One Night, Four Years in the Making
Count every vote. We now have to actually demand, and make sure, that all the votes are counted. 2020 folks.
Four years ago, Donald Trump lost the popular vote by nearly three million votes. That was when the folks who weren’t around for the 2000 fiasco got a lesson in the Electoral College. I had already had that lesson, staying up all night in November of 2000 watching the vote totals shift and the cable news anchors sweat. It was not pleasant, and the fact that the recount of the vote in Florida was never completed due to Republican shenanigans on the ground and the most ridiculously biased ruling in the history of the Supreme Court made it even more unpleasant.
No. “Unpleasant” is too mild a word for a stolen election. I don’t really have a word that can describe that one. It radicalized a lot of people, probably on both sides; the GOP saw what they could do, what they could get away with because the other side believed in ‘norms’, ‘rules’, and ‘laws’ and pushed forward into new frontiers, and the Democrats and liberals learned just because there are ‘rules about such things’ doesn’t mean the other side will follow them.
No, I take that back. The Democrats didn’t learn that, as the last four years have shown us. The GOP and Trump have mowed down the rules once more, and that there was little they could do except to point out that there are, yes, ‘rules about such things’. Ten years of the GOP pulling this crap, twenty if you start at 2000 (which I do), now maybe they’re finally learned that the GOP, as a party, are not their friends.
Now, here we are, another election night, after four years of nearly constant turmoil in this country, fueled by Donald Trump and the Trump (formerly GOP) Party. 237,000+ Americans didn’t live to see this night, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd didn’t live to see this night, and many more who should be here will not see this night. This is our mission, a sacred one, to change this country, change this government, change this world, so there will be fewer virus deaths, no more Floyds, no more Taylors. And no more demagogues like Donald Trump.
It seems silly to say we have to save democracy, but that’s exactly what we have to do. It was hurting and fractured long before Trump came on the scene. We had taken poor care of it, allowing evil men to steal parts of it, not extending its cover to all that deserved its protection, selling off bit and pieces for money, security, and because of cowardice. If Trump and enablers are allowed to hold onto power, I fear we won’t have a country in four years’ time. At least, not with a semblance of the democracy we have left.
Why is this night like no other?
Because tonight is election night in an election like no other, a chance to change, to fix, to take back.
These past few weeks we have been voting, praying, huddling together on social media, drinking, and fretting with anxiety. Today, some of that will end, but new anxieties will come as we have to watch Donald Trump act like a firehose, spraying us all with anger, lies and bile. I believe he’s going to lose, and lose big. And, insane as this is, we all now have to see just what the hell he’s going to do about it. We have to wait, tense and with jaw clenched, while the President of the United States figures out what he will do about losing.
We are living in a new version of the infamous Chinese curse:
May you live in unprecedented times.
Take care of yourself. We will see each other again, on the other side.