There is nausea, emotional and physical revulsion by millions around the world at the election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States of America, even as white nationalists and the Ku Klux Klan in America, and the far right in Europe, giddily celebrate his victory.

Many are deeply unsettled, depressed and anxious. Some feel exhausted and a sense of grief. The minds and hearts of many are trying to come to grips with the gravity of the loss and what it means for America and the world.

With mordant humor, many in the United Kingdom are happily musing that the U.S. has screwed up much more than the U.K. did with the Brexit vote. Funny, but it is of little comfort to those who recognize the parallels between the two votes.

Presidential election results in the U.S. sometimes result in feelings of deep disappointment by non-American observers, depending on the party one supports.

But Tuesday's result was profoundly different given the crudeness, vulgarity and vicious temperament of Trump, a man profoundly unsuited for the most powerful office in the world.
The world is panicked by a Trump presidency!

The United States of America feels today like a much less tolerant and hopeful country, with the president-elect having fueled and given voice to racism, misogyny, nativism and a fascist mindset expressed with brazen joy by himself and others.

The slogan "Make America Great Again" often sounded like "Make America White Again".

Despite the feelings of grief and loss, giving into despair will be all too easy. It is a conceit and a cul-de-sac of self-pity into which progressives and others should not fall. There is too much at stake.

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Progress has been made in the fight for equality and social justice. Such progress will be stymied as much by those committed to white supremacy, misogyny and nativism, as by those progressives and others inclined to be intimidated and paralyzed by Tuesday's results.

Regressive
Trump and the Republicans do not have a mandate to revive a regressive era. The worst of his rhetoric and instincts must be met by a progressive force which pushes back as he and his allies inevitably overreach.

There will be many months of analysis of the 2016 U.S. election, focusing on the American socio-economic and political landscape.

Writing in The New Yorker, in a piece entitled "An American Tragedy", David Remnick sounded this alarm about Trump and what he represents: "The election of Donald Trump to the presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism. Trump's shocking victory, his ascension to the presidency, is a sickening event in the history of the United States and liberal democracy.

"On January 20, 2017, we will bid farewell to the first African-American president - a man of integrity, dignity, and generous spirit - and witness the inauguration of a con who did little to spurn endorsement by forces of xenophobia and white supremacy. It is impossible to react to this moment with anything less than revulsion and profound anxiety."

The presidential election was in particular ways about Hillary Clinton as a person, with all of her foibles and mistakes. Still, much of the antipathy toward the accomplished former secretary of state had to do with her gender and the feeling by white men that women have gone too far, and now, incredibly, wanted to sit in the Oval Office.

We should not underestimate the depth of misogyny in America - nor that of The Bahamas. Nor should anyone underestimate the other currents which produced a Trump and Republican victory.

There was the typical desire for "change", even as most Americans gave President Barack Obama a healthy approval rating.

Trump effectively played the role of the populist outsider ready to take on the establishment personified in the minds of many as the Clintons. He promised to upend the Republican establishment and Washington D.C.

And he played to America's giddy love affair with business leaders and its studied antipathy toward politicians.

Dislocated
There were economic issues at play, including the feeling by many white working class voters of falling behind and feeling economically dislocated, as well as the loss of middle class confidence about a better economic future.

But there is much more. Many who are economically not hurting or worried voted for Trump, despite: his treatment of and language about women; his denial of climate change; his ignorance of domestic and foreign policy; his unsuitability to be commander-in-chief; and his being a psychologically unbalanced man with a deep-seated need for revenge.

Many voted for a man with no government or military experience who offered a message of prejudice, xenophobia, American exceptionalism, misogyny and racism, which many in white America wanted to hear. It was a message that was uncompromising and virulent, touching a part of the American soul and psyche.

It is humorous to watch those commentators who decry the so-called identity politics of America, which they believe celebrates the diversity and the heritage of non-whites and those in the LGBT community at the supposed expense of white America.

Black Lives Matter, a call to protect the lives of African-Americans, is seen as a slap against white Americans.

The reality is that Trump himself promotes identity and cultural politics, namely being white as the essence of what it means to be an American, with white men at the apex. After eight years of a black man in the White House, a woman succeeding him was too much for many. A backlash was inevitable.

Trump, the great promoter of the Obama birtherism conspiracy, understood the politics of and the marketplace for fear and resentment and prejudice.

With the Democrats failing to turn out more of its vote, which could have swung the electorate to Clinton, Trump got his overwhelmingly white base to the polls.

Following the Brexit vote this year, a former head of British domestic intelligence warned of a growing populism in the West fueled by fears about immigration and economic decline.

He advised that Brexit was the first in a wave of populism that could usher in far right leaders, increased xenophobia, more violence and a backlash against minorities and migrants.

Those at home who decry the politics of fear, misogyny and prejudice whipped up by Donald Trump, and who recently voted no in the gender equality referendum because of sexism and homophobia, should look in the mirror and reflect on their own prejudice which they may seek to rationalize as do many of Trump's supporters.

As in America, many men and women in The Bahamas still do not believe that a woman can lead a country, often preferring less-than-impressive men rather than intelligent, competent women.

Those who have fought in America and here at home for equality and women's rights continue to feel the sting and the temptation to cynicism of bitter defeats. But we have no choice than to fight on. The only other choice is to wither and die, while the dignity of others is denied and assaulted.

Those who expect the likes of Trump to moderate should not be naive. With power, bigots usually get worse. The far right and white nationalists in America have just begun to celebrate. They will soon get busy trying to dismantle the good work of Obama and others who have fought for a more equal union.

o frontporchguardian@gmail.com, www.bahamapundit.com.

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