Well, here we are. One day out from exercising our voting franchise. At least by those who desire to do so. Twenty-four hours from finding out how things shake out politically across the country.
No more polling on this one. No more talking heads with their “best guesses” about what you and I want our nation’s governance to be for the next two years. Back to a media resurrecting regular commercials and public service announcements while corporate accountants total up the windfall from the political ad huckstering.
Yep, we’re back to normal. Not!
Like so many other thoughtful folks, I’ve no idea what normal is now or what it will be in the future. “Normal” isn’t anymore. It’s been abolished by the political catastrophe of the last couple of years. It’s been erased from our lives by the cacophony of lies, betrayal of the public trust, demagoguery on a scale we’ve never seen in our political affairs, a spineless Congress ignoring the human cost of a presidency of false witness and the widespread national racism more prominent now than ever.
What the Hell is normal now? What will it be after our votes are counted? What will the new political and societal landscapes look like on Wednesday?
Many of us have already voted – in person or by mail. For us, these last weeks have been filled with candidate noise and expensive messaging wasted at our house because we’d already made our decisions. In fact, I haven’t talked to anyone for months who hadn’t already decided who and what to vote for.
The danger in tomorrow’s voting is the widespread ignorance of candidates, issues and even process by millions of folk living under the Trump spell. They know what they know but, for many, they have no idea what they don’t know. They’ve swallowed a constant diet of lies, half-truths and fantasies cooked up by Trump and their favorite rightwing media. They listen to no one who’s messages are more grounded in reality and fact.
Example: The other night, I watched an interview of a woman in her 70’s. Cherub face, big smile. Probably someone’s kindly grandma. Atop her silver hair was a stovepipe hat in red, white and blue with small America flags on either side. She was asked if she still supported Trump.
“Oh, yes,” she said excitedly. “He’s trying to protect us from all those criminals who want to cross our borders. People with MS-13 tattoos on their arms. They’ve got guns and other weapons. The President is trying his best to protect us.”
Sweet, she may be. But, absolutely divorced from the reality of the thousands of families fleeing death and violence in search of unknown and uncertain futures. Futures that might mean jails, new forms of violence and even separation. Those “criminals.”
The reporter didn’t try to correct her. Why should she? The lady was absolutely sure of her “facts.”
Trump is believed to have some 30-million supporters – many like Granny. Like the rest of us, many of them will be voting tomorrow, too. They’ll mark their ballots with certainty as we all do. They’ll want their voices heard as we all do. But, they’ll do that armed with their own “facts” created for them by Trump and the far right media barrage.
They’ll vote under the influence of a verbal “stew” of lies, racism, anti-Semitism, fear of the unknown and false prophesies. The fruit of their “reality” will go into the same universal ballot box into which we cast votes based on our version of reality. Their vote will have equal weight in the outcome. One ballot cast, we hope, informed. The other, it appears, deformed. But, equal.
So, back to the question: what will our future look like? Out of that mixture of fact versus “facts,” what will be the outcome? What will be our direction? What will be the new normal?
We’ll have the picture tomorrow. I pray it’ll be reality-based.
