I am relieved by the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris but I am queasy about the transition.
It’s like we found some extra grog for the sailors below deck but we are still a long way from port and mutiny remains a possibility.
The theories ricocheting around the internet are boundless. Alternate realities are to blame. Systemic racism is to blame. Bro Culture is to blame (and I am not talking about Bernie Bros). Our Constitution being weaker than we thought is to blame.
It feels like Stockholm syndrome to me. Not just from the last four years, but from the last four decades.
It’s like Lucy and Charlie Brown and the goddamn football she never allows him to kick.
Conservative, authoritarian, father figures believe they know above all else - they and their God - what’s best for the country and they are willing to use scorched earth tactics to achieve their goals. If you are unfamiliar with scorched earth tactics (the descriptor really tells you all you need to know) it’s the idea that you need to destroy the village in order to save the village. It was a very popular tactic in Vietnam using napalm.
I’ve been trying to keep a positive tone and I will continue to do so, but I don’t think we can let down our guards for a second.
Conservative, authoritarian, father figures who are more motivated by greed and money than serving their country are not to be trusted. They have run roughshod over American politics for a very long time bullying a malleable group of moderates and centrists in BOTH parties into either doing their bidding or getting out of the way so that they could have their way with America.
In 2020, they are getting some pushback. As a consequence, they are bearing their teeth. I don’t think they see this as “politics” any longer. The election of a Black man in 2008 stung. For 8 years they fought to neuter him. Make him inconsequential. For the most part, they succeeded.
For the past forty years they have been succeeding in all kinds of fronts. Courts on every level, state legislatures, reducing tax rates for the well-to-do, forestalling progress toward dealing with climate change, gutting or rolling back regulations, banging the drum for endless, useless (except for the defense contractors) wars. Conservative, authoritarian, father figures have been winning ‘bigly’ for decades.
This election has them shook. Despite their best efforts, the non-conservatives either outfoxed them at cheating or - the more frightening thought for them - minorities are beginning to understand the role they have to play in political “king-making.”
Americans don’t see our apartheid, just like we do see ourselves as exceptional. Believe me, those conservative, authoritarian, father figures who are predominantly white (but not all) know where the “walls” of apartheid are and how they are deployed. They know their stranglehold on many aspects of American society will be loosened or removed if apartheid falls. Meaning. . . if the war on drugs ended, if mass incarceration was reimagined, if police were funded less extravagantly, if mail-in voting was universal, if voter ID laws were abandoned, if public education was adequately and equally funded. . .
From what I can tell, this is where we stand right now.
“Normal” politicians are behaving dangerously. Acting irrationally. Hitching their cart to a cause that was legitimately lost. They are behaving similarly to the aristocracy of the South just prior to the Civil War. The Southern aristocracy was apoplectic over the idea that they might become less rich than they were before, that their authority would be put in question and that Black folks would be free to roam the countryside.
These fears were realized after the Civil War during Reconstruction.
I don’t think the enmity created during that episode of our history has quit reverberating through the generations. We are still fighting that war and its aftermath.
The historian Heather Cox Richardson said the other day that AOC reminded her of the progressive Republicans during the Eisenhower era. Hard to imagine. Where did they go?
I think those Republicans were the same authoritarian father figures. They were okay with Black folks as long as they knew their place. They were okay with Black folks as long as they weren’t competing for the dollars they saw as rightfully theirs. They were okay with Black folks as long as they had no legitimate political power. They were okay with Black folks if they would just not speak up.
That all changed with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the unrest of the ‘60s.
Today’s Republicans are threatened by diversity. They are threatened by a female vice president, even more so by a Black female vice president, more so still by an intelligent, Black, female vice president. They are threatened by the idea that - one of these days - the truth may rise to the surface. The truth about what they have been willing to do to maintain their grip on power.
The safeguards of our system are holding. They are working. I expect a peaceful transition to take place in January.
But I am still queasy.
Even drunken sailors can be mutinous.
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Many of you have probably already seen this but, if you haven’t, even though it’s a one-trick pony kind of joke, it’s a fun watch. Thanks - once again - to my assistant content provider and AAR, Nancy Enz Lill.
Also, due to the content above, I thought I would share one of my favorite “folk” singers, Todd Snider and one of his more notable songs, Conservative, Christian, etc.:
Conservative Christian, right wing Republican, straight, white, American male.
Gay bashin’, black fearin’, poor fightin’, tree killin’, regioal leaders of sales
Frat housin’, keg tappin’, shirt tuckin’, back slappin’ haters of hippies like me.
Tree huggin’, peace lovin’, pot smokin’, porn watchin’ lazyass hippies like me.
Tree huggin’, love makin’, pro choicen, gay weddin’, widespread diggin’ hippies like me.
Skin color-blinded, conspiracy-minded, protestors of corporate greed,
We who have nothing and most likely will ‘till we all wind up locked up in jails
By conservative Christian, right wing Republican, straight, white, American males,.
Diamonds and dogs, boys and girls, living together in two separate worlds
Following leaders of mountains of shame, looking for someone to blame.
Diamonds and dogs, boys and girls, living together in two separate worlds
Following leaders of mountains of shame, looking for someone to blame.
I know who I like to blame:
Conservative Christian, right wing Republican, straight, white, American males,
Soul savin’, flag wavin’, Rush lovin’, land pavin’ personal friends to the Quayles
Quite diligently workin’ so hard to keep the free reins of this Democracy
From tree huggin’, peace lovin’, pot smokin’, barefootin’ folk-singin’ hippies like me.
Tree huggin’, peace lovin’, pot smokin’, porn watchin’ lazyass hippies like me.
Thanks for reading, sharing, liking, responding and feeding me content to share as well. - JLM