Tag Archives: Vote

We hope for the best, for America’s sake

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And so, I have voted, early, with just a couple of people in line at the town hall in my little hometown, blue all the way, as if my life depended on it.

And, in a way it does, as, tomorrow, we will hope for the best but prepare for the worst, to paraphrase the Boston Globe editorial today, with Trump refusing to respect the election result and guaranteeing a peaceful transition of power, should he lose, which he seems to be doing, which he MUST do, for America’s sake, for the future of democracy in this country.

The divisions in this country are stark, starker than I can ever remember, maybe even starker than during other crises in modern America such as the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, to mention a few. America has had crooks (Richard Nixon) as presidents before Trump, but never a president who so openly disregards the rules of American democracy. It’s a dangerous time in America, whose citizens openly worry about possible post-election violence, with the president’s right-wing supporters heeding his call for resistance to an election result he might not like.

The unprecedented worry about post-election violence follows an election campaign where the Republican party has done everything to discourage and suppress voting. Nothing has made me sadder and more worried about America and its democracy than how difficult it has become for many people to vote. All over the country, legal battles are being fought about the right to vote. New York Times asks today in its main editorial what is behind this Republican strategy, which “has become a central pillar of the GOP platform.” The answer is simple: “When more people vote, Republicans lose.”  

More than 90 million Americans have already voted as the corona virus rages around the country with over one thousand deaths every day. But, ironically, the pandemic has also made it easier to vote, by mail and early in-person. Maybe we will see record-breaking voter participation this year? And maybe this will lead to the election reforms so urgently needed? 

I have said it before, but it bears repeating: Trump was lucky in 2016, losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly three million votes but winning narrowly in three key states, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, by a total of 70,000 votes out of more than 13 million votes and thereby winning the all-important Electoral College. Can Trump be so lucky again? I doubt it. 

All the polls favor Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris, like they did with Hillary Clinton in 2016, but more so this year. But because the same polls misled the voters in 2016 by undercounting the white, non-college votes, the present pollsters are met with a high degree of skepticism, and all blue voters are nervous, very nervous, although it’s highly likely that the pollsters have learned the lesson from 2016 and are more accurate than four years ago. That would favor Biden/Harris. 

Let’s hope so, let’s hope so… 

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An utterly depressing week with the Democrats facing strong head winds

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It was not a quiet week in Washington, or in America, last week. Far from it.

Rather, it was a news-filled, momentous, and utterly depressing week, as Donald Trump, impeached by the Democrats in the House of Representatives, was acquitted by the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate, which voted with one exception to acquit the president as the  Democratic minority unanimously supported impeachment.

The acquittal came after a trial that was has more of a non-trial, a sham and a shame. The lead impeachment manager for the House, Congressman Adam Schiff, Democrat from California, described the whole scene as “descending into constitutional madness” as he outlined the two articles of impeachment — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Only Mitt Romney, Senator from Utah and the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, voted to impeach Trump. Now, I am no fan of Romney, but here he showed himself to be a true profile in courage.  For Trump, however, he became an immediate target and Don Trump Jr. demanded Romney’s expulsion from the Republican Party.

That Trump tolerates no opposition or dissent in the ranks has been made crystal clear many times, not the least in his lie-filled State of the Union speech to Congress at the start of the week. Compromise and reconciliation were nowhere to be found and there was was no attempt to expand his support beyond his faithful Trumpsters.

His ire against Romney was quickly followed by the firing of two members of his administration, both of whom had testified against him during the impeachment proceedings.   The firings of EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland and national security adviser Alexander Vindman created a wave of comparisons with the so-called Saturday night massacre during the Watergate scandal. Obviously, Trump had learned nothing from his impeachment and acquittal. He was not going to change, he was not going to say he was sorry, he was not backing down, and Maine Senator Susan Collins was quickly proven wrong, and then ridiculed by the Democrats, for naively expressing her hope, as she voted to acquit Trump, that he had now learned his lesson.

As if this was not bad enough for the Democrats and their presidential candidates, the first stop during their long primary election road, the Iowa caucuses, could not have gone worse. No clear victor in much lower turnout than hoped for and expected, a turnout, which is so vital for the Democrats to have any chance for victory against Trump in November.  Then, they were unable to count the votes. Total fiasco. Scandal. And, of course, Trump and the Republicans immediately took advantage of this – how can they (Democrats) claim to run the country when they can’t even count their votes. In the end, after almost a week, the results showed that Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg ran even at the top, followed by Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar not far behind.

On Tuesday, they battled again, this time in New Hampshire, but the wind is blowing hard in their faces. All momentum, right now, is with Trump.

Still, for many present and former Republicans the road ahead is clear. For Jennifer Rubin,conservative columnist in the Washington Post, the election means voting for the Democratic nominee, whoever he/she will be, because a second Trump term would be “disastrous.” As she recently wrote, “almost four years ago, I checked out of the Republican Party, recognizing that the moral rot, intellectual dishonesty and authoritarian tendencies that led to embrace President Trump were a threat to our democracy. Events since then have proved my initial assessment horribly accurate.”

Republicans, she continued, have transformed themselves in an “authoritarian cult,” and the Republican-led Senate under Mitch McConnell has become a “lawless, amoral and destructive,” where “fairness, truth and the Constitution are subordinate to the exercise of raw power and the population of the judiciary with unqualified and partisan judges.”

Rubin is not alone among former Republican columnists at leading American newspapers, such as David Brooks, Michael Gerson, and George Will. For Washington Post’s Gerson, the November election will be “a referendum on the moral and ethical standards we apply to our political life. Will corruption, cruelty and coverups be excused and encouraged? Or will the boundaries of integrity, honesty and public spirit be redrawn?“  For Gerson, Congress “has largely failed to defend the democratic virtues essential to self-government. American voters had better do better.”

And, so, the American voters will have to do what the U.S. Senate failed to do and issue their verdict on a corrupt president by denying him another four years in the White House. I still think they will, but, then, I still have hope in America, although it has turned very dark.