Going Forward?

There is no joy. Only relief. With a diminished majority in the House and an undetermined alignment in the Senate, there is little worry Democrats will make any significant inroads into our legislative logjam over the next two years.

Joe Biden is mostly a paperweight. While the papers on the desk won't be scattered about the room by Trump-style bluster, they won't be put in order, either. In other words, while we won't be moving forward, the descent into chaos has been halted.

More concerning is the widespread support enjoyed by the most toxic, destructive and ignorant president the nation has ever endured. I heard time and time again “He kept his promises” as justification for casting a ballot for Mr. T.

Really? You mean the Rust Belt is awash with good-paying manufacturing jobs? 'Cause I missed that. He increased our consumption of coal, thereby restoring the economies of West Virginia and Wyoming? 'Cause I missed that, too.

(Residents of those states continued to act as battered wives, awarding the most-decisive pro-Trump percentages in the nation to Sir Lies-A-Lot despite the fact he did nothing whatsoever for their economies.)

Illegal immigration has been brought to a virtual standstill thanks to his stupendous wall—financed by Mexico—along our southern border? It has slowed, but that's because of the pandemic that isn't really a pandemic.

The brilliant health care package he's been promising for nearly four years is ready for implementation? His 'America first' policy has rejuvenated the country and we again enjoy a quality of life unparalleled anywhere in the world?

'Cause I missed those, too.

I mean, Trump did stuff, yeah. 

He awarded Walmart and Amazon and Exxon massive tax cuts. He awarded our raft of billionaires and millionaires with massive tax cuts as well. He packed our courts with right-wing conservatives. Lied, cheated and stole. Undermined our faith in the U.S. mail and in our elections.

Created more division and unrest in this country than any mob of radicalized socialists could ever hope to.

Trump entrenched racism and sexism and our political divide.

But his greatest hit was his manipulation of COVID-19 for political gain.

Caught with his pants down, Trump made lemons from lemonade in the most-grotesque sense of the word as he allowed COVID-19 to sweep throughout the United States practically unabated.

And when he wasn't allowing it, he was provoking it.

His politicization of face masks ensured the virus's spread as rabid conservatives, following their president's lead, repurposed them as symbols of liberal tyranny.

While I admit it's tempting to encourage conservative's denial and anti-mask phobia, it's clear that the Corona virus will infect any and all demographics. Translated, this means none of us are safe. Or, um, immune.

(Well, except that one guy. But you know he's passenger number-one on the crazy train, right?)

Now that the angry and the hateful have had their anti-government, anti-PC tantrum it will be interesting to see where we go from here. I tend to think it will be along the lines of the sequence depicted in It's a Wonderful Life where George Bailey sees his hometown as if he had never existed.

It will be coarse, confrontational and crude. Largely bereft of things like civility and kindness. This path is somehow more "real" and more "genuine" to addled Republican males for whom Lord of the Flies is a societal ideal.

Fearful of a world where white men no longer wield absolute power, they cling ever more desperately to ever more desperate models of power and control.

I've never been able to puzzle-out exactly what voting Republican did for working-class conservatives, except perhaps to validate their ethnic, religious, sexual and gender biases. Even at the cost of their own well-being.

But what the hell do I know?

All in all, I feel fortunate to be the age I am. I see a world emerging that is rife with hatred, distrust and manipulated endlessly by social media. Our out-sized egos have grown equally destructive, to the point where any leader who doesn't “look like us” is illegitimate.

This is at the forefront of our descent into tribalism.

Even aided by the necessary technology, I see a world unable to unite in the commonality necessary to stem global warming.

While we have temporarily beat back the Trump-styled darkness, it will retreat, reconfigure and reemerge until it has the necessary components to succeed.

Knowledge is both a burden and a responsibility. We know what we have to do to resist it.

The question is, will we?