11/5/24

DAY OF DREAD & HOPE: THE ELECTION FINALLY ENDS

ILLUSTRATION CREDIT: Frank Gerardi

THIS IS THE DAY.
     I’ve dreaded it for years, and yet I’m glad the final day of voting is here. The campaign had to be finished at some point, and there is much to rejoice in looking back at what has been accomplished.
     America is threatened as at no time since the Second World War, and I think the nation has battled back with energy, ingenuity and courage.
     Millions upon millions of people recognize that Donald Trump is out to destroy democracy and corrupt our culture.
     It is amazing to me that one man could hate the country so thoroughly as he does, turning liberals like me into zealous flag-wavers, the kind of super patriots we used to scorn in the Cold war days.
     Some of the most startling counter-Trumpsters have been Republicans like Liz and Dick Cheney and even Mike Pence, who did the right thing at the right time on Jan. 6, 2021.
     Some of the sharpest and most insightful commentary has come from conservatives.
     Millions of "ordinary" Americans, as if there are such creatures, have donated a billion-plus dollars to Harris, visited battleground states to knock on doors, dispatched post cards, joined Democratic phone banks, argued with relatives, attended rallies, phoned talk shows, listened to podcasts, scoured newspapers and hollered at TV screens.
     I have said this before, turning 82 personally has had plenty of downsides, but among the benefits has been the privilege of being around to witness this crusade to defend American democracy.

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 IT’S NOT BEEN PERFECT, of course, the campaign to rescue a country.
     The major news organizations have done a fine job letting us know the ups and downs of campaign events.
     You and I could not know the terrible threat of a Trump second term without the remarkable journalism of the New York Times and the Washington Post.
     Yet, both of these great surviving newspapers betrayed their readers and the country.
     The Times has failed to treat the danger Trump represents as an unqualified, unquestionable threat to the country, of the sort you might expect as if an asteroid were headed our way. Instead, it has portrayed a largely normal campaign, airbrushing Trump’s betrayal and downplaying Harris’s emergent  leadership.
     The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos, let down his readers and reporters by withdrawing, at the last minute, an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris, an obvious move to curry favor with Trump, should he win.
      (My wife notes Bezos's disregard for his reporters' safety, in light of Trump's constant attack on reporters, saying recently he wouldn't mind if would-be assassins turned their guns on the journalists covering his rallies).
      My personal nomination for cowardice goes to present-day folk signer-songwriters, offspring of a noble earlier generation that  gave voice to the civil rights and anti-war crusades of the 1960s and 1970s. But today’s singer-poets have had nothing to sing about when it comes to Donald Trump.
     I’m guessing why: they feared losing half or more of their audiences if they trained their satire and psychic insights toward Donald Trump, and maybe they were scared of Trump's legal attacks and being blacklisted by radio and web-hosting monoliths. Sing a song of shame.
      And what to make of the Republican Party “leadership,” and most of all, the Trump faithful, who have been blind and deaf to Trump’s vulgarity, authoritarianism, violence, cruelty and brutality.

UNTIL TODAY, it has been comforting to know that the election was somewhere down the road, with enough time to work and strategize our roles in the campaign, and, frankly, to bask safely  in Joe Biden’s democracy.
     So, I hated the relentless turning of the calendar, and then to come to the end of October and now the beginning of November.
     In our family, November is usually a special month: my wife’s birthday is at the end of election week, my grand daughter’s birthday arrives shortly after that; and capping it all is the best of all American holidays, Thanksgiving.
     What are those celebrations going to be like if . . . ?

 I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how this will end.
     I have avoided anything about the polls, because early in the campaign they took the focus off the critical issues – democracy versus dictatorship – and also, because common sense says that accurate polling seems impossible.
     Who in their right mind answers a phone call from a pollster? And those who do, it seems to me, have an agenda – either to hide their true intentions, or to poison the survey with corrupt answers.
     So, maybe the race IS tied. My guess is that the outcome will be anything but close, and victory will be quickly apparent and well-defined. I just don’t know if that imagined big margin will belong to Trump or to Harris.
     In my hometown, Newport, R.I., I have yet to see ONE Trump sign, although I'm told there are some, and I've seen only a smattering of Harris posters.
     There are plenty of local city council and school committee campaign signs, so it’s not like Newport residents have lost the skill of planting a poster or two or seven on their front lawns, hedges and fences.

    But I take no comfort in the famine of Trump and Harris signs. My guess is that residents simply don’t want their fellow citizens to know their thinking when it comes Harris vs. Trump, and a lack of lawn decorations avoids conflicts, arguments and grudges erupting before and after the election.

LIKE EVERYONE ELSE,  I have been amazed at the dynamics of the election.
     Who could have predicted that two disasters, the Supreme Court’s abortion decision and Joe Biden’s debate debacle, have given Democrats a fighting chance, with abortion becoming a defining issue and Kamala Harris emerging as an instant  maestro of the political orchestra.
     I’m disappointed that some of the country’s most challenging issues – climate change, economic inequality, racism and the conflicts in Ukraine and Middle East – have not been central to  the campaign.
     Still, I think the voters need all they need to know: Trump will ruin America; Harris will advance it.
     My expectation is a definitive Harris win.
     But that’s just me. I have no insight, special antennae or any way of measuring the pulse of America, scientifically or otherwise.
     Like many, I have daily panic attacks about the human catastrophe that would follow a Trump victory.
     I am not a brave man. I don’t know what kind of a resistance fighter I would be if Trump wins. Not as fierce and relentless as I would wish. Especially knowing that however awful his regime can be imagined now, the reality will be far worse.
     Every day, I allow myself to imagine the relief, joy and celebration of a New America that a Harris victory will unleash.
     Especially today, I’m filled with hope.