Month: November 2020

Count every vote in Arizona! But not in Pennsylvania and Georgia!

California is our largest state, with 55 electoral votes. Did any of the talking heads spend any time talking about it last night? Of course not. The election revolves around a handful of votes in a few smaller states. Millions of Californians just voted to run up the score in a completely meaningless way.

That’s objectively ridiculous. I renew my argument for awarding electoral votes proportionately. This situation has to change.

Life in the time of Trump.

And now we sit and wait.

It’s too soon to say for sure

That love defeated hate.

I can’t tell you who’s ahead

Or what the future brings.

But millions of Americans

Just voted for a king.

As I write this, the result of the presidential election is unknown, and the nightmare scenario looms, minus any widespread militia activity outside of polling places. Even if Biden ultimately wins, which is hardly assured, the notion that a president with such appalling qualities, and such a terrible record, could be that competitive is nothing short of shameful. Why is it happening?

Just look at the maps. This election is about the urban/rural split. Trump hasn’t done anything to make people in rural areas safer or more prosperous, so this is a culture war election, pure and simple. Culture trumps everything in this country, including respect for institutions and the law. Period. Even the deaths from the virus barely mattered.

And so, if you’re associated with the protests, or BLM, or the 1619 Project, understand that Trump was running against you, not Biden, and a large percentage of Americans hates you. The transformative moment that you thought had arrived is still years in the future. Fair or not, that’s the way it is.

Life in the time of Trump.

Election Day is here.

Today we march on to the polls

With hope instead of fear.

We know that Trump will try to cheat.

His ego’s on the line.

A blue wave looms if the vote is fair

And that suits me just fine.

What if the Chinese had a hypersonic missile that killed over 200,000 Americans. Would Trump be saying “It is what it is?” Would the GOP acquiesce?

Of course not. As with the hypothetical that I posed many months back about climate change, this illustrates the fact that the GOP is not really interested in protecting Americans from external threats. Part of the reason is the need for collective (i.e., governmental) action, which they hate, but they have no objection to big government when it is fighting wars instead of doing contact tracing. No, the real reason for the difference is that there is a suitably macho response to a military attack, but not to a virus or to climate change. If your brand is toxic masculinity, you have no answer to the virus except to downplay it and move on.

For whatever reason, Trump has clearly convinced the mainstream of GOP voters that he is the only thing standing between real America and the “radical left.” The irony, of course, is that Trump himself has moved the needle to the left by convincing left-center voters that everything he says and does is illegitimate and, well, evil.

Other than his disdain for liberal democratic norms, it may well be his most enduring legacy as president.

A column in the NYT a few days ago made the point that Trump’s blustery, whiny masculinity was completely inconsistent with the paradigm of the strong, silent, self-sacrificing man that prevailed in the World War II generation. I agree; it is an argument I have made in previous post.

So who was the actual antecedent of the Trump persona? I think it is the medieval knight–obsessed with status, prepared for war at all times, and contemptuous of peasants and workers (i.e., “losers”).

Now, that’s really old school!

In a similar vein to the last post, I’ve observed that commercials for GOP House candidates have frequently focused more on their unconditional support for Trump than for the usual rancid cocktail of Republican policies. What happens to these people if they win and he loses in a blue tsunami?

The hope is that they will try to recreate a responsible center-right party based on markets and small government. The fear is that they will double down on the new theories of minority rule by and for white Christians. Right now, I don’t know which way the mop flops.

We just drove from North Carolina to our home in Florida in order to vote on Tuesday. That has kind of a biblical feel to it. It’s also sixty degrees warmer than it was when we left.

On the way, we saw a number of billboards telling us that only God and Donald J. Trump could save America. Obviously, the message here is that Orange Jesus is the real deal. I have the following questions:

1. If God is God and Trump is Jesus, who is the Holy Ghost? Mike Pence? I suppose he kind of looks and sounds the part.
2. What happens to the people who believe this if Trump loses?