Today’s election results, whatever they may be, are certain to usher in further instability:that is to say, whatever the outcome we will see things become worse than they already are… Anybody expecting this to be the definitive election that will answer the question of Trump, once and for all, is going to be disappointed.
If the purported ‘blue wave’ does not materialize the GOP will run with that and claim a mandate. Good luck getting them to do anything sane after that…
However, if the purported ‘blue wave’ does arrive and is apparently decisive, will the GOP and the Right accept it? Trump is repeatedly describing a hellscape of suffering in the event the actual majority in the country actually governs. Yes, it’s a complete fabrication, but when has that kind of rank dishonesty stopped anyone? If Kemp loses to Abrams will he go quietly into that good night? I don’t think so. A man who so nakedly cheats isn’t going to suddenly become ennobled. If DeSantis loses to Gillum, will he — more importantly, will his racist supporters — accept it? I don’t think they will. Trump and the racist GOP has so traduced the Democrats and have already so overstepped the boundaries of decency. Wherefore are they going to summon the patience and decency — where heretofore they exhibit none at all — to accept the will of the majority?
This is not an indictment of today’s voting. This is not an attempt to diminish, in any way, today’s vote. This vote is important and necessary. It is, however, not sufficient to solve the problem. This is to try and think through some possible consequences of the vote. The best case scenario is that, in fact, the Right does accept the vote. If that happens, we move on. I’m certain that a majority of the minority will accept the vote and that the number of Americans who respect the process and will accept the results is overwhelming, indeed vast. But that doesn’t mean they all will.
We have already seen violence from the Right, that is to say, from the minority. There may well be more and greater violence. There always is when the minority refuses to accept the majority. Lincoln was right and righteous and John Wilkes Booth shot him. So too, it was with Martin Luther King Jr and Medgar Evars and RFK and Gandhi.
We are to play the long game: wherein we must remember that we are the majority and that we are right and that, ultimately, the majority will prevail if we refuse to give in to fear and anger. There isn’t going to be a magic candidate or a single election that will decide things. It is going to be a slow patience and willingness that will do the job. A ‘blue wave’ now will help us to correct some of the inequities of the coming census and allow us the chance to do it correctly. But, with Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court we have only a very narrow hope that Roberts, now the swing vote, will wish to do anything about gerrymandering. In my view, we need both an end to gerrymandering and a clean census in order that the true majority in the country returns to governance and to restore order. I believe we will get there, but may have to exhibit patience and self-control through a period of violence as a minority of the minority flails about in their refusal to accept the majority.
Today’s election, which ever way it goes, may unleash fury. But it is the fury of a dispossessed minority of the minority who’ve invested all of their power and their anger in con-men and untruths. It cannot succeed. It must and will, ultimately, fail. Everything based upon deceit and anger always does. That, however, doesn’t mean it’s not going to hurt…
“What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance.” THOMAS JEFFERSON
“We” are not a majority. The progressive activists who populate this web site are in fact a small slice of the population.
I’d recommend approaching future elections with that in mind.
It is straightforward to determine the vote totals that result in the Trumpist majority of the Senate. Those who do the exercise will see that Trumpist Senators are supported by a very pronounced MINORITY of the voting public.
I recommend that any Trumpist bear this in mind when approaching future elections.
Over at Daily Kos a diarist pointed out that not only did Dems prevail in raw vote totals for both chambers of Congress, but of the 35 Senate seats up this year Dems appear to have prevailed 22-13.
Then the Democrats misallocated their resources.
Maybe so, maybe not. That’s irrelevant to the claim you made, though.
I don’t know about “progressive activists who populate this web site”. The fact remains that the Democrats are supported by the majority of the population.
We are a majority.
We who are not racist
We who are not sexist
We who do not separate children from their parents
We who support a sane health insurance policy
We who support sane tax policy.
We who support abortion rights.
We who did not vote for Donald Trump
We who are against gerrymandering.
We who do not have to lie and cheat and wreak havoc upon the republic to win elections.
We who do not want to be in bed with the Russians.
We ARE a clear majority.
80% of Americans think political correctness is a problem.
A large majority of every race and political segment of the population thinks it’s a problem — except progressive activists. Who are also disproportionately white and rich.
Your braying and bullhorning serves a purpose clear to everyone, including the poor downtrodden folk you are attempting to ally with: it’s the position of one group of rich white people who hate and resent another group of white people — probably because they were unsuccessful in high school. Socially if you know what I mean.
No discernible percentage of Americans agree, even, on what ‘political correctness” is… So “80% of Americans think” some amorphous something is objectionable. You made a solid point there….
When, and where, the rubber hits the road… on abortion, on gun control, on healthcare, on separating children from their parents, and on a lot of other things… a large majority agree. Progressives, white, rich or otherwise, are in that cohort. The Trump administration, the Senate and, lately, the House of Representatives was on the other side of that divide, making them well within the minority.