Schadenfreude: Enjoying The US Election
There’s a popular stage musical called Avenue Q which uses the premise of a ‘Sesame Street’ for adults to explore different social issues. My favourite song in it is called “Schadenfreude” and this line from it I think sums up my feelings about this whole Trump situation perfectly.
“Sorry, Nicky, human nature —
nothing I can do!
It’s…
schadenfreude!
Making me feel glad
that I’m not you!”
For those who don’t know, schadenfreude is a German word that means happiness at the misfortune of others. Which is about the most German thing you can get aside from bier and rampant, uncontrolled immigration.
The reason I feel this way is multifaceted. Firstly I’m happy that I wasn’t in the position of the american voters. This election has been incredibly divisive and were it not for the meme magic on the side of trump and the ‘social justice’ and corruption on the side of Clinton I would have been 100% sympathetic to their situation. But it all just spiralled into some kind of South Park episode, to the point where the actual South Park episodes fell utterly short of how ridiculous this all is. There’s a reason some are referring to it as the “Meme Wars”.
Another reason for my joy at the American public’s expense is the fact that largely they brought it on themselves, though this is mainly aimed at the regressive left and their ‘social justice’ cronies. It has since come out that the DNC colluded with the mainstream media to bring Trump to prominence as they thought he would be an easy opponent for Hillary, little did they realise that Trump is not so easily stumped.
The left engineered a narrative or, at best, bought into one engineered for them and ran wild with it, taking it upon themselves to become the moral guardians of the US, usurping the Christian fundamentalists and soccer moms they despised. Their crying wolf and verbal and online abuse of innocent people failed to garner support (to their apparent surprise) and instead repelled many of their anticipated supporters (obviously). So much so that under this tirade from self-proclaimed intellectuals, academia, government officials and the media many of the actually rational liberals, the moderates and the far right became united in their rejection and decided to do something about it. Meanwhile other traditional left supporters, unable to bring themselves to support Hilary, simply stayed at home. Whether it was the right thing we have yet to see.
And the final reason for my mirth is the reaction the regressive left has had at Trump’s victory. Now before I am accused of being an alt right Milo Yiannopoulos wannabe I’d like to confirm that I’m a libertarian. So I’m probably more of an Alex Jones wannabe (minus the gay frogs of course).
In the last few days we’ve had reports of riots “protests” and assaults done in the name of Hillary Clinton, the woman implicated in corruption, assassination, accessory to rape just for starters. The point is, though, that they’ve whipped themselves up into believing that opinions and alignment are what makes a person good and moral rather than their actions. No wonder then that it seems justifiable in their minds and even good that they riot, destroy property and assault those that do not stand with them. Because that’s absolutely how convince people to join you, Ghandi had it all wrong.
In all seriousness, though, America is in a real state right now and the fact that they’re relying on Donald Trump to save them is hilarious to me. Their system has been abused to the point where it has to be, as Trump puts it, drained like a swamp of its corruption. This whole situation is so surreal that the rest of the world will be watching intently for the next four years to see if America truly becomes great again or if it continues to go the path of Rome in its last days.