~a column by Colleen O’Brien
I wrote a column to be published here the day before the election, but there is a rule among news outlets that one cannot write a political piece too close to an election because the other side does not have a chance to respond.
So, I will send it now…and add a thing or two from the day after:
The day before, a column for GCNO by Colleen O’Brien
I’ve been on edge for months, and finally the time is nigh: Election Day 2024. Tomorrow.
How will it go?
Am I a pessimistic Doomsdayer?
Am I a naive Pollyana?
I’m just as dumb as any pollster, political junky, newspaper owner, unfunny comedian. I am a hopeful sort with a deep repository of stoic behavior; in other words, I don’t fall apart or become hysterical at horrible news – I become quiet, inward-looking. However, if I spill the coffee grounds on the kitchen floor*, I am a crying, swearing, storm cloud, crash-banging out of the house, not caring if it ever gets cleaned up.
Important disasters, bad news and ugly behavior quiet me. My minor mishaps* use up stored fright and anger about important things. It’s not something I worked at or tried to add to my character and behavior; it just is: calm as a sage at death or bad accident; wild harridan at minor mishap.
Right now, on this Tuesday before we get a hint of who will be our next president, I read a poem by Saturday Night Live comedian,Gilda Radner:
“Life is about not knowing, having to change, / Taking the moment and making the best of it, / Without knowing what’s going to happen next.”
She makes life sound like a constant limbo, but life is not that; life goes along mundanely and smoothly…until it doesn’t. Something always happens, sometimes too many somethings in a row. What we make of it determines who we are.
Gilda’s next line is a zinger, a round-up of the vicissitudes of life: “Delicious Ambiguity.”
The first time I read it, I was delighted at her outlook on life. Then confused. And since then, I observe myself reacting to the “delicious ambiguity” of current events. My doubt and dread do not elicit delicious anything. I can think of life as ambiguous but “delicious”?
Only if my person wins.
If she doesn’t, well, at some point some time later, after the initial bad news, I can come up with active opinion regarding what I can do, should do, might do. I hope. I would rather wrestle with delicious ambiguity than live with the slough of despond.
If it turns out well, at some point some time later, I will realize that there is going to be a lot of work to keep the democracy stable and not rattled by lies and threats.
However it turns out, many of us will pay more attention to living in a democracy and what it means for it to remain, return, flourish. Or die. We have learned because of having to pay about a decade’s worth of attention to a weird, wannabe clown, intellectual genius, Army general who knew more about being a general than generals, cleaner of forest floors, babysitter of women, weather forecaster with black Magic Marker in hand explaining to us the track of impending hurricane . . . he who at first threatened our use of our own language, and quite smoothly, we, or at least The New York Times, accepted his silly “weave” of homemade patter and blather: he moved right into threatening our lives.
I hate to give him credit, but it was he and his insidiously dark will that encouraged us to study what our Constitution means and how our government works. He certainly never ventured so far.
He will go down in history as a sucker for despots that he thought admired him and as the biggest liar for centuries past and to come.
If we have the will, we will move on despite him, paying attention to the hard work a democracy takes — the courage and determination to fight for human justice. Letting it go for laziness or pretending not to know what’s going on will doom us even further. I think that following a purpose in life which helps everyone has to be more delicious than the electronic relationships we took to because they were there – endless card games, movies, reruns, Facebook entries, videos of dogs being smart and toddlers being bratty.
Win or lose, we, during the rest of our lives, will be working on the ambiguity of our Constitution and, without ruining its flexibility, making sure that we never get another of his ilk.
~~
It is now the middle of election night, and, lo and behold, we lost. During the rest of our lives, we will be fighting back, or we deserve what we get. We will be working on the ambiguity of our Constitution without ruining its flexibility, making sure we fight his every word and action. Our news outlets will ignore him, print nothing about him and never show his face to us again.
I am astonished – no, I am weeping: it is 4 in the morning, and I am watching Trump speak nonsense to his voters. Half the population of my country voted into office a criminal, a psychopathic narcissist as our leader.
Donald J. Trump is now that person. He has told us that he is a lover of despots.
We’re in trouble, folks. And so is he. He has no idea how much.
