I Was So, So Wrong
A little over a week ago, I posted “We Cannot Blame Trump Anymore,” in which I gave a sense of what a second Trump term boded for his rural, working class, non-college acolytes. I did not believe they, and the nation, would choose such a future after a Biden term that came out of the pandemic better than any economy in the world, added millions of jobs, revitalized the manufacturing sector, avoided the seemingly inevitable recession, and returned the United States to a position of prestigious leadership abroad. I also did not believe Arab Americans would vote for a man sure to let Netanyahu’s Israel pulverize Gaza to an even worse degree, or Latino men would vote for someone who referred to those like them as drug dealers and rapists.
Couple that with the fact that the nation had already experienced four years of Trump’s chaotic, kleptocratic leadership and even forgetting what a despicable human he is, or January 6 and his felony convictions, I simply did not believe my country would make such a choice.
But is this still my country?
Can anything now reverse our descent into a caricature of democracy, ruled by hate, fear, intolerance, and a perversion of Christianity?
I am just not sure.
It will end up being 51/48 so in that sense it's still practically just as much your country and mine as anyone else's.
It is a shocking loss, to be sure. And the price we pay will be heavy. But we cannot give up. Those of us who hold the values and principles that we do must fight on. There is no other choice or option. Some may choose to emigrate, or drop out. But that is a false choice because the repercussions of this election will follow us around the globe. We must choose to stand and fight and to continue for as long as it takes to reverse the tide of autocracy and corruption.