I remember a time, long ago, when I didn’t vote. I would wake up after the election without a care in the world. Sometimes it was days before I knew who won. I was living day to day, drifting between jobs, and lacking any civic responsibility. I miss those days.
Looking back, the disaster that was the Trump presidency was mostly harmless. Yes, poor people took a beating, and the middle class was squeezed almost out of existence, but most of us survived. If you are willing to ignore the million or so who died from Covid19. America became the butt of jokes around the world and lost our ability to form and honors alliances. But when it was over I think many of us felt a quiet relief it wasn’t any worse.
In many ways, it was similar to a lingering, malignant disease. For years you feel nauseous, with a headache that follows a wave pattern, fluctuating between blinding, crippling pain and a dull, aching misery. One day it was gone, you could remember the pain, the terrible, debilitating agony, but you didn’t feel it anymore. All the sudden, overnight, it was back, and you could feel it all again. And you know, deep inside, it’s going to get worse.
But it isn’t time to give up.
It’s time to join the battle. It’s time to energize the masses, and fight for our country.
The people have spoken and Trump is the president-elect. We must accept that. Only a loser would bicker and fuss and deny certified election results, only a moron with self-esteem issues, only a hollow, confused sociopath with an underdeveloped moral code would try to battle the inevitable. And we should be ashamed to admit too such childish behavior.
Did anybody count those votes, though?
We need to start planning and fighting. 2028 is coming fast.
The DNC may have shot itself in the foot when they forced Biden to step aside. Maybe they sunk the boat in 2020 when they nominated Joe Biden the first time. He carries the weight of the past, a shroud of government service that dates back to the days of the Vietnam war, the Arab oil embargo, the Nixon administration. He is dusty with age and experience, and he was tonic for a nation left reeling and distorted by the unrelenting chaos of the Trump years.
I come to bury Ceaser, not to praise him, the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.
He gave us four years of job growth, guided manufacturing back to the continental US, and made tolerance and kindness acceptable again.
We should thank President Biden for his years of service, and we should thank him for stepping aside when the heat was on. We can debate the wisdom of the decision later and perform the soul-searching the situation demands.
Now it is time to start aiming for 2026, and the senate, and we need to start the long process of winning the White House in 2028. There is no time wait.
You have to wonder how a person could lose to Donald Trump. His campaign speeches were filled with rhetoric demeaning women, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ, any group that wasn’t male, white and upper middle class. He has made it clear he doesn’t believe in worker’s rights, care for senior citizens, or the needs of active duty or retired military members. He is a convicted felon, a rapist, a serial liar, and an incompetent, unsuccessful businessman, and the president-elect. Go figure.
Oh well, we know what we have to do. We need to start getting out the vote for the next election. We need to move the needle. There is plenty of blame and finger pointing and that’s only natural, after a manmade disaster. But we need to stop, we need to start coming together, now.
Instead of dreading the coming darkness we should be gathering together to spread the light. I’ve joined the ACLU, I’ve volunteered with the DNC. There are things we can do, all of us. Don’t think we can’t make a difference, we can.
See you in brighter times.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
