BIDEN WINS! Yay! But Back To “Normal” Better Not Be The Goal!
Four days after the 2020 election, Joe Biden has been projected as president-elect. Three states, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, have yet to be called, two of them favoring Biden. But this morning, his home state of Pennsylvania pushed Biden past the 270 electoral vote threshold. Kamala Harris becomes the first female vice-president-elect, as well as the first person of Indian and Jamaican descent to serve as the second in command in the executive branch. Whew! A nail-biter. But we dodged a likely fatal bullet. The “soul” of the nation has, indeed, been saved. For now. Four more years of Trump would have ripped this nation to bits. Now, of course, totally predictably, Trump and his minions will refuse to accept the clear will of a solid majority of the American people. I can tell you right now, they will never accept it. They will be talking about the “stolen election” for 100 years or longer. That refusal, and their diabolical determination to make claim after outrageous claim (without a shred of evidence) that the election was a fraud, stolen, and seek to overturn it points directly at the remaining, perennial problem: American conservatism, itself. This ideology has ONE IDEA. One corrosively bad, totally un-American, idea. What conservatives conserve is their own advantage, privilege and power. They are willing to go to extreme lengths, believe anything, do anything, follow anyone that would promise a restoration (or expansion) of their “rightful” domination over everyone else! You don’t believe it? The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., urged “total war” to prevent Biden from winning! Why is THAT not being discussed????
We are still not out of the woods here. While huge, jubilant Democrats are dancing in streets across the country, including in front of the White House, Trump still has some time to rally his sycophants in government — including the attorney general and law enforcement, the Senate, the Supreme Court, to do the unthinkable… reverse an American presidential election. It should be very discomfiting that the minority leader of the United States House of Representatives, the highest-ranking Republican in the House, has falsely claimed that “Trump won the election,” and the Senate judiciary committee chairman wants the Justice Department to investigate “irregularities.” Biden’s election is only secure if a critical mass of Republicans do not go totally berserk. Or, more ominously, if one man — attorney general William Barr — refrains from deciding to screw things up! He certainly could. Is Barr willing to step into the black hole of treason against the American democratic system to reverse an electoral system’s decision that one political party did not want? Imagine our democracy hanging on the thread of one man’s integrity (which has not been particularly stellar in Barr’s case). Barr has a clear record of bending the American justice system to protect Trump’s whims and wishes (and his own visions of an imperial presidency). And don’t forget Trump’s wacked-out “militia” types spread across the country, bristling with guns and itching to use them. He previously told the extreme rightwing militants, the Proud Boys, to “stand by.” Will he, at last, call upon them — and others — to launch? As this is written, the Saturday after the Tuesday election, there are concerted Republican efforts to light a revolt against American democracy. Will any of these myriad matches being thrown on this very flammable situation spark a conflagration? I think we are weeks away from being safe from utter, violent chaos.
OK. How to counter this? What we CANNOT do is what I fear is going to now happen. We’re already hearing pundits and politicians, including Joe, himself, talking about “uniting” the nation, working across the aisle, taking the centrist, moderate course, even naming some Republicans to his cabinet. Really? Obama tried all of that and Republicans shoved that lovey-dovey stuff down his throat. Do remember Mitch McConnell claiming that Republicans №1 priority was making Obama a one-term president? Do you really think that Republicans aren’t planning the exact same thing for Joe Biden? That will be their № 1 priority. The last thing they want is to “heal” the nation. The entire conservative political apparatus will congeal around demonizing everything Democrats do. This county is NOT going to be “united” until we do the hard work of exorcizing the vile sentiment which clings to a total opposite view of reality itself. Republicans will continue to play scorched earth politics; if Democrats think (against ALL evidence) that they can return to “normal” politics that is just the trap Republicans always set and it will fail, fail, fail!
Sure, “normal” sounds pretty good after the bombast and fury and division and destruction of the Trump years, but ‘normal” brought us Reagan, Bush and Trump! Have you noticed these conservative darlings just keep getting worse? Now, take this trend and extrapolate into the future. If that doesn’t scare the shit out of you, you’re not perceiving the reality. If we don’t move forward, beyond the old “normal,” if we don’t begin the process of discrediting conservatism itself, I guarantee you we will see another Republican threat — possibly FAR worse than Trump (whose own ignorance and arrogance and crassness and narcissism and general non-seriousness prevented him from doing more damage than he might have). But what Trump did, that neither Reagan or Bush dared, was to show how easy it is to simply bulldoze all norms, customs, traditions, rules, even laws, rigging the entire American system in his favor… and no one on the Republican side would stop him… eventually no one could stop him. Trump exposed a multitude of holes in our democracy that were never before fully exploited simply due to flimsy “norms.” Trump gleefully punched at those holes, and has left a tempting blueprint for a more saavy, seemingly more palatable wannabe dictator who will seek to complete the overthrow of our LIBERAL nation and convert it to a plutocracy-kleptocracy-theocracy-fascist state. It’s long past time for liberals and Democrats to stop being nice when the opposition truly wants to rip your throat out. In this country we have 70 million voters who cheered Trump’s rampage and thought four more years of his poisonous reign would be great! Trump, himself, will one day be gone… but we will be stuck with this mindset… which is nothing more than pure selfishness. That ideology is un-American. It’s un-Christian. It’s unethical. It’s immoral. It’s the opposite of true spirituality. And it’s all based upon untruths. We MUST NOT continue to give succor to this ideology as a legitimate American persuasion. It does not value virtue. It does not believe in fair play. It does not believe in American ideals. Watch what Trump and his minions are up to right now… and see this very thing being blatantly showcased. It is long past time to call conservatism out for what it is… SICK!
Now look, this does not mean demonizing our family, friends, neighbors, fellow American citizens. No hate. No violence. We love them. We want the best for them. To borrow a slogan from Christians (who have never proven very good at following it), “hate the sin, love the sinner.” It’s not that we inherently know better than they about what is good,. They are potentially just as good, just a smart, as we are. But they are captives of a foul belief system. When they disconnect themselves from truth and virtue in favor of myths, outright lies and oppression that merely support a selfish craving, when they so often want to thwart or even take away rights, while we want to give and expand them, when they fundamentally do not believe in the liberty and equality of others, then, yes, we are the rightful occupants of the high ground. Conservatives are eager oppressors. Trump truly brought out the worst in Americans of that ilk, and it was extremely painful for the rest of us to see. History will bring the gavel down on Donald Trump as historically horrendous, and his supporters deplorable (yes, Hillary was correct)… as of yet, conservatives still cannot perceive that subjective truth. There is NO compromise with those whose mindset is based upon lies. And Republicans are more firmly attached to their flimsy, pretzel-logic worldview than ever before. That’s why moderation and centrism is NOT the way forward. Indeed, in American history it has NEVER been the way forward. Not a single MAJOR change in American history has been achieved by moderation and significant bipartisanship. Lots of little, non-controversial laws, sure. But the major lurches, either forward or backward, were rammed down the throat of the opposing side.
Republicans have reveled in doing just that. Even before Trump arrived seriously on the political scene, Mitch McConnell was busy ramming down America’s throat his denial of Obama’s judicial picks. Then Trump and his awful horde have spent the past four years doing their own ramming. We won’t go into all of the ultra-partisan (sometimes simply ultra-personal) damage Trump wrought, but almost every single day was an insult to liberal — and true American — sense and sensibilities. Now, it’s our turn.
The challenge of discrediting conservatism wont’ be easy. But it is the only way to, finally, shed this ridiculous anchor that has stunted progress of our nation since its founding, and actualization of its original ideals. The key is not to bully, but to engage with tough love, to “go high when they go low” and to not be so eager to come down to their muck just to “get along.” Certainly, we liberals (and compared to Republicans, all Democrats are liberals) are on the side of truth, of progress, of empathy and compassion, of true American ideals: liberty, equality and justice FOR ALL. Unlike conservatives, we believe in democracy. Unlike conservatives, we believe in caring for our fellow citizens… ALL of our fellow citizens. Unlike conservatives, we love both people and the planet. We will produce a better healthcare system, social and economic justice, care for the environment, serious efforts to combat this pandemic and global warming, reform of the skyrocketing expense of college, return to science-based approaches to every problem, and continue to try to perfect, step by step, our great LIBERAL American experiment. Conservatives are going to scream and yell and try to stop all of this. And they are in the wrong to do so. Not because liberals want something opposite, but because the very conservative position, the conservative worldview, is based on un-American, non-factual beliefs. Liberals, Democrats, even moderates and centrists who do not want to see us slide back into the unfairness, meanness and chaos of conservative governance, speak up, stand your ground, scold, shame anyone who spews the creed of lies, bigotry, selfishness. Hold the “party of personal responsibility” responsible for its reprehensible history and current beliefs and behavior. Be confident that you hold the high ground, not just here, not just now… but anytime, anywhere. Conservatism has never given anything of value to the United States of America. It is the № 1 malady that has plagued our nation since the beginning.
America is not going to be ‘healed” any time soon. The Republican Senate, and the Republican court system will continue to flaunt true American values, as well as the will of that solid majority of Americans who just spoke up in this election. If we go down the centrist pathway of Carter, of Clinton, of Obama in trying to “just get along”… we can expect the very same results… Republicans continuing to plot and scheme and obstruct and lie, pile up state governorships, legislative and judicial wins, inculcate local governments with conservative “good (bad) ideas,” build up their megalithic alternative worldview and media, and gin up the anger, frustration, fear and greed of their base… counting the days before they can launch another major assault upon American democracy. Democrats trying to pretend that we are not enmeshed in a titanic “cultural war” simply guarantee they will be knocked silly in very short order.
One last note… we can thrill to Biden’s election today, but the Democrats are in an unusual, tenuous situation. As the oldest president elected, at 78, there is a high likelihood Biden will not be the 2024 Democrat nominee. The momentum of incumbency may not be there… and Kamala Harris is far from the kind of presidential candidate who might be expected to be widely beloved, or even trusted (and certainly wasn’t exactly a smashing success as a candidate in 2019). There is no one else now apparent on the Democratic side as a specially endowed up-and-comer, like Obama in 2012. This situation creates an even stronger imperative to shake up the status-quo… which we know favors these wild pendulum swings in American politics. These swings have become increasingly toxic… where the new president immediately seeks to undo everything their predecessor did. The pendulum has swung back our way. If we do “normal,” soon enough we will be watching the next conservative conman walking into the White House.
Copyright 2020, Rusty Reid
