You got what you wanted.

Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, and Nicholas Cage's character in the move Lord of War all said some variety of the following-

“There are two great tragedies in life: one is not getting what you want, and the other is getting it.”

If you're a Trump supporter, you now have what you want. 

First things first- I don't think you're a racist or a Nazi.

You didn't vote for Trump because of the what he's said about Mexicans or black people or women. You know Mexicans, black people, and women, and they know you. You don't grab women by the vagina and you don't think Hillary Clinton really started ISIS.

And I bet you know that if you were around this guy in any other situation, where he wasn't running for president, you would want to punch him in his mouth, because of what he might say to your wife or daughter. Who knows? You probably want to anyway. You don't like the guy. You know he's a piece of shit. That isn't why you voted for him.

Here's why you voted for the guy:

You're hurting.

Your house might have been foreclosed on when you were fucked over by a financial institution. Maybe you took out gigantic loans to spend on a public university, only to realize that the degree society says you need isn't worth anything at all, and now you're completely without the means to pay it back.

Maybe you spent your career getting really good at some kind of manufacturing skill, the kind your company told you would keep you employed and comfortable, which became useless whenever they found somebody in China who can't do it as well as you, but can do it for 1/6 what they pay you. Maybe you work in the oil industry, and now your job is in jeopardy because somebody that lives four thousand miles away from you thinks it's bad for your environment.

Maybe you own a farm, and as you were scratching and scraping and cutting out every excess to figure out how you could make ends meet, you got blindsided by products from a different part of the world that are so cheap you can't possibly hope to compete with them. Maybe you've got a business whose customers are all of these people- when they took the hit, so did you. 

 Your whole life you grew up believing that if you worked hard and played fair you'd be OK, and then suddenly that didn't happen. Your town is still screwed up from when they closed that factory, things are still way too expensive, wages are still too low.

All of this bullshit, for reasons that the people you elected haven't gotten around to explaining yet.

Obama's second term is over, and things haven't gotten much better for you. Maybe you have a third-teir health plan that doesn't do much for you but you have to pay for anyway. Maybe gas is a little cheaper. Whoop de fucking do. It doesn't take a genius to realize that this system doesn't work for you, and that there isn't anything you can do for it.

But then here's this famous guy who nobody likes saying he's going to make your country great again. He says that he's going to put tariffs on car companies that move their factories to Mexico. He says he's going to prevent illegal immigrants from taking jobs. He says he's going to start making trade deals that actually work because deals are the art of a businessman, not a politician. He says that only he can fix it, and when you look at who else there is to choose from, you can't really disagree.

His opponent is somebody who has likely been in politics your entire life. She gets paid stupefying money to speak to the asshole bankers who foreclosed on your brother in law. She openly rigs the primaries so that this other guy doesn't get to run against her. Every time you see this person, you can't help but feel like she and people like her have spent their time in politics doing nothing but swindling you.

Politics being what they are, what's supposed to happen is that her and Your Guy are supposed to talk nicely and debate about meaningless crap, and then after it's all said and done and everyone is properly annoyed and the sun comes up on Wednesday, you'll look and see that nothing will change. But not with this guy. This guy said he was going to jail the person that swindled you.

This guy knows you, and he's said things that no other politician has ever said. And you can't wait to vote for him. Since the day you decided you liked him, it's been an avalanche of people accusing you of being a racist or a sucker or a Nazi. Every time one of your liberal friends posts some dumbass meme about something stupid your guy said, you know they do it with this massive, smug sense of self satisfaction- if they bothered to check, you'd probably be just fine telling them that what matters to you isn't what a candidate says on a tour bus but whether or not you're going to have a job next year. You have mouths to feed and bills to pay, but you're supposed to change your mind about who you vote for because the guy got divorced? Get the fuck out of here.

You march in on voting day, and you cast your vote, and you know that if nothing else you get to throw the finger to the entire crooked system.

You vote for him because he sounds like somebody who wants to help you. You vote for him because he understands you, and is hated by everything that you hate- the media, the banks, the politicians. You vote for him because you remember when it used to work, and it doesn't feel like it's worked in a long time.

And then you win!

And you don't just win the Presidency- the house, the senate, and the Supreme Court will suddenly all be Republican. There is now a perfect alignment for things to change for you. Things will get better!...

...Right?

Well, it wasn't just you who got what you wanted.  While you were voting for this man because you thought he could protect you from financial systems and economic inevitability, some people were voting for this man because they wanted protection from diversity.  There are some people who see the very existence of minorities as a threat, and who would do callous, horrible things- to hurt others, destroy property,  and figuratively and literally destroy lives- who are rejoicing the same way you are now.  I know you're not in a great spot right now.  But there are many people who will be emboldened to do terrible things because of what you've done.

I know that isn't what you want. You don't want to see black people arbitrarily ostracized or see gay kids get beaten up.  You've actually met a couple of Muslim people, and they weren't so bad- I'm sure, at the very least, you'd think it would be a big waste of time and money to round them all out and put them somewhere else.  Besides, you know a lot of those people have dogs. Who's going to take care of them after everyone gets deported?

Here's the truth: regardless of how you feel he's going to do for your financial situation, electing him will hurt people.  That's morally wrong.  I still understand why you did what you did- you felt the need for self preservation, and you thought the minorities and the gays and women could take one for the team- after all, that's what you've been doing.  It's wrong, but you had to do it anyway.

Now, you have to hope. You have to hope that a man with no political experience whatsoever can now effectively hold the most powerful position on the planet, and actually make things better for you. You have to hope that hatred isn't the only thing that comes from this.  

You need results, or else history will remember you as evil, when all you were trying to do was survive.  You need this man to do something for you. You need a response whenever a minority looks you in the face and says "I haven't done anything to you.  How could you do this to me?"

So... What is he going to do? Well you don't know.  You don't know for the same reason none of us know- when it comes to the specifics of his policy, he's either said different things or hasn't said anything at all. But you can still read his platform, presuming you haven't already.

As you're reading, look for specifics. Find out how things are going to get paid for, which agencies will be reviewed, and by whom.

This will take a while- there aren't an insane amount of facts available. There are plenty of accusations, grievances, tautologies. There's plenty of words like “good-paying jobs” and “constitutional liberties” in there. But facts? Reasoning? 

No. Those were for career politicians like Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz and Rick Perry. Losers. What Trump cares about, what you care about, is that you know he isn't Hillary Clinton.

He's going to do something- you just can't quite be sure what, yet. And when he does, it's going to improve your life.  It has to.  It has to be worth the hatred. It's going to re-open factories and increase wages. It's going to make you feel safe and improve the quality of your kids lives. It's going to halt global warming, and decrease poverty.

Or it isn't. Maybe things will get worse- much, much worse. Maybe a war starts. Maybe an industry crashes, and there won't be anybody who knows how to fix it. Maybe negotiating trade deals and peace settlements is a lot more difficult than slamming your fist down on a table harder than the other guy.

Or even worse. Maybe Trump won't actually be the president. When he originally offered the vice presidency to John Kasich, he stipulated that he would allow Kasich to be in charge of “foreign and domestic policy.” Maybe instead of the anti-establishment president you voted for, you'll actually get Mike Pence- a man who's been working in politics since 1988.  Ask the people of Indiana how that worked out for them.

And you'll realize that you were so happy to vote for somebody because he understood you emotionally, and then when you got what you wanted, you realized he didn't understand anything else. Maybe you get to find out that you defeated a politician who you thought was cheating you by electing somebody who cheated you.

I say keep the celebration going for as lomg as you like, but sooner or later, you'll have to reckon with a sobering question: What if Clinton was a better choice for you?  

Perhaps she couldn't have opened the mill, but she could have given you some tools to get an education to help you build something different.  Perhaps she couldn't wipe out your student debt, but she could make college cheaper, so that you're kids wouldn't have to put up with the same shit you did.  Maybe she could have made sure your wife got paid what she deserved, or that you got some paid time off, or that you were guaranteed a decent wage.  Maybe she could have given you a healthcare plan that actually worked for you.  Maybe she could help make sure your daughter refrained from getting pregnant at 15. Maybe she could have helped your parents retain the social security they worked their whole lives to pay.

What if you find out what you did wasn't just morally wrong, but economically wrong?  What if you voted to not just hurt other people, but put yourself in an even worse situation?  What could possibly feel worse?  When that person asks you "Trump made my life worse, so why did you vote for him?" What are you going to tell them?

You'll tell them that you wanted something that turned out to be horrible. History will hate you for it. People like you will distance themselves from ever voting for Trump, but the world will always know.  People see you now.  When he doesn't help you, and you turn on him, you'll see how awful he made things, and know that you allowed your emotions to make things worse.  That won't go away.

I pray that doesn't happen to you. But I think it will.

(Although, knowing my history with predictions, maybe take this with a grain of salt.)

This is my twitter.  My email is swellbo@gmail.com.