Election Reaction: Part 2
/As I write this, Joe Biden stands on the brink of a presidency. Hooray! Aside from all the banner headlines to come, I also have three smaller sidebar thoughts:
(1) Exhaustion. It’s not just the cable news hosts and numbers crunchers—all of America is in a state of exhaustion. What everyone wanted settled on election night has run into the weekend. My reaction? Thank God.
What we spent the week riding was a national cushion--multiple days to get used to an eventual outcome. Which also provided multiple ways to dissipate what otherwise could have been violence in the streets. Of course, I believe the threat existed most in the case of a sudden and sweeping Biden victory. I envisioned the “militias” and their weapons out on the streets. Certainly, that might happen anyway, but I’m convinced to a far lesser extent.
As Trump goes through his own slow-motion process of grieving, so will they. To whatever degree this exhaustion has created national numbness, let it act as a counterbalance to rage.
(2) New heroes. It’s doubtful that any country celebrates its military more than America. But with the advent of COVID-19, we declared a new set of heroes in the form of the “front line” workers trying to save lives inside hospitals and care centers. In the process, they endangered themselves--and some died.
In a smaller, shorter, but still consequential sense, I’d like to nominate a third group of heroes: all the people who showed up at polling places and counting centers to make this monumental and pressure-filled tabulation a shining model of efficiency—and fairness. Their ranks include Democrats, Republicans, and independents. As well as governmental leaders in every state and county who fought to uphold the laws and the Constitution.
Yes, our doctors and nurses help fight for our health. But those election workers helped fight for our democracy.
(3) Emergencies. There are multiple ways that this transition in leadership will be unlike any before it. (For example, how long would it take for you to be assured the entire White House was sanitized down to the underlayment before you moved in?)
More to the point, the pandemic has escalated to new heights. Meanwhile, there is no relief in sight for millions of more Americans who are running out of money. This is the time for true patriots to come together to help each other out. (That means you, too, Mitch McConnell.)
I hope that as part of his acceptance, Biden sincerely offers to meet with Trump any place and any time he wants to mutually and immediately set the course on new solutions. It would be irresponsible to waste two months before diving in.
Why would Trump do this? Maybe he wouldn’t. But it would offer a way to keep him in the spotlight for another sixty days…which, to him, is as vital as oxygen.
I’m hoping to hear the race called as soon as possible.
There is so much work to be done.
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