Ch-ch-ch-changes

There were a number of pundits, armchair and otherwise, immediately after the election talking about "change". The election, apparently, was not about the Republican party's drift further and further towards the right, it was not about their sliding into bed with ultra-conservative "christians" who care more about a candidate's stance on abortion and homosexuality than fiscal policy. It was not about the implicit racism towards Barack Obama over the last 8 years. It was not about the implicit sexism towards Hillary Clinton in this election.

Nope, it was about change.

Here's the tricky part about claiming that - the word "change" in and of itself, has very little meaning. The Affordable Care Act was a massive change for this country, but apparently THAT'S not the change they were looking for. Allowing the LGBTQ communities to be more open without fear of harrasment was a change, too, but apparently that's not the "right" sort of change, either.

But the election was about change.

OK, so maybe corruption was the thing that needed changing. The problem with that is, the more corrupt candidate won. And has refused to divest himself of the very things that allow for greater and greater corruption.

Hmmm, guess corruption wasn't the issue after all. Must be another change they were looking for...

Well, here are some of the changes that have come about in the first 10 days of the new administration:

• The EPA was told to freeze grant money.
• And then told not to talk to anyone
• Same with the National Park Service
• The press were removed from the West Wing. Oh, except for the ones that Trump likes.
• The term "alternate facts" made it's way into our national lexicon.
• The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was removed from the National Security Council. Because, you know, why would you want the leaders of our military to be aware of Nation Security issues. 
• The presidential chief strategist, on the other hand, an admitted White Supremicist (except he calls it the alt-right, as if it's some kind of trendy '90s music genre. "Yeah, I'm not into alt-country, but man, that alt-right") was added to the NSC. 
• The president refused daily intelligence briefings. To be fair, this happened prior to the inauguration, but I'll throw it in here, too, because: No. Other. President. Has. Done. This.

And then there's the whole executive order thing. To be honest, I don't have the issue with executive orders that some do. I think it's like a lot of things; the thing in and of itself is neither bad nor good, but it can be used to either harm or help.

Mr. Trump appears determined to harm. It's hard to say which executive orders have gotten the most attention, because each new one has a new action. But, the very first one pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act, under which millions of Americans gained health insurance, and others gained the flexibility to not depend on employer provided health care.

From there we had The Wall. Supposedly Mexico will wind up paying for it, though when the order was signed, HOW Mexico would pay for it was undefined. Since then, Mr. Trump has said that American taxpayers will initially pay for it, but he will eventually impose a 20% import tax on Mexican goods to recover the cost. There are many problems with that notion (beyond that obvious one that the Mexican government says they will NOT pay for the wall). First is that import taxes tend to do a couple of things: cause the producer to raise their prices to offset the tax, or cause fewer imports. In the case of the former, those higher prices will be passed on to the (American) consumers, in the latter, American consumers will have fewer options (think, avocados, strawberries in January, and various other Mexican exports we've gotten used to). The second issue is that, even if the 20% import tax did, indeed, wind up allowing us to recover the cost, there was no mention of a tax rebate for American taxpayers. So, yeah, we're still out what we, as individuals, paid for it.

And then we have the "immigration" ban. If you haven't read the details, go do so, but the gist of it is Trump decreed that immigrants from certain countries were not allowed in the United States any more. Supposedly, this will make us safer from terrorism. The only problem is, it affected ALL immigrants, including those that had already been allowed in this country, but happened to be overseas at the time the edict was signed. Oh, and also, the countries that were banned? Well, turns out, no one from those countries has killed any Americans. There are some countries, like Saudi Arabia, who do have citizens who have killed Americans, but they were not included. Oddly enough, the countries that do have incidence of terrorism AND were left off the list all have ties to the Trump business empire. Oh, and just by the way, the Geneva Convention requires signatories to take in refugees. But, you know, we don't need to worry about that.

So, yeah, lots of changes. We've lost a hell of a lot of scientific knowledge, paved the way for people to lose their insurance, removed media access to our government, removed our military from discussions of national security, disparaged the notion of truth, ignored the Geneva convention...

And it's only been a week.

I don't know if these were the changes that Trump's voters wanted. I can't imagine that they actually want to lose their insurance, if they are indeed covered under the ACA. I can't imagine that they are willing to see tax monies used for a wall, and I feel fairly certain they don't actually want to either pay higher prices for Mexican imports, or lose buying options. And, I hope, I HOPE, that they don't actually want refugees to remain in war zones. I hope that they don't actually want to deport US residents, who have already gone through the vetting process, simply because they had the misfortune to leave the country. And I hope that they do actually want to allow Iraqis who translated for the US Army to come to this country.

So, yeah, I think, and believe, and hope, that the changes we've seen this week are not the ones that supposedly drove the election.

But in that case, what were the changes?

Well, honestly, a lot of the changes seemed to be to go back to a different time.

Repeatedly, when news outlets interviewed voters in the Rust Belt, or in coal country, they talked about jobs. But they were not necessarily interested in new jobs. They wanted the coal jobs back. The steel jobs back. That's the change they wanted: change us back to a time when those jobs were still here.

I don't know how to argue with that. Many of those jobs simply are not coming back, and not because liberals don't want them to. Coal is a finite resource - it will eventually run out. In West Virginia, they've already gone from digging for coal to lopping off the tops of mountains to get at the coal - it's being mined out. Even without concerns about global warming, coal's time is ending.

I admit, this is very easy for me to wax poetic about, sitting in my nice middle class home in my nice upper middle class neighborhood, with my white collar job, and my well educated family. I don't really know what it's like to see the only job you've ever held, the only job you've ever trained for, become obsolete. Even with the tech outsourcing in past years, there has always been a need for people "on the spot", and I've been lucky enough to be one of those.

But at some point, logic has to take hold. I cannot possibly be the only person who understands that the coal jobs are going to continue to decrease. The steel jobs are going to continue to decrease. The manufacturing jobs are probably going to continue to decrease. And, honestly, I don't think that the "jobs-voters" really care - they just want jobs.

So, why was the refrain so consistent? Bring back "those" jobs? Well, I think for a number of reasons. Mainly, though, because, every time someone says, "Those jobs are gone," someone else says, "No they're not!!!" Whether it's a mine owner or a politician, every time they're told that their lives will be better if only "those" jobs come back, they believe it. And who wouldn't?

But here's the thing. In trying to vote in that change, which is impossible, they voted for a dangerous, dangerous man. They voted for a man who's ego is so fragile that he can't cope with the notion of his inauguration not being the largest ever. Who claims standing ovations when he forgot to tell the audience to sit. Who lies, repeatedly and blatantly. Who is divisive. Who is unkind. Who wants absolute power, and who is already corrupt. Who is already doing those things that many of his supporters said were just talk, or jokes, or would change (that word again!) once he took office.

And, unfortunately, they need to own this. But they are not the only ones who do. Every person who downplayed the reports of ties to Russia, of corrupt business dealings, of assaults on women, of discrimination, and of ethical conflicts, has to own this too. Because those people made it easy to ignore all of those issues, and focus on the nebulous and undefined "change".

Now is the time. We are careening down a slope that we really don't want to be on. If this is not what you wanted, not what you expected, if you are horrified at what's happening in this country, now is the time to speak out. I don't care who you voted for, this is not what we need right now.

Because if we're not careful, this country is going to change more than any of us want.