Wow, what a ride, am I right? I wanted to wait for the presidential election to be called before I wrote a blog post, and since it took a while, I’ve had some time to gather my thoughts.
There are a whole lot of things I’d like to say, but first and foremost, I want to start with congratulations for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. They’ve demonstrated faith and patience as they waited for the election results. Joe made it through a Democratic primary where, at one time, a lot of people believed Bernie Sanders was going to be the winner. He then needed to figure out how to campaign against an incumbent in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic. Joe Biden is a man who has survived the loss of his first spouse, his baby daughter, and his adult son; as someone who once came awfully close to the death of my own son, I am blown away by Joe’s ability to absorb such pain and continue carrying on. I admire his ability to empathize and to connect with people. Don’t get me wrong; he is not perfect. He did not have my own vote in the Democratic primary. But, once he locked up the nomination, he has had my support.
And Kamala… my goodness, what a historic day this is for her! The first woman, and the first woman of color, to win the Vice Presidency. Again, just like Joe, of course she does not have a spotless record of public service. When you serve the public in office for years, that tends to happen. When you have to do the hard work of governing, of having a vote on record, of trying to compromise with colleagues, of trying to find ways to serve the best interests of all the people you represent, sometimes you make mistakes. But after reading her autobiography, I really have come to admire her spirit and her tenacity to fight for the most vulnerable people.
For what it’s worth, I also really admire Joe for picking her as his Vice President. The main reason for my admiration is that I still remember my jaw hitting the floor during one of the early primary debates in 2019 when Kamala tore Joe a new one in discussing his past record on bussing (see above RE: I certainly don’t like every single thing Joe has ever done). There are a lot of white men that absolutely would lose their minds to be embarrassed by a woman of color so badly on national television, and their wounded pride and ego would never let them get over that. But Joe picked her. I have a lot of respect for people who don’t just surround themselves with a bunch of sycophants who will tell them whatever they want to hear, whether it is right or not.
Next, let me say, it is deeply irresponsible and morally wrong to make baseless claims of voter fraud in the absence of real evidence. I expected nothing less from President Trump; he’s been making unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud since 2016, when he lost the popular vote by 3 million. He’s also a narcissist who cannot stand to lose, so there was no doubt if he lost the election, this is exactly how we would behave. However, I am deeply disappointed in the number of folks I have seen repeating these claims. Especially when this has been explained over and over again, if you were willing to listen. For months, Trump has railed against voting by mail, discouraging many people who support him from voting by mail. Simultaneously, Democrats worked hard to get any as many people to vote as possible. The get out the vote efforts have been massive, and the Democrats have encouraged people to vote by mail if they were afraid of being exposed to COVID while voting in person. As election day approached, we were informed that in some key states, we may not have final election results for some time after election day because of laws/rules in different states about when mailed votes could be counted, as well as when they could be received after election day if post-marked by election day. Not to mention, we’ve had a USPS that has been hamstrung and experiencing significant delays. Also, especially with all the false talk of voter fraud, election officials knew they were going to be under close scrutiny, and they were very careful about the myriad safeguards that are in-place to make sure votes only votes occurring before or on election day are counted correctly. The research on voter fraud is clear that it is incredibly rare, as well, which is important historical information to consider.
So, the way the election results came in is exactly the pattern that has been predicted for weeks in advance. And of course President Trump wanted to stop counting votes when he was ahead on election night. But the number of people parroting his baseless claims of voter fraud is really disturbing, and the conspiracy theory thinking behind it is delusional. It’s almost impossible for the fact checking websites to keep up with the amount of false claims being shared on social media. And the number of legal challenges being struck down and thrown out shows just how baseless these claims are. When push comes to shove, when the time comes to actually produce credible evidence that holds up in a court of law, there is nothing.
Which brings me to my next point, and that is that it is really important to reckon with the 2020 election results in light of the 2016 election. I cannot count the number of times following the 2016 election that I heard any number of the following: Hillary voters were accused of living in a bubble; Hillary voters were accused of forgetting or not listening to “real” Americans; Hillary voters were scolded that they needed to understand the plight of the “working class” voters who felt left out by the “identity politics” of the Dems; and Hillary voters were chided for their irrationally emotional reactions. The number of interviews I saw published with Trump voters across the nation, particularly in the places that supported him the most fervently in the Midwest and South, were so numerous they became a parody as the media self-flagellated for having not accurately predicted Trump winning the election. Finally, among the less enthusiastic Trump voters who claimed to dislike him (or at least not fervently worship at his cult of personality) but were unable to stomach voting for Hillary, there seemed to be a narrative/prediction that essentially amounted to “There are checks and balances in place, how bad could it be? Let’s actually give the man a chance to govern.” Alternatively, among my white evangelical friends, there was plenty of encouragement to pray for our President and make sure we submitted to authority of our government leaders per Paul’s letter to the Romans, as well as lot of reminders that God could use anyone to enact His will, including a thrice-married reality television star caught on a hot mic bragging about sexual assault.
Fast forward to 2020. We’ve seen a lot in 4 years, and I have a lot of grievances, not the least of which includes 200k+ dead and counting from a pandemic that the current President and Vice-President have provided terrible leadership for (hence our numbers being atrocious compared to so many other nations), children ripped from parents at the border and kept in cages, an attack on LGBTQ+ rights in the name of religious freedom, state legislatures emboldened to pass some of the most restrictive laws limiting access to safe and legal abortions for women’s health because they hope a Trump-appointed judiciary will be favorable to challenges in court, Charlottesville with it’s very fine people on both sides, and the movement for Black lives warned that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” If I were a peanut, I’d be extra salty, it’s fair to say. As it turns out, I’m not alone. But, rather than questioning if maybe they live in their own bubble, I see plenty of people who voted for Trump only questioning how the results of the election could possibly be a Joe Biden win. So, you’ll forgive me if I question the sincerity of everything said in 2016 until I see ALL of the following. I want to see people who voted for Trump being scolded for living in a bubble; I want to see think pieces from Fox News and their ilk asking what they maybe missed or failed to see. I want to see interviews with Black voters, especially Black women, in the Midwest (Michigan) and the South (Georgia), discussing their concerns and why they voted for Biden. I want to see a reckoning with the term identity politics only being used when that identity in non-white, which seems a convenient way of ignoring that “working class” (or “soccer moms” or “NASCAR dads” or any other variety of similar terms) is code for White voters, as if there aren’t plenty of people of color in the working class who most decidedly did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020. I want to see all the Trump supporters showing up a vote counting locations, sometimes armed, attempting to disrupt and intimidate people working to count votes — as well as all the ones I anticipate turning out for various protests/demonstrations in the coming weeks — I want to see all of them panned for being irrationally emotional and definitely not be celebrated as patriots who love their country. I want to see people claiming Biden’s election means we’re about to slide into some sort of socialist or communist dystopia laughed out of the room for overreacting to the election of one man, when we have checks and balances, and he hasn’t even spent one day as President yet (and to clarify, I want the laughter to come from everyone, not just the democratic socialists who most decidedly DO NOT see Biden as a socialist). And probably most of all, I want to see all my white evangelical peeps discussing their daily prayers for Biden, their submission to his authority because his authority comes from God per Romans 13.
Maybe you think I’m wrong for sharing this. Maybe you think Biden voters owe it to Trump voters to be gracious. Maybe you think it’s petty and mean to share this. But, I’ve seen a lot of people who have correctly identified that this election reveals we remain a deeply divided nation. Joe Biden crushed it in the popular vote, and if Georgia holds, he’ll have a similar number of electoral votes as Trump had in 2016, but this election was admittedly not the overwhelming repudiation of Trumpism some of us had hoped for. So where do we go from here? Well, that’s why I’m writing this. I don’t think we can move forward without some honesty, and the traditional both sides-ism isn’t going to cut it for me. Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to say that a person’s vote for Trump makes them a bad person. I believe a lot of good people who mean well voted for Trump. Family and friends I love and care about voted for Trump, and I am not going to stop loving and caring about people because I refuse to let you have the power to make me hate you. I want to make things work with you moving forward. But if we’re going to work together, the first step of that is having an honest reckoning of how we ended up here.
I’m fearful that the next several weeks may be pretty chaotic. I hope y’all stay safe, and I encourage you to make sure you think carefully before you speak, and work to use your words to balance truth with love and grace. And please, if there is one thing we should all be able to agree on… It’s been a rough year, and if people want to have their Christmas decorations up early and bump Christmas music well before Thanksgiving, let them have it.
scholarandgentleman 