So, this is going to be a short one because I am…probably just like you are…kinda exhausted. This has been one hell of a roller coaster week, hasn’t it? First we thought it was going to be a Blue Wave, then we thought Trump had won (oh, God, no!), then…wait! What? Biden’s winning. Then it was…holy Christ…Biden won!!!
Ergo, like you, I’ve not got too many functioning brain cells at the moment. Basically, all I’ll be able to do is rattle off lines about just how ecstatic I am. We are …whoa…finally going to be rid of Trump. And, here’s the important thing, we know that most Americans…an amazingly large number of them…are decent, caring human beings and voted as a great, solid, unstoppable mass to end the reign of a would-be tyrant who managed to personify in himself everything that is bad in our national soul…racism, greed, ignorance, anti-intellectualism, arrogance, and narcissism.
Oh, and lest we forget, given his climate and environmental policies (or lack there-of), he was a threat to all life on the planet.
Plus, we are getting what looks like a pretty darn good government in Biden-Harris. They have all the right priorities and goals, and they are hitting the ground running. If you haven’t looked at the Biden-Harris transition website, go give it a look:
It is impressive and comforting. At last we know that what should be the greatest nation in the world is back under adult supervision.
That said…
I want us all to go celebrate for a week or so. But, after that, I think we need to remember the battle is won, but the war may not be over. Joe and Kamala won, but it was a nail-biter right to the very end. Over 70 million Americans somehow thought it was acceptable to vote for a man who more or less openly aspired to be a Fascist dictator, and who was happily doing things that in another time and place might get him arrested for crimes against humanity.
Also, keep in mind that Trump didn’t just appear all by himself. There is a vast infrastructure of people and money and movements behind him. There is the Republican Party itself, which, let’s face it, is no longer a political party in the Western sense. It is a party-militant, which can no longer compromise, and whose only goal is the seizure of power and the utter destruction of its enemies.
Then, there is the shadowy network of obscenely wealthy people and organizations which supported Trump and made him possible. This is “the vast right wing conspiracy” of which Hillary Clinton spoke way back when, and which…unlike the fantasies of pizzagate and QAnon…really exists. And, really existing, it continues to be really deadly.
And, finally, there are 70 million men and women who voted for Trump last week. Somehow, they have allowed fear, rage, hatred, and God alone knows what else to so cloud their minds as to support this American version of totalitarianism. In the name of American freedom, they have become the world’s most dangerous anti-Americans.
In short, we have a long way to go. So long as the Republican Party is dominated by monsters like Mitch McConnell and lunatics like Matt Gaetz, so long as Fox News and Koch-funded think tanks dominate the American discourse, and so long as there are men and women sufficiently fearful and wrathful to threaten physical violence against those who merely disagree with them, or merely have different colored skins…
Then we will not have peace.
Therefore, let us know joy as we contemplate our victory.
But let us also be ready to defend that victory, and make it lasting, for all Americans, of all shapes and sizes, of whatever party, of whatever faith…
Just as long as they believe in Democracy, Compromise, and, most of all…
Civility.
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Until next time.
Onward and upward.
~mjt