{"id":1121,"date":"2020-11-06T21:44:24","date_gmt":"2020-11-07T02:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/?p=1121"},"modified":"2020-11-13T23:48:35","modified_gmt":"2020-11-14T04:48:35","slug":"election-2020-mister-rogers-won-greg-stillson-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/election-2020-mister-rogers-won-greg-stillson-lost\/","title":{"rendered":"Election 2020: Mister Rogers Won; Greg Stillson Lost"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
President-Elect Joe Biden, Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, and Jill Biden and Doug Emhoff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(Note: As of this writing, even though Joe Biden has so obviously won the election that even my cat who eats her own hairballs can probably see it, no news organizations have officially called the race for him yet. I don\u2019t know what the hell they\u2019re waiting for but here at my blog, we don\u2019t bullshit around for ratings, or to spare some tiny-fingered fascist\u2019s feelings. Biden won. He is President-Elect. Deal with it.)<\/p>\n

(Also, this entry is scattershot as hell. It\u2019s been a long emotional week and I\u2019m shot, and also drunk. And more than a little angry.)<\/p>\n

So on Tuesday night as I settled in to surf election results online, I felt a terrible sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. Even though Democrats had warned for weeks that the early voting returns that night would create a \u201cred mirage\u201d\u2014an illusion that Trump was doing better than he was due to the initial tally of in-person votes most likely to lean Republican\u2014and that the mail-in ballots used in large part by Democrats who were trying to avoid COVID would turn the tide, it was all too easy to recall the raw anguish of 2016 as I watched state after state seem to slip away:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOK, Biden was probably never getting Florida. Texas was a pipe dream. So was Georgia. And…Ohio. Oh no, not Wisconsin. Pennsylvania? Really? How many more people have to die before voters wake the hell up?\u201d Those fucking polls I swore I would never trust again after 2016 but did anyway had gotten everything wrong. Again<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The surprise Arizona call for Biden slowed the rush of despair a little, but I still felt terrible as\u00a0more key states tilted red. This couldn’t be happening again, only it was.<\/p>\n

Or was it?\u00a0I watched MSNBC for a little while and saw Democratic consultants looking completely unbothered (entirely unlike 2016), and Biden himself came out around midnight to make a brief speech in which he sounded calm, confident, and assured. Things were looking good, he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And he was right.\u00a0By the time I finally went to bed, the blue shift Democrats had long predicted was underway.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

True story: Way back in 1988, I took one look at Joe Biden during the Democratic primaries and said to myself \u201cThat man is going to be president some day. Not this time, but some day.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Obama picked him as VP in 2008, I thought maybe my psychic brainwave got its signals a little crossed or something, but no matter. Being the veep\u00a0in an historic and respected administration seemed like a good note to end a long career on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Except that Biden himself had other ideas.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Make no mistake: Joe Biden was not my first choice for the Democratic nomination this year. (That was Elizabeth Warren, who I still think would have been an excellent president.) He wasn\u2019t my second choice either. Probably not even my third if I\u2019d had to game things out that far.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But I kept in mind that Trump got his dumb ass impeached trying to stop Biden from entering the race. Something<\/i> made him fear Biden\u2019s candidacy; maybe he realized that Biden\u2019s association with a well-liked former president\u00a0and his plain-spoken personality would be a serious threat to rebuild the famed blue wall in the Midwest. That was good enough for me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And, y\u2019know, I like Joe Biden. Is he a perfect human being? Hell no. He\u2019s had a long career, and he\u2019s said and done pretty unfortunate\u00a0things. I know that. But I believe that at his core, he is a kind, decent man with compassion to spare. And dammit, I\u2019m so ready for a kind, compassionate ADULT in the White House again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However,\u00a0I can\u2019t even be fully glad Biden\u2019s pulling a win out, because I\u2019m disgusted and heartsick that Trump came so very close to being reelected. I still haven’t forgiven America for replacing Barack Obama with…this. Four years of racism, brutality, and proud, willful ignorance, over 200K dead from a virus the president blatantly lied to the country about, and yet millions of people wanted more<\/em>\u00a0of this because they could save a few tax dollars and stop someone from getting an abortion? My god.\u00a0I recall the theme of Trump’s inaugural speech was “American Carnage.” I had no idea that was an actual campaign promise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Donald Trump has been the cruelest, most hateful president I\u2019ve ever had the displeasure to experience. Never before, and I hope never again, have I endured a\u00a0president so ignorant, so nasty, and so proud<\/em> of his ugly, incurious nature. He wanted to be president because he wanted the personal glory. When a genuine crisis hit this year, he had no idea what to do, and so he decided to do the absolute least in the hopes it would work out.<\/p>\n

It didn’t.<\/p>\n

In these last few days, it’s become horrifyingly clear that this man who’s been in charge of the US government for four years still has no idea how any of these government agencies actually work. He seriously doesn’t know<\/em> that the DOJ and the Supreme Court\u00a0can’t just intervene in the election and declare him the winner. He thinks that’s what they do. He thinks that’s what they should<\/em> do.<\/p>\n

And millions of people wanted him to have four more years?<\/p>\n

Truthfully, I\u2019d rather spend an eternity in a place where Ronald Reagan and George Bush p\u00e8re et fils<\/i> <\/i>traded off the presidency over and over again than endure one more year of the leadership of this pathetic, loathsome excuse for\u00a0a man. Whatever their faults, they at least had some sense of responsibility to the entire country. I was never a Reagan fan, but I still remember the note-perfect speech he delivered on the night of the Challenger explosion in 1986. Donald Trump would never, could<\/em> never give a speech like that. That would require understanding other people and the\u00a0reassurance they might need after a national tragedy and, well. Good luck getting anything of the sort from Trump.<\/p>\n

Trump was a tacky comedy act back in the 1980s when I grew up reading Bloom County<\/i>, and the 80s is where he should have stayed.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not over. Even if Trump gets dragged out of the White House kicking and screaming in January (which he is actually threatening to make happen), the overt racism and ugliness he\u2019s unleashed aren\u2019t going away. His acolytes are going to continue to bully and threaten black people who are just minding their own business, because their God King has emboldened them to do it. The Proud Boys and the QAnon loons are going to double down on their grotesque beliefs and behavior. Trump opened Pandora\u2019s box. I don\u2019t know how, or if, we ever get all that garbage back in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, and there\u2019s the rising death toll from COVID-19. That\u2019s probably not getting better any time soon either. I have no idea what might have happened if we\u2019d had competent leadership at the helm last December when the virus started making its way around the globe, but I just don\u2019t think things\u00a0would have been this<\/em> bad.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Again, Biden was not my first choice, but you know what? I\u2019m glad we\u2019ve got someone with a lot of experience and DC connections taking over. Good god, are we going to need him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Oh, and: I\u2019m old enough to remember when Geraldine Ferraro made headlines for being the first woman ever to be a VP candidate\u00a0on the 1984 ticket. Back then, if you\u2019d told teenage me how long it would be before I\u2019d see a woman in the White House, I\u2019d have thought you were shitting me. What the hell took so long, America?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m delighted that at long fucking last, we get to see a woman on a winning Presidential ticket, and a black woman at that. I\u2019ve liked Kamala Harris for a long time. If I didn\u2019t get to vote for her for President yet, I\u2019m thrilled that she\u2019s a part of this administration.\u00a0The White\u00a0House is no longer the\u00a0exclusive preserve of men. Hallelujah.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

One last thing: Now that the writing is on the wall for Trumpers, I\u2019ve seen a few of them insisting that Democrats should be kind. Respectful. We should give them time to grapple with their sad feelings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Remember in 2016 when Trump fans wore these delightful shirts? Pepperidge Farm remembers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OK, so. I have so much I could say about that. So<\/b> much. But in the end, here\u2019s how I feel:<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to go around kicking Trump voters who are already down. That\u2019s not me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But they better not dare come to me asking for kindness or\u00a0sympathy. I\u2019m saving all of that<\/i> for the legions of people who have been terribly hurt (or worse) by this administration. For the Trump supporters\u00a0who\u2019ve been kicking sand in everyone else\u2019s faces for the last four years and are unhappy that their go-around is about to come around, I have not one single fuck left to give.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Note: As of this writing, even though Joe Biden has so obviously won the election that even my cat who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,65],"tags":[70,45,47,69],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1121"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1145,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions\/1145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}