Our Democracy Is On The Line

Our Democracy Is On The Line

By Ed Kociela

The essence of the nation is on the table today as voters in the United States either put up or shut up.

You have heard, I am sure, the argument that this is the most important election in the history of the United States, a statement I can certainly defend and contend. Every election, of course, changes the course of history in one way or another as the scribes record the names of those elected into the books and commit their actions to our permanent record. We can wonder how it would have been if Stephen Douglas had prevailed, Herbert Hoover won another term, or even if John McCain had emerged victorious but, quite honestly, it would be a waste of energy and time because our reality was Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Barack Obama. We play the cards we are dealt and have nobody to blame except ourselves because as voters, we helped shuffle the deck. Besides, we have better things to do with our time than play “What If?” by conjuring up the nightmarish ghosts of elections past.

As we wind down the voting part of election 2020 and prepare for litigation, however, I simply cannot erase the most striking image of this campaign for me. It occurred when the president struck a Mussolini pose on a balcony at the White House after leaving the hospital for COVID-19 treatment. It was frightening. The United States looked like some Third World nation in the chokehold of a tyrant. In that moment, I could feel the republic slipping away from the hands of the people and into the grasp of a gutless, soulless thug. Ungracious? Probably, but it’s my truth and I have never written one word I didn’t believe in the depths of my soul and right now, my soul aches from a long-standing disaffection I cannot shake that set in during the Nixon years was heightened during the Reagan regime, was exasperating during the “W” years, and exploded in 2016.

But, today, we vote.

My fervent hope is that voters understood that this election was not about the seven firms that control Wall Street – Bear Stearns, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers – and how much money they generate for the fat cats who plunder profit. This election was not about fracking. This election was not about law and order. This election was not about the fanciful imagery of an outsider, who after four years in office can no longer be called an outsider.

This election was about you and me, about our health care, particularly in the face of a lethal pandemic. This election was about the dignity and grace of all people, not just fat, rich, white old men, but people of color, people of myriad religions and beliefs, people who are discriminated against because of who they choose to love. This election was about our need for leadership that has slipped into a vacuum of self-aggrandized chest-thumping. Most importantly, this election was about liberty and defending the system created to secure it in an orderly, representative manner instead of throwing a bunch of executive orders against the wall and seeing which stick and which get overturned by reason and the Constitution.

I am not foolish enough to predict what the results will reveal when all the ballots are counted or even if that will jibe with who is inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2021. I’ve peeled back the layers of polling enough to understand there is no sure thing, regardless of what the numbers seem to tell us. The only thing I can assure you of is that right now, at this very second as we share this time and space, there are attorneys on both sides holding paperwork lacking only a signature to challenge the tally while members of the Supreme Court, so indebted to the president that they sit waiting to roll over in gratitude for the Milk Bones tossed their way, are poised in the wings.

You can discount this as a screed from a wounded liberal and that is fair. I have never tried to disguise the context of my opinion pieces and hope you realize that liberals are as important to the mix as real conservatives, who I hope and pray steal the Republican Party back from the dime store wannabes who have seized it and recurved it into something totally unrecognizable. I actually miss the Bob Dole-like Republicans who had a legitimate platform, passion for fair governance and exhibited statesmanlike qualities that have been exchanged for a snake oil salesman and his shills. They are the reason why I choose to identify as a child of the universe rather than any other affiliation. It fits better, at least in my conscience. As such, I am hopeful that the doomsday scenarios of civil war and violence predicted from the losing side – whoever it may be – do not play out. We have had enough divisiveness, enough suspicion, enough unfounded conspiracy theories. We’ve had enough anger, hate, and lies, too.

We will hear about how the United States is in desperate need of a season of healing.

It surely does, but I just don’t see that happening. Things have gotten too far out of hand.

Last Friday I saw some pundit on the television advising us to enjoy the “last weekend of freedom in America.” He wasn’t forecasting a win by either candidate, but alluding to the fomenting backlash in the aftermath of the election.

I am hoping he was wrong, that somehow, we can find our mettle and build bridges instead of walls between us.

We’ll see how this all plays out, starting in a few hours when the polls close. It’s going to be a very long night that will lead us into some very long days, I fear, so I think a nap is in order.

But, it sure would be nice to wake up and find out this has all been a bad dream.

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