Remember that the founding fathers created a government built on a system of checks and balances? Remember what happened in 2016 and 2020/2021? We had one candidate win the popular vote and a different candidate win the electoral college in 2016, shades of Bush / Gore 2000! The last presidential election almost ended with a successful insurrection. We’ve been faced with a quarter century’s dicy political results and no one has really tried to change the system. Is next year going to serve US a platter of “people get the government they deserve?”
I’m more than pleased with most of the job President Biden’s done. I’d be much happier if he weren’t just a bit older than me. If the Democrats had an actual strategy to crush Trump and his supporters, I’d be delighted. I’m afraid next year will bring another period of Thomas Paine’s:
These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
 |
| a New Year dawns
Photo by J. Harrington
|
Who and where is our contemporary Paine to help US vanquish our source of real pain in the .... Rump? There are several individuals whose writings have helped me keep at least partially grounded. If you’re not reading what they have to say, you might want to consider:
- Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American,
- Tristan Roberts, and/or
- Chris LaTray’s An Irritable Métis
I had been looking forward to crafting a brief summary of the past year’s high points. Then I read the prognostication in The Guardian that:
Suspense over the outcome of the US presidential election in November will increasingly command American domestic and international attention. Joe Biden plans to ignore many in his own party and seek a second term despite his age (81) and low approval ratings. The Democrats’ nightmare: Biden becomes unwell or suffers some disastrous embarrassment when it’s too late to replace him. Few believe vice-president Kamala Harris could step into his shoes. Donald Trump, who will be 78 in November, will win the Republican nomination. But his overall national approval rating is as negative as Biden’s, at roughly -15%. It’s also possible Trump will be in jail come the election. Prediction: Biden wins the popular vote, Trump the electoral college – which means Trump gets a second term.
We need every honest voter to serve this country, the world’s leading democracy, and VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO! The other day we posted that next year is WAR 2024 (Women Against Republicans). Perhaps it is also WAM 2024 (Women Against MAGAts or Wisdom Against MAGAts).
Here’s wishing you and US a happy and healthy and prosperous New Year full of freedom and free from unpleasant surprises and big, orange pains in the Rump.
Counting, This New Year’s Morning, What Powers Yet Remain To Me
The world asks, as it asks daily:
And what can you make, can you do, to change my deep-broken, fractured?I count, this first day of another year, what remains.
I have a mountain, a kitchen, two hands.Can admire with two eyes the mountain,
actual, recalcitrant, shuffling its pebbles, sheltering foxes and beetles.Can make black-eyed peas and collards.
Can make, from last year’s late-ripening persimmons, a pudding.Can climb a stepladder, change the bulb in a track light.
For four years, I woke each day first to the mountain,
then to the question.The feet of the new sufferings followed the feet of the old,
and still they surprised.I brought salt, brought oil, to the question. Brought sweet tea,
brought postcards and stamps. For four years, each day, something.Stone did not become apple. War did not become peace.
Yet joy still stays joy. Sequins stay sequins. Words still bespangle, bewilder.Today, I woke without answer.
The day answers, unpockets a thought from a friend
don’t despair of this falling world, not yet
didn’t it give you the asking
********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind
to each other while you can.
No comments:
Post a Comment