet because there is a huge apparatus behind that Project and its implementation. I think the most frustrating thing about this election is how thorough the takeover has been and how it is obvious the plan has been going on for years, starting with 2016, then packing the Supreme Court with conservative right wingers, then that Court doing the unthinkable and declaring that the President was above the law.

The only citizen above the law. For now.

They ruled that Trump can do anything as President and pay no price and now he will become President. It really is the ultimate bro victory, the ability to act any way you want and face no consequences. But there are consequences they cannot avoid.

They have pretended that the single biggest challenge facing humanity is a hoax. Elon Musk, number one bro, has plans to move us to Mars after we have destroyed our planet. Not all of us mind you, just the people he chooses. I sincerely hope he goes because the chances of surviving on the red planet are near zero.

But that’s just a distraction and an excuse to ignore climate change, even as it kills and ruins the lives of many Americans and people all over the planet. Now it will continue unchecked. The real plan is a two tiered society, a rich entitled class and the worker bees. Those worker bees just elected their king bee.

The roots of this are in a phrase I’ve used often in writing about this, willful ignorance. When you have generations who no longer read because they have an endless source of mindless distraction in their pockets, those generations will lose resourcefulness and become easily manipulated. And that is what happened.

It’s hard right now to know what to do next. Knee jerk reactions will backfire and lead to a police state. A friend in a panic this morning said there would be protests and all I could think was against what? They won an election that we took great pains to ensure would be legitimate. That’s the reality.

My guess is that there will be a quiet and deep backlash as more people see what comes next. Whether it is too late and that backlash will be meaningless is a distinct possibility. And right now a lot of us are wondering what exactly we can do and it’s not clear at all.

But the bros just want to have fun and we just gave them permission.

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