Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Election 2016: Pre-Postmortem


It's over. The long dark teatime of the soul has ended. The electioneering is done, the speeches, the promises, the rhetoric, the misrepresentations and exaggerations, the hyperbolie, the distortions and insinuations, the out and out lies. I haven't blogged in a long while. I've been traveling and visiting with dear, dear friends. And, frankly, I have become exhausted by politics. A large part of the reason is the Trump Show and how absurd it got, barelky worth a comment anymore except to see how close he has come in the polls. But the Donald is right about one thing: the election is rigged. Not FIXED, as in bought by cheating at the polls, but RIGGED. Big money supports all sides. Mike Pence is in the pocket of the Koch Brothers. Trump himself is his own big money if we take his questionable unsubstantiated words on faith. As for Mrs. Clinton, I want to believe that she is not beholding to any special interests but you don't raise so large a warchest without raising the question: whom do you owe? I see her as the real outsider in the election, ironically enough – new wealth, not part of the power elite, and squeezing past every attempt by that elite (through the Republican Party) to tarnish her and ultimately destroy her. But it doesn't matter. Politics is a side show. On November 9 Trump will parlay his presidential run into a TV netowrk and recoup his expenses tenfold. The presidential race was a business investment. Pence will wait for 2020. Hillary will be President and Congress will still do nothing. Merrick Garland will be fast tracked into the Supreme Court by a suddenly desperate lame duck Senate, but that's all. No wonder so many voters are angry – what real choice did they have? Our vote has been co-opted, our choices at the top and down ballot have been hand-picked for us by the wealthy. But that doesn't mean our vote is meaningless. There is a clear choice between Clinton and Trump, a clear difference. And there are the down ballot elections: let the incumbents beware. In the end, it was not a great choice, but it was a clear one: bigotry or civility; isolation or involvement; stagnation or progress; ultra-conservatisom versus progressivism. It's over. You chose. They're counting even as I write these words. And no matter how silly we are or how important we imaginbe ourselves to be, the world will go on. The sun will come out tomorrow. 360,000 people will be born toimorrow, 150,000 will die. The world's human population will increase by 210,000 hungry mouths in that twenty-four hour period, At least one species of life will go extinct. Tomorrow. Songs will be sung, stories told. Problems will be solved, new problems discovered. Who we elect as President is important, may be crucial. But we have heard it before: this is the most important decision ever. Not so. Decision made, it's time to move on.

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