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.

Does Pence Dismiss All women, or Just These Two?

Sen Harris and VP Pence. The Somewhat Less-Rude Debate.

Did it ‘move the needle’ to use the cliché phrase of the debate watcher.

Probably not.

I say that as everyone is pretty much set, and many have already voted, so there weren’t a lot of minds changed tonight. The fact that this was done live with both candidates in the same room instead of in different locations (Mike Pence has been exposed to covid and should by all rights, be in quarantine), and the Pence campaign throwing a hissy about having a plexiglass shield gave it a bit of excitement, but that excitement didn’t really dhow up at the debate.

Well, the fly that crawled around Mike Pence’s hair for two minutes twenty seconds will probably will get more ink than Pence himself.

Sen Kamala Harris spoke well, smiled, and strongly made her points. Vice President Mike Pence frowned a lot, shook his head and… interrupted Harris and talked over here and the moderator, ignored his entreaties’ that his time was up, often talking for another minute. More than once Sen Harris had to remind VP Pence that she had the floor and she was talking.

This… was not a good look for Pence, he came off misogynistic and rude. This was supposed to be the ‘polite’ debate, the one that made up for the ‘shit show’ of Trump/Biden last week. Is this a purposeful tactic, or is Pence a guy who just doesn’t value what women have to say? I’m sure a lot of women saw that, and it reminded them a lot of what they’ve had to out up with for years.

So, who won?

Oh, Harris, walking away.

Really, Pence had a hard record to defend, 214,000 dead because of a disaster of a response to the coronavirus, economy cratered, huge virus outbreak at the White House that infected 34 people, including the President and the First Lady. America is a laughing stock around the world right now.

Defend that.

Harris did everything she needed to do tonight and did it well. She got her points over strongly, came off as warm and friendly, but direct and no-nonsense. Pence was... okay. He lied his ass off, and ran out of talking points halfway through and just started repeating himself.

Problem is, Pence needed to do better than 'okay', he needed to show he wasn't a raving lunatic like his boss, he needed to show some decorum, and he needed to convince people that all the crap that has happened under Trump is somehow Biden’s fault. He didn't really do that. How could you?

First off, he was rude, as I said. Harris had to swat him back a couple times for interrupting her, trying to talk over her, and just lying. Again, he talked over his time, ignored the moderator, talked over her as well, and acted like he was entitled to go over. It was rude, and it looked misogynistic.

Really, does he treat all women this way, as if what they have to say doesn't matter? After the horrendous bullying performance of Trump, Pence had to show he could follow the rules; he failed. He was stiff, boring and he had no real passion for what he was saying. He was... okay, and okay right now is a failure.

So, Harris for the win. I don't imagine it will move the needle much, one way or the other., but it shows there are sane people in the race, who actually care not to infect people.

And that should be something.

It’s Going to be Ugly.

What the GOP thinks matters. Insane. Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS via Getty Image

The DNC has been a pretty good show so far, making the case for Biden/Harris. They been very inclusive, and not in an over done ‘look! We have POC too!’ kind of way both parties have been guilty of in the past. All kinds of people, every walk of life are there, speaking truth and holding out a hand. They’ve tried to include everyone.

Even Republicans.

Really, Biden/Harris is not reaching out to just the ‘Democratic base’, they are reaching past them, reaching out to, well, everyone. And people are listening.

The RNC, who was holding out hopes for an in-person gathering up until a couple weeks ago (North Carolina! No, Florida, No….online?) are way behind and will have to play some serious catch up. The announcement that the the St. Louis ‘gun couple’ Mark and Patricia McCloskey will be featured speakers is not sign of outreach, ‘big tent’ style GOP (who remembers that phrase? Used to be thrown around quite a bit in the Reagan/Bush years.), it’s a sign of four nights of bitter white grievance and anger, finger pointing and ignoring (how could they not?) the est 200,000 dead from Trump’s negligence. There will be very little about that. Putting people like the McCloskey’s front and center tell us all we really need to know about what GOP thinks the issues are, and how seriously they will treat those issues.

And they will continue to call Joe Biden a ‘radical leftist’. Joe Biden… radical. Sorry, literally no sane person with eyes believes that. The fact is they keep pushing a losing narrative because, what else they got?

With a cratered economy, with those 200,000 dead, with an uncontrolled virus killing indiscriminately, with people in the streets seeking a racial justice denied them for centuries, Trump and the GOP thinks it’s a good idea to get two idiots who practice extremely poor gun safety and think pointing guns at people walking by your house, is a good and wise thing. They are not reaching ’beyond their base’, they are catering to them, and ONLY them. They do not care about convincing anyone beyond the ever-narrowing, ever-whitening, base. They have no real interest in adding to their party, no, they are actively subtracting from it; ‘canceling’ those not Trump enough, not toeing their lies enough, and not hating enough.

I fully expect the RNC is watching what the DNC is doing and taking notes. Except they’ll be tossing out the hope and dialing up the anger, the grievance at being a dying minority.

It’s gonna be a four day fear/hate fest, and Trump will speak every freakin’ night because… Trump.

It’s going to be ugly.