9:07 P.S.T. Polls in the East close in less than seven hours. We dropped our ballot off a couple of weeks ago at the Kensington Library. Close to a hundred million other people either mailed, dropped their ballots off, or stood in lines that stretched several city blocks long, and waited as long as eleven hours to vote in person. For once there is no hyperbole in saying that this “is the most important election of our lifetimes.” It is. It’s not the difference between different thoughts and methods, differing ways and means of engaging in a democracy, but more accurately, an election between someone who believes in America and a man who, along with his cult followers, wants to destroy it. Oh, perhaps “wants to destroy it” is hyperbole, but a narcissist who is indifferent to the deaths of a quarter of a million countrymen, a man whose policies have brought about many of those deaths, a reality TV host who had never governed, who had sex with a porn star while his wife was giving birth to his baby, who has declared bankruptcy six times and owes hundreds of millions of dollars to unknown people in unknown countries, is, because he’s a con artist, a billionaire who paid $750 in federal income tax, a man ignorant of the subtleties of virtually everything, bent on plundering a country that has given him so much, a country that had asked him so little in return. And people love him. Lemmings will never become extinct. Stupidity and Ignorance are in vogue in many parts of America. I appropriated one of the con man’s favorite tweets, “Sad.”
And in the days and weeks before Election Day…
He won’t go down without a fight. Despite the fact that his recent “rallies” have brought about an estimated 30,000 cases of Covid-19 and 700 deaths, this “law and order” President continued to bask in the limelight of his adoring followers. Many of them, ignoring the “law and order” part, engaged in driving “parades”, shutting down freeways and bridges, and in one case, driving into Marin City, a largely black community in Marin County, shouting epithets at the black residents. Here they are, spreading “love” and “law and order” while creating chaos.
A pickup truck heading into Marin City. The flag reads “No More Bullshit”, ironically in support of a man who has spoon fed his followers four years of bullshit, lying over 20,000 times during his “presidency,”
Pretending to be Americans
Not content with cars, Trump followers in coastal communities engaged in Trump boat parades. In this one, the wakes of several boats created waves that sunk seven boats. I love irony, especially when it’s combined with karma.
Three years ago, when Trump was the president-elect and had yet to take the oath of office, someone wrote to a Buddhist spiritual adviser, asking for clarity. The response:
“Trump is not an alien who came from another planet. We produced Trump, so we are co-responsible. Our culture, our society, made him. We love to pick somebody and make him the object. But it’s deeper than that. We have to see him inside of us. We are afraid to engage, but you can dialogue and debate. It requires a lot of practice to sit there and listen, and not judge so you can understand. You cannot end discrimination by calling the other names. All the people who voted for him are not bigots and racists and women haters. We are all judgmental, sometimes even a bit racist. What’s in my heart is that people find the patience and clarity to listen before they start to blame and criticize.”
Not me. If you haven’t figured out yet that Trump is an alien presence, that his psychological profile is that of a sociopath, then you’re a fucking moron, and not a passive fucking moron, but one whose active allegiance to a cult leader will spread, like Covid-19, into the minds of the weak, vulnerable, unsuspecting, evil, and terminally and hopelessly stupid. Wanna have a party with more friends like you? Mind you, not all Trump supporters look like these good folks; some are actually even more disreputable.
Twenty-four hours later…
The blue wave didn’t get anyone wet. The presidential election is too close to call, Republicans held the Senate, and the Democrats didn’t make headway in the House. Why? Polling is an inexact science. Although mail-in ballots favored the Democrats, in-person voting yesterday was decidedly red. Still, but why? White people are scared to death, and Trump is the last great white hope. Even discounting his lies. his ignorance, and his mismanagement of the Covid virus, one writer marveled, “More than 230,000 Americans died of coronavirus under the president's watch. Americans in hard-hit counties voted for him anyway.” Why? Why, indeed. Another writer had this to say, “Trump makes an explicit and consistent appeal to white supremacy & its cousins patriarchy and xenophobia. White supremacy is a serious drug & Trump is the first president since Reagan to offer it clean, uncut and non-diluted. White America is not about to kick that narcotic”
Charles Blow, a writer for the NY Times, said in an OpEd, that even though Trump is the most-anti-gay president ever, that ten percent of American gay men "do not support Trump at all, but will vote for him nonetheless,” that blacks voted for him in increasing numbers despite his blatant racism, and that a plurality of white women voted for him, too, despite that he denigrates women. He concludes, “All of this to me points to the power of the white patriarchy and the coattail it has of those who depend on it or aspire to it. It reaches across gender and sexual orientation and even race, Trump’s brash, privileged chest thumping and alpha-male dismissiveness and in-your-face rudeness are aspirational to some men and appealing to some women, Some people who have historically been oppressed will stand with the oppressors, and will aspire to power by proximity.”
It’s a return to the caves. Trump holds the biggest club. People love that shit. Forget policies, character, honesty, he can swing his club on the noggins of the unsuspecting.
It’s Over.
Sometime this morning Pennsylvania catapulted Biden from 253 to 273, and the long national nightmare ended.
In the New York Times writer Roxane Gay wrote,
“The United States is not at all united. We live in two countries. In one, people are willing to grapple with racism and bigotry. We acknowledge that women have a right to bodily autonomy, that every American has a right to vote and the right to health care and the right to a fair living wage. We understand that this is a country of abundance and that the only reason economic disparity exists is because of a continued government refusal to tax the wealthy proportionally.
The other United States is committed to defending white supremacy and patriarchy at all costs. Its citizens are the people who believe in QAnon conspiracy theories and take Mr. Trump’s misinformation as gospel. They see America as a country of scarcity, where there will never be enough of anything to go around, so it is every man and woman for themselves.
They are not concerned with the collective, because they believe any success they achieve by virtue of their white privilege is achieved by virtue of merit. They see equity as oppression. They are so terrified, in fact, that as the final votes were counted in Detroit, a group of them swarmed the venue shouting, “Stop the count.” In Arizona, others swarmed a venue shouting, “Count the votes.” The citizens of this version of America only believe in democracy that serves their interests.”
Trump’s first tweet after the election was called for Biden:
“I WON THE ELECTION, BY A LOT!”
Election Day +19
In the last sixteen days the Narcissist-in-Chief has filed over thirty lawsuits, claiming among other things, massive fraud, a stolen election, and the questionable belief that he has actually won the election. His record so far 1-29.
Today he posted these tweets:
He’s right. Indeed, the world is watching…and laughing…and sending condolences to Americans who are both humiliated and embarrassed by the antics of the insane resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He won’t concede, nor will he ever believe that he lost. In this layperson’s opinion, he is insane. Insanity, meet reality. The former will have a breakdown. Asylum, meet your new friend.
November 24, 2020
After Attorney Sydney Powell and Rudolph Guliani (he with the hair dye running down both cheeks) embarrassed themselves and Trump at separate press conferences (something that Chris Christie called a “national embarrassment.”} and Powell was dismissed, Trump dismissed the whole team. Emily Murphy, the administrator who is in charge of the funds and services provided to the President-Elect, sat on the money, the briefings, and the services for sixteen days, cowed by Trump and the Republican cowards.
But that’s all over now. She authorized the transition. Biden will receive briefings, funds, and he and Kamala are hitting the ground running, despite Republican efforts to trip them up. This whole sorry tale, this sad chapter of American history, this pathetic president who lost the popular vote twice and was impeached, will come to its inglorious end.
Thanksgiving
Yesterday, in their respective Thanksgiving messages, President Trump and President-Elect Biden spoke. Biden expressed gratitude, compassion, the need for unity, and an optimistic look to the future. Trump, well, Trump said this:
“This is an election that we won easily. We won it by a lot — big energy,” Trump said via the phone’s scratchy speaker. “This election was rigged, and we can’t let that happen. We can’t let it happen for our country. This election has to be turned around.”
And so it went. And so it goes.
