Kaitlin Byrd: Apocalypse Diarist

2/ Every last thing we're experiencing now was predicted by Hillary during the campaign. And like Cassandra, we refused to believe her.

3/ I shouldn't use the word "we" because I was a member of her coalition. I believed her and I believed in her.

4/ She represented her coalition ably, if not perfectly. She talked about issues that mattered to us. She made sure to express empathy.

5/ For that, she was heckled, harassed, attacked, dismissed, ignored and mocked by the very people who were supposed to inform us.

6/ And every time someone wrote about how unlikeable she was, or how she didn't talk about what really mattered, or how it's her fault...

7/ They were really saying it about our coalition. *We* were unlikeable. *We* didn't really matter. It's *our* fault that Trump won.

8/ This backlash is really about the idea that neither Hillary as a person nor the coalition she represented has any right to public life.

9/ She was supposed to stan for white supremacy and patriarchy. She was supposed to put the priorities of white rural voters above all.

10/ She was supposed to back down when shouted at. She was supposed to mold herself into something likeable.

11/ It goes without saying that white men determine what is likeable. They say it's voters, but they mean white male voters.

12/ And we are seeing the backlash of not placating those who want our silence, our submission, our obeisance in their presence.

13/ Y'all get distracted when a GOP presidential candidate retweets white supremacists, but you can find all the time to harass Hillary.

14/ Trump is out here weaponizing the ICE into the goddamn Gestapo, but you can find time to tell Hillary her voice isn't wanted.

15/ You ignored Cassandra as she begged and pleaded with you to listen, but she carries all the blame for your closed hearts and minds.

16/ And us, those who shared in her warnings and now feel the brunt of the brutality, we're told that we had our shot and we wasted it.

17/ White men can make a president from a treasonous sexual predator who dreams of being a half-wit, and we ask what they want and need.

18/ But POC, women, urban voters who are responsible for 2/3 of the American economy? We should shut up and go home. No one wants us here.

19/ It's very clear that the storytellers of this age are interested in protecting the narrative of white-dominated Americana.

20/ That it's a myth, a cruel one devised to obscure crimes of blood and death that cannot be absolved, is precisely why it's so beloved.

21/ And anything that would puncture that myth, or their gutless, cretinous protection of it, must be assaulted and destroyed.

22/ Hillary is speaking about what it felt to be on the ramming end of that myth. She's speaking *our* truth, the one of her coalition.

23/ She's taking on the very narratives that people are using to shield themselves from their ignorance and poor judgment.

24/ And she's reminding us that likeability is a damn lie. You never would have liked her no matter what she did because she challenged you.

25/ Just as we, the coalition, challenge what priorities should be at the forefront of politics and what America looks and sounds like.

26/ You want us to go away. You want us to internalize her loss as our inferiority. You want our silence, our return to the back.

27/ We will not return. Neither will she. We deserved to win that election; we deserve her Presidency; we deserve *your* silence.

28/ You, who downplayed white supremacists. You, who accepted Trump's lies and stupidity. You, who would accept our debasement.

29/ It is your fault that she's got the time to write a book instead of leading our nation. You're going to listen to us now, damn it.