The world changed one week ago today, when not only the Electoral College total but the popular vote in the American presidential election went to the most manifestly unfit creature imaginable. Since then, I have kept asking myself where we went wrong.
On the day after the election, my friend Trang sent me this insightful article by Carlos Lozada: "Stop Pretending [Der Furor] Is Not Who We Are." Contrary to President Biden's insistent refrain that "this is not who we are," it is now obvious, as Mr Lozada eloquently explains, that it is who we are.
And my friend Mike pointed me to another sad, but important article, this one by Democratic strategist Max Burns: "America Will Regret Its Decision to Reelect Donald Trump."
These two articles are both long, but offer important insights into what happened and why we allowed it to do so. They say what I had wanted to say in my own words in this post, so I hope you will take the time to read them and think deeply about what they say about today's America ... about who we are, the choices we've made, and why we made them.
We've done it to ourselves, just as millions of Germans did in the 1930s. In the words of the famous (if controversial) curmudgeon and commentator Henry L. Mencken, which I quoted in the Ass Clown Special Award I presented last week,
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
We will. Unfortunately, the cost of the bitter lesson will be paid not only by those deluded into voting for one of the most awful human beings ever to draw breath, but by the rest of us, too.
It's going to be a long four years, and the education will be tough.
Have a good day. More thoughts coming.
Bilbo
1 comment:
I need to start a countdown clock.
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