Thoughts on the US Election

Or…Where Do We Go From Here?

When I was in high school, I learned an important lesson about debating. It isn’t enough to have a strong position yourself; you need to be able to answer the opposition. And answering the opposition means actually understanding it.

We live in a world of memes, of sound bites, of divided tribes who fail to listen to each other. While the other side has no obligation to listen to you, or you to them, if you actually want to persuade anyone who doesn’t already agree with you, you have to willingly accept that obligation. Your sound bite, like mine, offers no real force of argument outside your bubble…and the people within that bubble are already of like mind.

This is what people mean by “virtue signaling” – we aren’t trying to persuade anyone so much as we are trying to show that we are part of the tribe. Republicans make fun of liberal virtue signaling, ironically using that as a means to virtue signal amongst themselves. We don’t actually look at, talk about, or – gods forbid – attempt to understand the other side on any issue. We snipe and then retreat, and the other side does the same.

We have to do better.

(“Well, why don’t they have to do better?” you ask. I will get to that.)

Eight years ago, I was asked by a gentleman I greatly respect to wait two weeks before jumping into the political debate again. These people were mourning Hilary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump, and they needed time to process. Well, it is two weeks after a decisive Republican victory, where all of Congress as well as the White House turned red. Last time, of course, led to four years of “Russia! Russia! Russia!” rather than an admission of defeat in a fair election, followed by a Joe Biden victory which was also not followed by an admission of defeat in a fair election.

I honestly think that, were it not for Covid, we would be almost done with Trump because Biden would not have won. Not only was this outcome predictable, but I predicted it in 2016 during the primary when the DNC rigged their primary election to prevent their only truly popular candidate – Bernie Sanders – from getting the nomination. To put it in Star Trek terms, the blatancy of the primary election rigging, and fact that the majority of Democratic voters simply denied it or shrugged it off, was when we slipped into the Mirror Universe, and while what has followed domestically and on the word stage is certainly distressing, it is not at all surprising.

(And, yes, media sources contradict that rigging, or contradict the illegality of it, but they do not answer the evidence while doing so. It should be remembered that both Donna Brazile and Elizabeth Warren agreed it was rigged before the DNC got ahead of the story. The DNC also successfully argued in court that, while not admitting to the primary being rigged, they had a right to do so.)

In the wake of the more recent election, I am hearing about people cutting each other off, and have seen people using the Republican victory as an excuse to hurt family and people who would otherwise be considered friends. Honestly, do you really think that half the country is evil? I certainly do not. But I do think that politicians and their media allies have been pushing that narrative for a decade now, and it has eroded American society to an unhealthy degree.

If you understand how FOX media misleads their viewers, then you should be able to understand how MSNBC and CNN do the same for a different niche market. If you understand how MSNBC and CNN do this, you should be able to understand that FOX does the same. Both sides are being sold different versions of reality, but neither side is being presented with an accurate version. Actually talking to each other, and being willing to look at primary sources, helps a lot in gaining a clearer picture of what is actually happening.

The Republicans are not your friends. The Democrats are not your friends. Losing friends or family over either is, frankly, insane. Much of what your party tells you is untrue. That goes for both parties. They have the same donors, and serve the same interests. At this point, the US is an oligarchy, not a democracy. You will never get your democracy back without upsetting the apple cart. Trump may not be the upset you want, but you can be certain that he will not be the last, unless one of two things happens:

(1) Real change happens which disempowers the ultra-wealthy, or

(2) The ultra-wealthy consolidate their power enough to prevent that.

You can take heart that the election was not an overwhelming mandate for conservatism. Those few Democrats who have pushed progressive values actually did well, even where electors where decidedly against Kamala Harris. Where it was a ballot issue, states wanted a higher minimum wage. States have overwhelmingly supported pro-choice policies…so much so that more conservative states are attempting to legislate what happens beyond their borders. You can take these election results to indicate that Americans want progress, but that the electorate largely understands that Democrats block progress rather than enable it. I can’t imagine that supporting a genocide or preventing an end to the conflict in Ukraine which US actions certainly were responsible for has helped the Democrats much, either.

I have argued in the past that being a “social justice warrior” doesn’t help all that much, but being a “social justice cleric” – helping people become better rather than cutting them down or cutting them off – does. While I fully understand that tolerance has limits, I have also argued that intolerance is far from the ideal first reaction. I am arguing the same today.

Why don’t they have to do better? Of course everyone doing better should be our goal. You can help people to do better. You can’t force them.

There is also this: I know that some of you still believe it, but RussiaGate was bullshit. I read the Mueller Report, and I watched his testimony to Congress. I also watched the impeachment proceedings. In both cases, the Republicans came off as far more honest than the Democrats, and the media came off as less honest than either. You might not see it that way, but the majority of voters clearly did. Where we are now is entirely the fault of the Democrats and their enablers. I see no signs that the DNC is going to own their shit, so if we are not going to slide further into dystopia, we need to own ours.

The way I see it, progressives can either try to make allies, or they can give conservatives more reason to ignore and deride them. Making allies requires understanding what other people think, and why, and answering the opposition. My take on Donald Trump is that he really does want to be considered a great president. Yes, it is all about him, but what advantage is there in allowing the “swamp monsters” the only say as to how that should be achieved? Rather than spending the next four years telling him how much you hate him, why not tell him what would make America great? Why not push him to provide universal healthcare when Obama could not?

Or, you know, you can always join the DNC in blaming everyone else, and see where that takes you.