{"id":1438,"date":"2024-11-25T18:33:14","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T02:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theintersectionoffaithandlife\/?p=1438"},"modified":"2024-11-25T18:33:54","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T02:33:54","slug":"i-feel-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place-post-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theintersectionoffaithandlife\/2024\/11\/i-feel-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place-post-election\/","title":{"rendered":"I Feel Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Post-Election"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>I have been stuck since the 2024 election. The phrase \u201cbetween a rock and a hard place\u201d describes my inability to see a way out. The outcome for president, primarily, stunned me. American voters chose <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/loveminusreligion\/2024\/11\/the-spiritual-leftists-post-electionsurvival-guide\/?trending-topic=trump\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">a convicted felon<\/a> guilty of fraud and sexual assault rather than a highly qualified vice president who is a former senator, state attorney general, and prosecutor.<\/p>\n<p>I have since learned the outcome was due to some voters\u2019 misunderstandings about the election\u2019s ramifications. Some immigrants thought that only criminally convicted illegal immigrants would be deported, not their relatives with no criminal records. Others did not realize the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare were the same. More Americans believed Donald Trump had nothing to do with Project 2025 since he said so, possibly not realizing that a liar always lies, making it difficult to figure out the truth.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1441\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1441\" style=\"width: 462px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1441\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1931\/2024\/11\/pexels-dibert-1297790-e1732587021532.jpg\" alt=\"The ocean crashing upon rocks with some lingering low clouds\" width=\"462\" height=\"324\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1441\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place is no fun. It can take great force to separate two big rocks. (Photo courtesy of David Dilbert, Pexels.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Here We Are<\/h2>\n<p>I feel perplexed and discouraged by his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/11\/24\/us\/politics\/trump-cabinet-america-first.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">cabinet nominees<\/a> who are unqualified for their jobs and possibly unfit because of their past behavior. Images of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy haunt me, two billionaires wanting to make the federal government more efficient by reducing the budget by a third. Nancy Mace publicly said that Sarah McBride should use one restroom over the other rather than addressing important issues that the U.S. House of Representatives must discuss.<\/p>\n<h2>What I Find Lacking: Concern for People<\/h2>\n<p>I hear of these various plans to cut employees, programs, and budgets, but I do not hear much about the people affected. Some Republicans appear joyous about all these cuts. \u201cWhat about the people?\u201d I want to shout. Will you make sure that immigrants stay together as families? Will you screen to ensure none are harmed in their home countries? Are you going to treat these people humanely? I was reading about some of the tricky ways that ICE personnel have detained immigrants in the past: passing themselves off as police, for example.<\/p>\n<p>Steven Miller wants to go after legal immigrants after he has sent all the illegal ones away. That is against the law!<\/p>\n<h2>What I Want to Hear<\/h2>\n<p>In addition to these huge changes, I want to know what will happen to the people? Will there be severance and job training for government employees who are let go? What will happen to the Americans served by these government departments Ramaswamy and Musk want to gut completely? I saw today that these \u201cgeniuses\u201d want to do away with the Department of Education. I am sure that parents of children whose programs get funding directly or indirectly from the Department of Education worry whether their children will be cut along with the department. Then what?<\/p>\n<p>Cutting, cutting, cutting sounds perilous to me. I grew up in the Washington DC suburbs. My neighbors worked for Customs, the CIA ( found out later), and other government departments. What will those people do instead?<\/p>\n<p>Do the people making drastic decisions care about the American people? Why are they putting the whole country between a rock and a hard place?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have been stuck since the 2024 election. The phrase \u201cbetween a rock and a hard place\u201d describes my inability to see a way out. The outcome for president, primarily, stunned me. American voters chose a convicted felon guilty of fraud and sexual assault rather than a highly qualified vice president who is a former [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5180,"featured_media":1441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[717,1],"tags":[727,678,724],"class_list":["post-1438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-and-religion","category-uncategorized","tag-cabinet-picks","tag-election","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>I Feel Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Post-Election<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have felt stuck, between a rock and a hard place, finding it difficult to believe the outcome for president. 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