Well its the day after the US Election and I’m more than a little shocked. Sure I learned the primary lesson of 2016 which was to “never count Trump out”, but despite that I went into the election last night thinking that a lot of the early indicators favored Harris. Obviously in the sobering light of mid-morning in which Trump has rightfully declared victory and thus far nearly every declared swing state seemed to go his way, this was tom-foolery.
Trump in recent weeks has taken it upon himself to refer to his political opposition as “the enemy within”. Well as part of his opposition, statements like that have terrified me and a lot of the people I know. As a straight white male who can at least blend in with MAGA if I so choose to, on the surface I have way less to worry about than so many others. However I’m still terrified. I’m an atheist. I’m a progressive socialist. I represent and embody many of the things MAGA claims to overtly hate.
As a true believer in a more egalitarian society, I’m beyond disappointed. I personally believe that the re-election of Trump represents a major step back. However I would be remiss to not mention that this is going to be way worse than that. Republicans have reclaimed control of the Senate. This is not a shocking result, but will serve to bolster Trump’s ability to pass whatever legislation he wants.
“But ITF” I can hear you saying, “they won’t have a filibuster proof majority!” I don’t believe that will matter. Remember Republicans have spent years warning Senate Democrats who were frustrated with the filibuster not to scrap it as it represented a nuclear option. But make no mistake, just like Republicans told Democrats in late 2016 that they wouldn’t vote on Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, because it was “too close to the election” they were only so happy to dispense with that “rule” as soon as they needed to nominate Amy Coney Barrett in late 2020 mere weeks before an election to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Republicans have largely abandoned the traditional conservative principles that defined the party. They have devolved (or evolved, not sure which) into a fascist party. They are no longer the party of Lincoln. So do not make the mistake of depending on prior statements of principle that they used to curtail the ambition of Democrats because I promise you: they will do whatever it takes to effectively wield their newfound lease on the levers of power. This is their once in a lifetime chance to remake our society and I don’t doubt for one second that they will do whatever it takes to take full of advantage of that.
Depressed yet? Shit I haven’t even gotten to the House. While the ultimate fate of who will control the House has yet to be resolved, there aren’t a lot of logical reasons to believe that Republicans won’t at least hold their current slim majority there based on what I’ve seen. If they manage to keep the House majority and they do decide to set the filibuster aside in the Senate, strap the fuck in because shit is going to go south real fast.
Now, rather than close this post out by making even more dire predictions as to what this means for our shared future, I’d like to go a different way instead. In my mind, Democracy has been and always will represent a transitive form of government. By it’s very nature it is meant to produce a successor. It was NEVER going to last forever. The core tenet here is that whatever comes next, the people themselves were the ones who chose it.
Well here we are. A majority of the voting populace just chose Fascism. I won’t pull any punches on that point, because that is precisely what Trumpism actually is. If you disagree, I strongly encourage you to pick up a history book. But if this is the way its going to end, at least Democracy did it’s job and the people picked it. In this respect, it was successful. The real question in my mind is if Democracy leads to Fascism, is it really so great? Perhaps not.
So what comes after our dalliance with Fascism passes? Hopefully we’ll get a chance to experience, explore and discuss it together. That’s a far reaching statement though and most of us will probably remain laser focused on just surviving the next four years.
For those of you unhappy with the fact I made a very political post on my typically tech blog, I want to be very clear: I reserve the right to discuss any topic that I feel will be enhanced by the anonymity I have curated here. Even if you disagree, know that I respect your right to do so even if you chose to not respect mine. Feel free to email me and we can hash it out.
With this in mind I leave you with a quote from one of my favorite books and a quote from a cute video. The quote is from Kurt Vonnegut’s amazing novel Slaughterhouse Five:
So it goes
…and so it does. The video is a clip from one of my favorite stories of all time, “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” and the quote comes from the end of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THSY7-CxKnQ
Curiously enough the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of Petunias while it fell was “Oh no not again”. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of Petunias thought that, we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.
Today we are all the bowl of Petunias.