As it stands right now, we’re entering the litigation phase of this hotly contested election. I still can’t tell you how things will turn out, though my gut says Biden will take it in the end. I have a few thoughts, and a few things for those who voted Biden should keep in mind over the next four years should he win.
First and foremost, I’m looking forward to a year off from political ads, and a general decompression from electoral politics once things are decided. Of course, nothing could be decided in the courts and we could never hear the end of it or a huge meteor that we didn’t see coming could hit us tomorrow, who knows for sure? But assuming that the results and following recounts/lawsuits changes nothing, what happens next is entirely a result of choosing against something. We seemed to chose style over substance, and if that is what we’re choosing as a nation, then so be it. The same issues will still exist, the same divisions. Nothing will have magically changed. My concerns are that the Democrats have used the anger generated through the media as a way to gain power, and that once in place, the coalition of people they assembled will be dismissed. I would also seriously pay attention to the media portrayal of a Biden/Harris administration.
Additionally I’m concerned that the shutdowns will be lifted, again covered by the media as necessary to undo the damage done to the economy by Trump or some such cover. And while it will be nice to finally have the economy open again, the politics of the situation will become very plain. Of course, it could all be locked down again and everything goes down the tubes again, but I don’t see that as most likely. I do think that a schism is going to happen within the Democratic party, that the coalition, no longer bound by their mutual loathing of Trump, will begin to eat their own. I worry what collateral damage it will do as the disparate groups jockey for power.
I have often seen videos of minority people who decided to break from the mainstream opinion being called all sorts of vile, terrible names, ones that would in any other circumstance would earn calls of racism. The suggestion that minorities of any stripe are not capable of success is the true notion of white supremacy, and that isn’t being spouted from the conservative side. As Malcolm X said, “The worst enemy that the Negro have is this white man that runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros and calling himself a liberal, and it is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have. If the Negro wasn’t taken, tricked or deceived by the white liberal, then Negros would get together and solve our own problems. I only cite these things to show you that in America, the history of the white liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negros think that the white liberal was going to solve our problems. Our problems will never be solved by the white man.” As a Libertarian, I don’t expect to solve the problems of others, I can barely solve my own problems. But there are those out there claiming that they will do just that.
And to those who have placed their entire identity on hatred of Trump, what now? Who becomes your next enemy to vanquish? What becomes your next quest? What person, group, or idea fills the vacuum of hate that will be left at the departure of Trump? For a group that calls itself empathetic and compassionate, I find it nearly comical how that standard is void for people who you disagree with.
I will continue to live my life, to treat everyone with respect, and sort people into the only two categories that matter: a-holes and non-a-holes. And that judgment is personal and completely contextual, and as with everything, subject to change without notice.
A Place 4Politics 