Day 239…
Votes are still being counted.
For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, over 100,000 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in this country.
107,771 people tested positive for the virus. 1,616 people died. By early next week or even as soon as the weekend, we will hit the 10 million case mark.
Field hospitals have opened up in Wisconsin and in Texas.
Cases per-capita are highest today in the Dakotas, Illinois, Utah and Minnesota. Death rates are rising in the Midwest as well.
Nobody seems to be paying any attention to that anymore.
In much the same way that we have adjusted to life with COVID, we are starting to get used to living with the uncertainty in this election.
We may have an answer by later on this evening. And, then again, we may not.
The election appears to have gone smoothly in almost every regard except one. The one, of course, being the President, himself.
He has been warning of election interference and fraud since all of this started. Thus far, it appears that the only interference has been from the President, himself, and his immediate circle of cronies.
Rudi Giuliani, and one of the President’s sons, held a press conference in Philadelphia yesterday where they asserted that the President had won the state despite the fact that at the time there were still over a million ballots left to be counted. The two offered no legal argument nor proof of any sort of fraud they just, basically, said that the President wants to win so the vote should stop while he’s still ahead. It was a sorry spectacle.
The President has initiated lawsuits to stop the vote in states where he is ahead and continue the vote in states where he’s behind. There was a bit of confusion around Michigan where a suit to stop the vote was filed on his behalf despite the fact that the President was trailing in the count. Some poor misguided flunky probably had a rough night of it.
There is still no clear winner in this race. A path forward for the President still remains amidst the several paths forward for Joe Biden.
We are called upon to be patient for many things in our lives. I have been through this feeling before.
About nine years ago, my annual checkup showed that my PSA levels were up. PSA stands for prostate-specific antigen. I needed to get a biopsy. And then I had to wait for the results.
Results of medical tests are among the hardest things we will ever need to wait for in our lives. The results of those tests can change the course of everything.
In my case, the results came back positive. I had prostate cancer.
Once that diagnosis came in, waiting for results, waiting for appointments, waiting for surgery and waiting for my body to heal became a part of my life.
I ultimately survived prostate cancer. My poor prostate, alas, did not. It is lying in a landfill somewhere, but the rest of me eventually continued forward with really the most minor of adjustments to how I live my life. Luckily for me, it doesn’t even cross my mind most of the time.
Whatever else might happen today, the results are in and the United States has tested positive.
Over 68 million people have voted for a man who exemplifies the worst in all of us. He is an actual living embodiment of the seven deadly sins: pride and greed and lust and gluttony and wrath and sloth and envy. He has them all.
I was talking to one of the people who manages part of my financial life about a transaction that Michael and I are considering. He warned me that we should do it now and not wait because taxes are going to shoot up if Biden is elected President. I didn’t ask who they had voted for. I think I figured it out. I may be completely wrong about that.
This is somebody who is intelligent and educated. I do not think that anything other than finances entered into his decision making. The human aspect of the decision, I think, was left completely unconsidered as if it weren’t part of the equation at all.
I don’t mind paying taxes. Do I want to pay a lot of taxes? Of course not. There is a cost to living in this country. The programs and institutions that make this such a wonderful (at times) place to be, require funding to be sustained.
Teachers need to be paid and Schools need to be built. Roads need to be maintained. The entire infrastructure of the United States needs a constant influx of cash to keep it from decaying. Our military needs to be paid for. Creating social programs to help the elderly, the ill, the unemployed, the lost, all requires capital.
We pay our taxes so that we can live safely, comfortably and happily. I am happy to contribute to that. We then elect the people that we feel are going to put those monies to the best use.
How many schools do we need?
How much should teachers be paid?
Which roads should we build?
How big should our military be?
What programs do we need to create in order to help our fellow citizens?
Those are the discussions that consume our daily political life. All of the money that pays for all of it - that comes from us. The people for whom all of that is designed for, foot the bill.
Our current President is interested only in himself. I am not hurling an insult when I say that, I am stating a demonstrable fact. He has yet to make a decision about anything that does not benefit him directly. Find one if you don’t agree with me.
Like the worst bully any of us have ever had to endure in school, he has mocked and belittled all of those who are in any way ‘other’ to him.
He has publicly said that he does not respect women.
He has publicly supported those who would willingly subjugate anyone who wasn’t white, elevating themselves in the process.
He has publicly stated that he has no respect for the people who have served in the military.
He has publicly showed his disdain for the disabled.
68 million people who live in this country have decided that they are fine with that.
I do not believe that you can just choose one thing about a person and then support them. You have to consider the whole person. Certainly, there is no such thing as a perfect person. Like anything else in life, you have to weigh their pros and cons.
For 68 million people there seems to be one part of the whole, be it their personal finances, be it the issue of a woman’s right to choose, whatever it might be, that is so monumentally important to them that they are willing to accept everything else.
Women have voted for this man.
People of color have voted for this man.
Veterans and active members of the military have voted for this man.
I have seen countless footage of red hat wearing people in wheelchairs zooming around waving their flags for him as well.
I will never understand how so many people can like a person who so actively dislikes them in return.
Whoever ends up winning this election, on some level all of us have already lost. We will either get four more years of sinking ever deeper into this mire, or we will be facing a long hard battle to start putting things to rights.
This President has broken open a door that we have spent generations trying to shut. Like the evils that escaped from Pandora’s box, the collective hate from the people of this country has been allowed to fly back out and intensify. We are not going to be able to put it back in anytime soon. Whoever gets these agonizingly slow-in-coming final votes, the damage to We the People has been done.
Make no mistake, I am still pulling for Joe Biden to win. With every fiber of my being, I am still pulling for him and I will not stop.
Despite the opinions of the 68 million of my fellow country people, I believe, along with 71 million other citizens, that we are better than this. We deserve better and we need to do better.
More people than have ever supported another single person in our history agree with me. Whatever happens, I will stand, proudly and unwavering, with them.
Always.
While this decision will eventually arrive, the task ahead of us is already crystal clear.
We have work to do.
🙏💙🙏