What I will be yelling about at brunch this weekend

The Morning Bun: Quick blurbs with a fresh take on our Yuppie lives that we would probably share over mimosas…if it were not a weekday.

Donald Trump won. In no particular order, if you are joining me at #brunch this weekend, you will definitely hear that:

1. Rural vs. Urban is still a thing. Not to the surprise of anyone in particular, we saw Red in rural areas, and Blue in urban areas on the Electoral College maps last night. There is a clear divide between these two spheres of our nation. What most people forget is that this divide has always existed. Remember what Abraham Lincoln abolished? There are completely different values (both fiscally and socially) between the contrasting cultures. What we fail to do (and always have) is bridge the gap. Contrary to popular belief, we’re not the only nation with large sects of rural areas. Canada has a huge rural population, yet makes it work. We need to make it work. We need to figure out a way to understand the concerns of rural communities (also, this is coming from an admittedly elitist Yuppie, so yes, this is important). That, or we heed the advice of the Greeks and go with City-states (hey Monaco!)
2. Electoral College is flawed. It’s common knowledge that the Electoral College is an unjust, wildly outdated system placing extra emphasis on certain votes over others. The dominating victories for the Democrats on the coasts (leading to a Popular vote victory for HRC) are negligible — mind-bowing. The power belongs to swing state voters, who still are majority white males. Winning an election should be about winning more votes, not winning more states with a weird number of “points”, with a weird number of red/white squares, and a weird threshold of 270. It’s a horrible system.
3. My people are discounted. As I mentioned in my post about Brexit, I truly believe it’s unfair to credit an 85 year old vote to the same degree as a 25 year old vote. Decisions made by Presidents can affect the next 50 years of folks’ lives. It blows my mind how these systems are set up entirely against the young. Yes, if only Millennials voted, it would have been a landslide, but the point is this: young voters, unrepresented in Congress, need a say. Oh and yes, it would be fantastic to have a Millennial in office yesterday. Ten years from now, we’re going to look back and say “what were we thinking?” Let’s see if we can up that ante to five years. It’s time over 1/3 of America’s population has a seat at the table.
4. 3rd Party votes make me cringe. Let me be clear: I also agree there should be more than two parties. Let me also be clear: I disagree completely with the protest vote to make that happen. It is the lazy way of creating change to build a 3rd party. As Craig Mazin brilliantly notes, it takes years to build a new viable political party. Folks passionate about this need to get involved at the grassroots level. If Gary Johnson and Jill Stein became President, it would be nearly impossible for them to pass any bill through a D/R Congress.
5. Media is to blame. Look we can say Trump’s supporters are stupid, racist, misogynistic and for a few of them, it may be true, but the fact remains they are getting their facts from the wrong places. In the new decentralized media ecosystem, it’s absurdly easy to read & believe anything you hear. Even Obama said on Bill Maher, “I wouldn’t vote for me if I was watching Fox News either.” Yes, these folks are lazy for not being proactive enough to learn that the economy is doing better, etc, etc, but it’s ashamed how there is no checks/balances for the media at large. If we filtered every radio talk show host with a facts only mode, the vote would have turned out much differently.
6. Technology is still the problem. What really, really, really scares me right now is the timing of this so-called right-wing coup. This massive movement is happening 10–15 years before automation displaces millions of these same right-wing voters. Right now, the blame is unjustly placed on immigrants. In reality, technology is the problem and will continue to be the culprit. When truck drivers, fast-food workers, and even policeman begin to lose their jobs to robots, we are doomed unless we find radical solutions (new industries, basic income, etc). Even more worrisome is how little coverage this topic gets in the media. It’s arguably the defining issue of our lifetimes, and the negative effects of losing control of technology can only be seen in HBO programming.
7. California is still California. I am grateful everyday for trekking West to California, and even more grateful for the progressive agenda passed on Tuesday night for this amazing state (specifically, WEED). With that said, it’s a massive bubble. My yuppie, nouveau, Millennial life in San Francisco could not be further from the issues of many Trump supporters. I used to (okay, I still do) love my bougie, urban life in a beautiful, progressive city, but we have to start doing a better job of closing the gap, or at least taking the time to break the bubble. We are fellow Americans.
8. Involvement is necessary. It’s still difficult for me to comprehend what just happened, but what I can comprehend is that sitting on the sidelines posting Facebook statuses & absurd Snapchats all day long is not the best way to create meaningful changes. Now, more than ever, we need to protect what we believe in and push for all of the right changes in all of the right places. So what should I do? Better yet, what should we do? Is it creating a massive organization? Is it volunteering more often? Is it fleeing to Canada (kidding)? Is it a Brunch exchange program where we always invite a rural Millennial to our boozy brunch (not even kidding)? I’m going to start brainstorming (please reach out to me with yours) because I. just. can’t. do. this. anymore.