Do The Math
Sit out this election and you may be responsible for the darkness democracy will die in.
Barack Obama’s conclusion in his 2020 book A Promised Land says it all:
And so the world watches America—the only great power in history made up of people from every corner of the planet, comprising every race and faith and cultural practice—to see if our experiment in democracy can work. To see if we can do what no other nation has ever done. To see if we can actually live up to the meaning of our creed.
Youth of America! Black, brown, woke and agitated! Do the math!
There is no scenario where re-electing the 46th most insufferable president the US has ever had to suffer will be considered a “good thing”, or a positive step, or even a minor inconvenience. And I am not talking about the actual 46th president who has been light years better than his predecessor in every category imaginable — including makeup and hairstyle.
I don’t care how the New York Times wants to frame it.
First of all, the predecessor who — were he not white, elderly, connected, straight and worth more than he ever should have been (thanks to all forms of media starved for relevance and revenue) — ought to be serving multiple life sentences for the trauma he’s inflicted on this country rather than muttering, mumbling and mindlessly word-masturbating every time you put him in front of a microphone, camera or crowd filled with mind-softened, maleficent morons. That includes those jockeying furiously to be his waterboy come November.
But let me tell you how I really feel…
The man I speak of is a vile person but it’s the Americans who choose not to vote or “vote their conscience” in a state that reason cannot afford to lose (aka “swing states”, the only states that truly matter) who will be the people ushering in the darkness. Our fellow insouciant or short-sighted Americans, who will gladly cut off their noses to spite themselves, hold our fates with their votes.
Whether they vote at all, or whether they decide to spite-vote, because it’s all about them. More on that later.
Think about all that’s happening currently — locally, regionally, nationally and globally. Think about the malevolence that has been unleashed. The bomb threats, the doxxing, the online flaming, the confrontational cross-protesting, the intolerance no longer kept under control, the death threats to public servants at every level.
One group of politicians and their followers are egging on the toxicity. Pushing the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Pushing all the lies that dribble out of the man-child’s mouth like the spittle he can no longer control. January 6th felons are rebranded as hostages and patriots. Rule breakers are canonized. Trespassers are lionized.
Kids “learned’ during the Clinton years that blow jobs weren’t considered to be “sex”. Conservatives harrumphed and blew up the airwaves for weeks and weeks talking about the degradation of society and how their children’s minds were being warped.
And maybe they were.
What do you think children are learning now?
They’re learning some awful lessons and, if he is granted another term, those lessons will be the least of our worries but they should be something that keeps you awake at night. The lesson you won’t want your children to learn will be: that empathy is for losers.
I have never publicly heard the former president utter one empathetic thing. Please correct me if I’m wrong and show me the evidence
That rules, although interesting, are irrelevant.
This may be the single most attractive trait MAGA voters see in the Celebrity Apprentice star.
The brashest and loudest voices win the day.
Who knew how many Americans craved arrogance in their leader?
Snotty attitudes are elevated, celebrated and admired.
You might think it is bad now but, if the mayor of Mar-a-Lardo wins re-election, the right wing screech monkeys will be vindicated and — what happens next — will most likely look like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I don’t mean the destruction visited upon New Orleans. I mean the lawlessness that descended upon New Orleans. Every agency with a badge, gun and government-looking ride was in charge. It did not matter how minor their actual role was prior to the natural disaster.
As you can imagine, none of them were liberals and few of them were minorities.
If you want to know what life in America would be like after a vindictive president decides to evoke the Posse Comitatus Act, read Zeitoun. Zeitoun is Dave Eggers non-fiction novel about a Syrian-American’s experience during and after Hurricane Katrina. Being a minority exacerbated the problem. But not being one of the cool kids with a badge and a firearm was only marginally better.
There will be an unleashing of the hounds with a second term of the whiniest tycoon the world has ever known. I understand Palestinian-Americans have a beef with Joe Biden, but DOES ANYONE RECALL the first edict — Executive Order 13769 — the last president tried to jam down the country’s throat? Does anyone remember the guy’s fawning over Israel’s far right government? Giving a stamp of approval for Jerusalem to be the capitol of Israel?
I don’t care how you cut it, as a minority, your status will decline in an America ruled by this particular family with German heritage. Palestinians will still be searching for cover from bombs and dying from famine and Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu will have carte blanche to do whatever he so desires.
Young, progressive voters! There is no scenario where the things that you are passionate about will improve under a second term of a man who reveres dictators, sneers at political correctness and does not support any sort of social safety net. His administration will take away as many of your rights as they think they can get away with.
Here’s how minister and writer John Pavlovitz so succinctly puts it:
Not voting for President Biden isn't penalizing Joe Biden, it's penalizing women, LGBTQ people, people of color, immigrants, indigenous people, Muslims, Jews, the sick, the elderly, the poor, and pretty much every person here and elsewhere who will be irreparably harmed by a second Trump term—not to mention, Democracy, America, and the planet.
So, go out and protest. Scream your demands through a megaphone. Stand up for your rights. Make your voice heard. For there is a lot to be angry and passionate about in the second coming of the Roaring 20s and neither political party is without blame.
But, when the time comes, make your voice heard once more in the voting booth because if the Grand Old Party of angry, white dudes get their way, you’re going to have a much harder time being heard under their version of America.
~~~
Please. Do the math.
I will take a candidate with empathy over a candidate with no empathy every day of the week and, as they say…twice on Sunday.
As I told a couple of friends and readers, “this is what I want to write about every time I sit down to write.” This essay by Kirsten Powers of the New York Times encapsulates just about everything I’ve considered since my high school days when I swam against the tide of consumerism and brought my lunch in a brown paper bag that I would use until it literally disintegrated.
Why we are buying land in Italy
Also - Great essay by Robert Reich. I wish Mark Twain’s quote regarding lies and truth was not so true.
A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.
Of course, AI has unearthed an earlier quotation which might have instructed Mark Twain:
Falsehood will fly, as it were, on the wings of the wind, and carry its tales to every corner of the earth; whilst truth lags behind; her steps, though sure, are slow and solemn, and she has neither vigour nor activity enough to pursue and overtake her enemy…
It is from a sermon Thomas Francklin wrote in 1787.
In any event, imagine if the opposite were true.
Anyway, Reich’s column, as usual, is much needed…perspective.