Samain and the Moon of Radical Change
Friday gratefuls: Kate’s continued string of non-nausea days. The Ancient Ones. Arizona. Georgia. Pennsylvania. Nevada. North Carolina. Careful counting. Trump. Schadenfreude. The Clan. CBE. Rigel’s stairway to the mattress. Ken. Jude. Shadow Mountain, its stolidity. That fire at Upper Maxwell Falls. Out. Whew. Very High Fire Danger. Cataract surgery.
Biden is 4,000,000 votes ahead in the popular vote. This is an important number to me. It means that even though there is a divide there are more of us looking away from Trumpian politics than toward them. I hope that Biden will win at least Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. If he can run up the Electoral College vote, it will give a stronger feel to the win, to the Democratic party. Next four years I’d like to see three things: eliminate the electoral college, repeal Citizen’s United, and increase the number of the Supremes to 11. Not real sure on that last one, but right now I’d like to take a whack at the ideological packing of the Supreme Court that has already occurred.
A funny thing happened on the way to Thursday. I heard Trump bellow fraud and I thought, what a loser. I did not feel oh my god we’re trapped in a country with this guy as our president. It was a great feeling. He’s in a situation where all our strongest democratic traditions are on full display and are working against him. Yes, he’s run up far more votes than I wanted. I wanted a blue tsunami. I expected a blue wave. I’m getting a blue repudiation of Trump. I’ll settle for that. A peaceful transfer of power puts all of his bluster and buffoonery in the history books. I hope the Georgia senate races turn our way, but even if they don’t, the brain cancer of our body politic will be gone.
We will be left with a deeply divided country. With a Republican party altered beyond recognition. With a nation split between those who want to see poodle skirts, doo wop, and Jim Crow and those who want radical police reform, maximum effort against climate change, and a change in the distribution of wealth. I wish it would be different. It isn’t. That puts the onus on those of us in the latter camp to pursue our agenda with vigor, with all the political will and wiliness we can muster.
Yet. While we do that, we have to be aware that many in our nation are afraid, angry, puzzled. High school educated men and women, especially white men, look out their windows at an economy with reduced opportunities. High school educated Black, Red, and Brown folk face the same sort of economy, but racism and classism have inured them to it. White men, white men privileged even if they had less education than their Black, Red, Brown economic and level of education peers, had something like Veteran’s Preference when they applied for work. Oh, you served in the white male birth community. Welcome to work!
It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. But it did and does exist. That preference. But the doors to even a working class level income have been slamming shut over and over again this millennium. For them and for all who’s education level didn’t match the needs of the knowledge economy. We have always been wrong about how we valued work not requiring a college degree. Always. This is the truth behind critique of the elites.
The Covid virus has stripped away any pretensions about this. Who were the essential workers? The grocery store checkout person. The shelf stocker. The produce guy or gal. The teller at the bank. The nurse, the nurse’s aid. Gas station and convenience store clerks. Truckers. First responders. Even police. Public transportation. Welders. Boiler repair and electricians. You get it? It was the working class that were the essential workers. The ones that made our day to day lives possible. That ensured we stayed fed, warm, with the lights on.
One route out of this mess might be to take this lesson to heart. To look at those who stocked shelves, took our credit card for gas, emptied our bed pans and put cold compresses on our heads, who drove the truck filled with supplies, who made sure our checks cleared as not less than, but as what they have been revealed to be: essential. When something or someone is essential, we want to take care of them, protect them, make sure they have what they need. Perhaps political policies that do just that? Might require some reshuffling of money from the top down, but geez I think those mega-billionaires can take it. Hell, I think I can take it.
I’m already imagining positive routes ahead. That’s what’s happening right now in this country. A return to a politics of inclusion. Whether the Republicans like it or not.