Proper Indignation

via GIPHY

There's a passage from Aristotle that's been coming to my mind constantly since the election.  It's about the virtue of proper indignation.

For the properly indignant person feels pain when someone does well undeservedly; the envious person exceeds him by feeling pain when anyone does well, while the spiteful person is so deficient in feeling pain that he actually enjoys other people's misfortunes. (Nicomachean ethics, Book II ch. 7)

Proper indignation?  Yes.  How could Trump be rewarded with the presidency--the highest conceivable honor--after being a racist birther, after a lifetime of being a con-artist and an exploiter of women, after bullying all of his opponents, after demonstrating total absence of relevant knowledge and showing himself unfit for the office in every way, after lying incessantly and in fact showing total disregard for the difference between truth and falsehood, after losing every debate, after inciting violence and bigotry, after using dirty tactics against Hillary and all of his other opponents, after not revealing his tax returns, after Trump University, after .... This is the ultimate in doing well undeservedly, and we're going to be witnesses to this injustice every day for the next four years.

Top Ten Horrors

I'll go with the New York Times' estimate that there's only a 16% chance of Trump winning tomorrow, but it still fills me with horror.  16% of a really bad prospect is a really bad prospect.  I've been thinking about why this horrifies me so much--what are the worst things about a Trump future?  My top 10 list:

1. A completely unfit, unqualified con-man wins instead of a clearly qualified and competent woman. Two messages: knowledge and skill don't matter ... men have a huge advantage over women.
2. The man who promoted birtherism for five years is rewarded for it.  Message: racism and outrageous outright deception are perfectly acceptable.
3. 20 million people lose their health insurance and everyone else loses all the benefits of the Affordable Care Act, because Trump and other Republicans say "repeal and replace" but actually have no replacement.
4. Deportations of immigrants, no path to citizenship, an end of welcoming desperate refugees into this country.
5. Supreme Court turns more conservative for many decades, with resulting threats to reproductive rights and marriage equality.
6. Unstable, brash, ill-informed commander-in-chief, sure to make the world a much more dangerous place.
7. International climate change agreement abandoned, posing serious risks to generations to come.
8. An exploitative, demeaning attitude toward women and girls becomes normalized by the fact that the world's most honored leader exemplifies it.
9. The repulsive way Trump ran his campaign--non-stop lying, name-calling, threatening to imprison his opponent, abusing the media, total lack of civility--all of that now the norm.
10. Miscellaneous nightmares:  Michelle's garden mowed down, the White House sprayed gold, Trump vampyric wife and children haunt Washington......

OK, enough.  I'M WITH HER!