6/5/24

Election countdown
A FATEFUL FORK IN THE ROAD IS 5 MONTHS AWAY

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” – Yogi Berra

ONE OF THE MOST TANTALIZING aspects of the Nov. 5 election – which is just five months away as of today - is the enormous good turn American history will take if voters make the correct choice.
     Much of the focus in the campaign has been about keeping Donald Trump out of the White House, to prevent the man-made catastrophe he and his acolytes have been planning in detail.
     But much less attention has been focused on the positive turn the country will take if voters elect Joe Biden – and not just because Biden is the obvious better choice.
     I believe that the United States is on verge of sweeping advances and reforms far beyond what most of us imagine, bringing the country closer to its idealistic but elusive historic goals.
     Take racism – America’s original and, until now, its perpetual sin.
     I think the county’s increasing diverse population, plus the collective accomplishments of the Civil War, the 1960s civil rights movement and the more recent Black Lives Matter crusade, are about to give birth to an era in which prejudice loses its grip.
     There’s simply too many different kinds of people, of different colors and origins, to tolerate segregation, Jim Crow apartheid and the backlashes that have followed every advance in human rights. The bigots, simply put, will be outnumbered.
     And then there’s climate change. What if, instead of a nearly inevitable disaster, America could lead the world community in an unprecedented global campaign for survival?
     So much is known about the human-generated causes of a warming climate, as well as the emerging technologies which can reverse a burning planet, that it’s no longer a pipe dream to imagine that the planet can - and will - be saved.
     Also, much has been made of the growing divide between rich and poor, not just in the U.S., but throughout the world. Be we also know how to even the scales.
     Housing is an example. Right now, ensuring that every person has an absolute right to a safe and sustaining home, seems hopeless. Houses and apartments are priced beyond the means of increasing numbers of people, particularly young people, forcing a rise in homelessness that now is not only accepted but regarded as a public  nuisance.
     But we know how to build houses and apartments; we know how to do that without destroying open space. We know how to subsidize housing costs when they exceed the buying power of paychecks. We know how to treat substance abuse and mental illness and how to deal with other contributors to homelessness. All that we need to do to provide homes is the will to do it. It’s not hard to imagine a consensus that demands solutions, simply because so many people need a place to live.
     Those are just three of the remarkable opportunities that lie ahead if we choose – in this election – to take the country in one direction and not the other.
     There are so many advances and breakthroughs in the arts, in education, in science, transportation, social science, healthcare, in space and at the bottom of the oceans – that you can practically feel  collective knowledge and creativity straining to be set loose.

WHAT’S CLEAR about this election is the stark nature of the choices.
     We’ve come to a profound cliche, a national fork in the road, one way leading to promise, the other to despair.
     The choice, now merely five months away, is not simply electing Joe Biden, a well-meaning and often competent master of the mundane details of government, or choosing Donald Trump, a felon, liar, rapist, psychopath and dictator-in-waiting determined to destroy democracy.
     The choices we make on Nov. 5 will outlive both men,  who are well beyond their natural and political shelf lives.
     The election of an agingJoe Biden has the potential to open an astonishing future far beyond the outlines of his own policies; while the election of an aging Donald Trump will destroy any hope of advances in equality, ecology, the economy and so much more.
     I don’t mean to say that the Biden second term and the decades beyond will be rosy and without blemish; only that democracy, particularly the freedom to think and speak, fosters progress. Dictatorship crushes creativity, innovation, discovery and dialogue.
    
AT THE BEGINNING of this piece, I quoted one of famous witticisms of the baseball player and manager, Yogi Berra, which seemed to prescribe directionless directions: "When  you come to a fork in the road, take it."
     Actually, Yogi meant what he said.
     According to the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center in New Jersey, Berra was telling his pal, the catcher and broadcaster, Joe Garagiola,  how to get to his home: at the fork, either road would bring him there.
     That is not the case with the electoral fork in the road we’re speeding toward on Nov. 5.
     Swing to the right, and we’re doomed.
     Take a left, and the future is as promising as it is profound.

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