By Hal Brown (My frequently updated blog)
When I wrote this email (above, click here to enlarge) and sent it to a few friends early this morning I meant that I literally thought I was going to throw up when, after I decided to catch some sleep at 9 PM (here in Oregon) when I couldn’t stand watching the earlier too close to call returns coming in with Trump ahead. I woke and checked the news at 11PM.
I put on MSNBC and learning that the Republicans had held the Senate and there was a good chance Trump would win I literally felt so nauseous I thought I would throw up.
I managed to fall asleep again and slept until 3:00 AM and put on “Morning Joe” and watched for a half hour and knew I’d never fall asleep so I got up. Steve Kornacki, who knows the politics of all 3,141 countries in the United States, is still there. I don’t know how he does it.
No matter who ends up winning, this is the country we live in. If I ever decide to drive from Oregon to visit old friends in Michigan and Massachusetts I’d take Route 80 which takes me through a part of the country where having a Biden/Harris sticker on my car would make me a target of hostility.
My friend just came back from a trip from Portland to the eastern part of the state which is decidedly right wing. She has a Volvo and says she got dirty looks from other drivers just because they recognized that Volvos were cars often favored by Democrats. See: Republican or a Democrat? your car knows.
We’ve had lots of articles predicting what four more years of Trump and Trumpism will look like. If it comes to pass that we actually have four more years of this nightmare I can’t imagine what I’ll have to write that isn’t being written about by so many others who are far better written than I am and have a large audience in the progressive media. They will be preaching to the choir.
If this all comes to pass our democracy will be on shaky grounds. Our only hope is that the remaining institutions of our republic hold firm to the core values of the country. I wouldn’t write off the Supreme Court as hard right as it now is drawing the line at Trump’s trying to institute a dictatorship even as the gut the Affordable Care Act and make abortion virtually impossible to get.
The press still has power to investigate and report on Trump and his allies transgressions even as he tries to muzzle and denigrate them. He may want to arrest them, or worse, but why bother inciting more outrage when he can just ignore them.
New York State and New York City can still make life very difficult for Trump and his family.
There’s always the hope that now that they’ve been reelected Republican Senators whose seats were in jeopardy can act as a firewall against Trump’s most egregious and alarming power grabs.
The House is still in Democratic hands, although in two years the Republicans can win it back. For two years at least the Democrats still can impeach Trump again if they have a good case and if, a big if, there are enough brave and I hate to use the hackneyed term, patriotic Republicans, he could be removed from office. That would require a huge awakening since it takes a 2/3rds vote.
Not to jump to premature conclusions, but to quote the off-hand remark made famous in pop culture by Yogi Berra:
It ain’t over till it’s over.
There are two songs for where we find ourselves, both from South Pacific:
Trump has, though not particularly carefully but in a an astounding as it is horrible way, taught a large portion of the country to unleash and revel in the hate they already harbored towards people not like them. He even taught them to hate people they never thought of hating.
I hope I am not a cockeyed optimist. I desperately want to hang onto some semblance of optimism that the insane electoral college will allow the will of the majority of the people to prevail.