In just over a week, Americans who haven’t already gone to the polls to cast their ballots will be doing so. In just over a week, the country will vote for who the president of their country will be for the next four years. Touted as the most important election in American history, people will (hopefully) be voting as though their lives depended on it. At least that’s how they’re marketing it.
I’m seeing a lot of pearl-clutching on social media now as November 3 approaches. People so desperate for Biden to win are doing everything short of praying to God (since most of them are atheists) to make sure Joe takes it. And, of course, the vitriol from the so-called ‘rational’ side is bubbling to the surface, further dashing any and all faith I had in humanity once more.
People I once respected as scientists, critical thinkers, and rational human beings are now spouting things like ‘Fuck the GOP’, ‘Kill Trump’, ‘Burn the constitution’, and other things that make me realize that Thucydides was right: Faced with the unthinkable, there is no rationality. It’s all physis, no more nomos.
It makes me wonder if we can even consider ourselves rational or above our primate ancestors. Sure, we have the ability to create and invent tools to make our lives easier, but in the end we’re just as rabid and rage-filled as any animal in the wild, especially when things don’t go our way. I guess this election cycle is bringing all that out in the US, and I’m seeing them the way I used to see them years ago:
Arrogant, self-centered, entitled, and incapable of mature thought in the face of adversity, perceived or actual.
Words like ‘resist’ and ‘ACAB’ are becoming commonplace. I thought the US was realizing MLK’s dream of judging people based on their character instead of the color of their skin. However, BLM demands preferential treatment in the name of equality, though to me it sounds more like revenge. The thing is, if they had the power…if we gave it to them…would they know what to do with it? Do some people actually believe that homes are just doled out to white people because they’re white? Do jobs go to white people just because they’re…well, to be fair I think there might be a case for that in some circumstances.
So what if Trump wins next week? What then? The Dems won’t be quiet, will they? Of course not. Russia, pee tapes, and voter fraud will all come up again as the left tries desperately to oust him. Even after the mail-in ballots come trickling back in, what if it’s not enough? What if the numbers are so fucking decisive that no amount of spin can deny it? I think that’s what has to happen to either side for them to win. It can’t be a marginal victory…it has to be a hammer-blow to certify that there is a definite winner.
If it is Trump, I know the left is going to go insane. Social media will go super-nova with screams and protests as keyboard warriors gather for battle with their copious amounts of ice cream, Xanax, Mountain Dew, and whatever else they like to cram into their faces when banging away at the computer. Hollywood will try to flex their muscle as well, somehow believing they still have some influence on the public. Sadly, I think they still do, which really makes me wonder if I should be spending my Scene points on food rather than movie tickets. Does Hollywood really deserve my money after they’ve gone out of their way to demonize me for being born the way I am?
If Biden wins, I worry that nothing will change. We’ll be back to business as usual and instead of getting things done, the Dems will try to just ride the euphoria of vanquishing the Orange Man for the next 8 years and possibly beyond. They’ll use it the way Bush used 9/11: as a club to beat America over the head with to remind them of why they’re in power. What, you don’t like that we enacted black-preferred hiring practices at a federal level? Remember, we got rid of the Orange Man…you should be thanking us.
Personally, I don’t see this election ending well, regardless of who wins. There will be screams of protest, cries of unfairness, and riots that will make George Floyd’s fallout look like a warm-up to the real thing. The country will be further splintered, and I’m not sure if it will ever recover. If it does, it won’t be for years as the next generation tries to feel its way through the realities of life and how to run a country.
I do hope that if the Dems win that people will be watching them like hawks, and pointing out everything they do that doesn’t pass the sniff test. I know I’ll be watching…and comparing to what Trump did and what they called him out on. I’d love nothing more than to show everyone that the problem wasn’t Trump, but the system as a whole…that all their ‘resisting’ and ‘defunding’ and ‘lives mattering’ did nothing but make the wheel turn once more, only now they have less.
Eight days…just over a week…
I’ll be up here, munching on popcorn while the country below me burns…