Our future will have more of this.

I think that regardless of the outcome of the presidential election the white nationalist right is going to have a victory this year and I find this frightening and deeply disturbing.

Polls are indicating that it is not possible for Clinton to win in a blowout. Trump has minute leads in key swing states, the national polls show a close race and the GOP has less and less concern about losing the Senate and I no longer think the house is in serious play. This is terrible news for our democracy. It is worse news for those who have more melanin content in their skin than I do. LGBTQ, Muslims, women, I worry that it is open season on them. The likely outcomes I see are below. I am ignoring the electoral college because in terms of perception, the popular vote is key.

Scenario One: Trump wins the election.

Scenario Two: Hillary Clinton wins the election but the popular vote is within 5%.

Scenario Three: Hillary Clinton wins the popular vote by greater than 5%.

Each of these scenarios is a massive victory for racism.

SCENARIO ONE: TRUMP WINS

I still do not believe Trump can win the election with greater than 50% of the popular vote. Unfortunately, he does not have to. Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian Gary Johnson are actually going to take a couple percentage points of the vote between them. Trump’s path to victory is clinching at least 44% of the vote and having the third party candidates get a minimum of just over 2% of the vote between them. That would result in a President Trump and it is well within the realm of possibility. As a former Bernie supporter it gives me violent acid reflux to know that even a tiny percent of Bernie supporters going to Stein will elect Trump. But I do not know what to do. It’s not like my Bernie friends listen to me anymore. I’ve sold out.

This first scenario hardly needs explanation. If we get a president Trump we will see mainstreaming and normalization of racism that will make the outrages of today pale to nothingness. I am quite sure Latinos, AA’s and Muslims will die at the hands of vigilantes. Latinos and Muslims may begin to die at the hands of government officials on a routine basis. Trump has not said how he will transport illegal immigrants to the border; my find fills with pictures of school buses or 18 wheeler trailers packed full of immigrants with no air conditioning, no water, no food, men, women and children, rolling down I-35 through Texas in 100F August headed for Brownsville. If you do not see this as possible, I would suggest you are not familiar enough with history.

Trump is an authoritarian leader personality. Don’t worry about antisocial personality disorder, sociopathy, psychopathy or narcissistic personality disorder. To understand Trump you need to read the work of Bob Altemeyer on authoritarian personalities here. Trump will not passively accept Governors or Federal Judges blocking what he does. He will ignore them, punish them and do as he wishes anyway. Look at his model, Vladimir Putin. He will remake America in Russia’s image. And I assure you, the GOP will aid and abet him in this process – they have sought authoritarian control of the United States of America since the early 1970’s and since the advent of talk radio and Fox news, have been conditioning Americans to accept it.

The terrifying thing to me is that while this scenario is the least likely it is still well within the realm of the possible.

SCENARIO TWO: CLINTON WINS BUT WITH LESS THAN 5% OF THE POPULAR VOTE

As things stand today, I believe this to be the most likely outcome of the election. It is my thought that if you think the Obama years have been filled with gridlock, you have seen nothing yet. With Obama, the GOP and the conservative right had a racial objection to him, but a difficult time demonizing such a popular president personally. Against Hillary Clinton, who they have smeared continuously since 1983, when Bill Clinton became governor of Arkansas, there will be no restraint. I promise, by midnight November 8th there will be massive demonstrations in primarily Southern cities (remember the Brooks Brothers riots?) claiming election fraud. In between Election Day and her inauguration there will be violence. They will attempt to prevent her taking office.

Upon assuming office there will be no limits. Expect impeachment to be on the table day one. Every appointment will be a war. Every appropriations bill will be a nightmare. They may boycott the State of the Union, stand with their backs to her, shout over her speech.

If the GOP, the alt-right, the white nationalist groups, the evangelicals believe that they have had the election stolen – and the conservative media will assure them they have had that happen – they will destroy her presidency by any means necessary.

I should be clear, it’s not that they like, respect or otherwise honor Obama more than Clinton. It’s just they have had over 30 years of propaganda priming them to hate Hillary Clinton. The middle aged conservative has literally grown up from childhood being told she is evil, a liar, a murderer, sells out her country and on and on. She is LITERALLY their childhood villain, courtesy of Rush, FOX and the rest of the gang. The hatred is visceral.

SCENARIO TWO: CLINTON WINS WITH MORE THAN 5% OF THE POPULAR VOTE

This is still a win for racism. Already the celebrate the mainstreaming and normalization of hate. My daughter, going to middle school in liberal Austin, Texas, tells me how kids in her class earnestly explain to her that Mexicans are just dumber than white people and blacks are more dangerous. THIS IS NEW. This was not happening two years ago. Many of my Latino coworkers and neighbors have specific personal instances of racism and discrimination directed at them. Insults from strangers. Cans or bottles thrown from moving cars as they walk along the street. Leave. Go home. Speak English.

I have been shocked not by the racism, but by the number of people I know who acknowledge Trump is a racist but continue to support him. “It’s not a big deal” I am told. “He’s not serious, he’s just riling up the dumb ones.” But if I say – hey, what about the people being hurt? Muslims set fire, racist graffiti painted on houses, insults at Latinos? Deny, downplay, deflect. I ask if they have any responsibility for the increase in racial tension because they support a racist and they get angry.

Trump’s movement is not going to disappear. Forty percent of the voting population of the United States of America, at least, is open to a white nationalist message. Amongst those who reject the white nationalist message, a significant percent don’t perceive it as an important enough issue to overcome their dislike of Hillary Clinton. In other words, they are willing to sacrifice their Latino and Muslim neighbors to object to Hillary Clinton. Blows my fucking mind.

Believe me, there are ambitious people all through America who are smarter than Trump who are looking to harness his movement to their personal ambitions. If this GOP primary was scary, picture a smarter, handsomer racist than Trump in his place. A man (come on, they’re born and bred misogynists, it won’t be a woman) equally committed to white nationalism but without the idiot tweets. That’s what we will see in the coming elections.

No matter the outcome this election, equality, humanity and decency will suffer a severe, possibly crippling setback. It is up to us to offset this. Yes, we know Ragnarök is coming and like Odin, we have to work to ameliorate the potential negative outcomes (I used that metaphor specifically because it will piss of white nationalists who might see this – Oden’s Barn Valkomnar Allah’s Barn; Odin’s Children Welcome the Children of Allah, I saw in Norway).

I’d like to emphasize now, as a former Bernie supporter, that I do not blame Clinton for any of the above. It is not her fault that the right made her a punching bag for 35 years. I think she has been an incredible fighter against this nonsense and I know I don’t have her personal strength to survive – and thrive! – in the face of these constant attacks. It is also too much to expect one person to turn back decades of carefully nurtured and subtly encouraged racism, bigotry and misogyny.

Rather than confront angry white voters, Democrats (the party, not the Clintons although they had a hand in it) should have challenged them. Encouraged them to grow. Leave their comfort zones and expand their horizons. One of the most exciting things Bill Clinton did was AmeriCorps, a non-military alternative to national service but Democrats did not defend it well and it was eviscerated. Affordable healthcare that reached rural communities would have been a good thing too… ah, lost opportunities.

Perhaps now is the time to coordinate so that we are prepared to respond to these possible outcomes? Frankly, if Trump wins, I will be willing to do anything to protect the Latino and Muslim members of my community. Help provide shelter, safe houses, whatever is needed.

But we will need people, white people especially, to take to the streets to repudiate the attempts to delegitimize the Hillary’s probable narrow victory.

It won’t be over November 8th. There is no quick awakening from this nightmare.