Tag: #2020Election

  • The GOP is Afraid of Their Base

    Yesterday, Reuters/Ipsos released a national opinion survey that found 79% of Americans believe that Biden won the election, with 13% saying the election hadn’t been decided, 5% said they did not know who had won, while 3% said Trump had won. (Remember, more people didn’t know who won, than believe that Trump won. Just, think about that for a second.) In detail, six in ten Republicans surveyed believe Biden won, as compared to all Democrats who believed Biden won. (There is some more interesting information if you want to read more here.)

    It’s pretty clear that most Americans see the election as being over, and Biden won. I even feel that this survey also confirms my belief, which I wrote about yesterday, that 70 million Trump voters are not all hardcore Trumpers. (Here’s my blog if you need a refresher.)

    So, what gives with all the National Republican/Conservatives sticking up for Trump’s election fraud lies? (If you made it this far, then you know the answer, as you must have read the title of this blog.)

    The GOP is still afraid of their base, which is only getting whiter, more conservative, smaller, and this might be the last election where they could possibly win without having to change their ideology. America is getting more diverse, progressive, and people are moving from strong Democrat states (California, and Illinois) into deep Red states; Texas, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina. If the GOP base is still hardcore loyal to Trump, (that 3% from the Reuters poll, remember) and if that group makes up of 51%+ of the voters who take part in primaries, then don’t make them angry! Republicans have had 10 years of being primaried, and they have learned their lesson if they want to stay in power within their party. Sadly, this situation has killed off all of the Republican moderates, but I’m not the first to point that out.

    The worst part about all of this is that the National Republican/Conservative leaders are playing a very dangerous game with the integrity of all elections in the future. The longer they support or stay silent about false claims of stolen ballots from Trump, they will be giving more oxygen to it, the harder it will be to walk it back.

  • Post Election: Still Worried

    (Oh, and this is just about as cynical of a post you will find.)

    I was excited on Saturday. Amazingly excited, and we drank champagne and went down the block for the dance party in the street. Ding Dong! The Trump was Dead! His reign was over and sanity was to resume in the world. I did shed tears when I saw Vice-President Elect Harris come out, dressed in Suffragette white. Another barrier broken, and a step closer to a more perfect Union.

    Then Sunday morning came, and I could tell the joy was giving way. We went to visit friends who think along the lines that we do, and though they were happy about the win, they were rather pragmatic about the situation on a whole. 70 million voters still support Trump, they said, and why would they stop supporting him?

    Outside of my family, I am still in contact with one open Trump supporter, and that guy sees the election as rigged, the media is still faked and biased, and he started adding that the 2nd Amendment was created for situations like this.

    Well, crap…

    I’m trying to see the world from inside the other person’s shoes, but I keep feeling like the other side has no intention of returning the favor.

    It makes me think that Trump is filling a deep emotional void that half this nation is desperate to have satisfied. It is a hunger that is satiated by a desire to hurt back. Using logic against that pain yields no fruit, and only exasperates the situation.

    What all of this reminds me of is my last job, and trying to get several different departments to work together for the survival of the company. I tried every tactic and trick I knew, from being the first person willing to compromise, to making myself available to any issue or concern they had, but it never worked. The reason was that they never had any intention to work together, or with me. They just wanted to win more than do the right thing. (And in the end, to stave off bankruptcy, the Board laid off half the staff, and cut 1/3 of the departments. Nobody won, and a bunch of good people got hurt.)

    That is where I feel we are.

  • And Waiting

    I pretty much am only thinking about one issue…

  • Watching, Waiting, Hoping

    Just waiting for the final vote counts to come in.

  • America: A Long Way From Great Again

    I know, even as I write this, there is still a good chance that Biden will claw out a win, but that doesn’t make me feel better.

    Actually, I feel worse than I did in 2016.

    I can accept that good people voted for Trump that year because it was a change election, and what the Democrats we’re offering was just more of the institutional same, which wasn’t helping most people.

    After five years of being a public political figure, everyone knows exactly who he is. And still, at this moment, 45% of the voting public wanted four more years of it. Of racism, incompetence, self dealing, corrupt, misogyny, and I could go on, and on.

    That 45% of the country could look at a President like and somehow think a continuation is s as good idea.

    It makes me feel like what I was told about the greatness of America is a lie. That we are not a shining city in a hill, but a people who are giving to our base instincts.

    I now believe that change will come, but not for another generation. The Greatest Generation is gone, and no longer relevant to our body politics. We are dealing with yet another Boomer problem. The Boomers were the last generation to grow up in government sanctioned racism, and though they worked to stop it, a good number of them worked to keep it. It is that upbringing of “acceptable bigotry” is what is holding us all back. We have 20 more years of it.

    Only when Gen-X and the following generations come into political power, will we finally begin to seriously deal with this hate.

    Sadly, I don’t know if America has 20 years left…