ON THE CUSP OF HISTORY

Nov. 2, 2020 – We’re living on the cusp of history, this Election Eve. I can feel in my bones the national angst and anxiety.

Joe Biden is going to win this thing. Comfortably, if not by a landslide. And Kamala Harris is going to be our Vice President. Democrats are going to control the Senate and the House. I can’t tell you how happy all that makes me. But still...

Did it take a pandemic to wake people up? Would Trump have been reelected, but for death and disease and suffering on a scale unseen to any of us? Is coronavirus America’s price for buying Trump’s con?

Of course, with or without the pandemic, he still would be a despicable human, destined for the ash heap of history as the worst president ever. Nevertheless, his idiot fans are legion. Who knows what might have happened tomorrow without the virus?

I’ve been amazed at Biden’s brilliant campaign. It’s been pitch perfect. The terrible times we’re in have delivered a perfect antidote to Trump. I wasn’t an early Biden fan. Hell, I had a Bloomberg yard sign for a few weeks, but that was in another era, in what seems like years ago. That was when most had given up on Biden as a boring old man, before South Carolina revived him in its primary.

He has risen to the moment, fueled by the existential threat that Trump and his minions pose to our democracy. A voice of reason to Trump’s lunacy. Science to his ignorance. Calm to his chaos. Decency to Trump’s vulgarity.

I’m old enough to have lived through other national tragedies, worried every moment for the future. Worst was the division over the war in Vietnam, epitomized in the violent 1968 Democrat national convention. (See “The Trial of the Chicago 7” on Netflix and supporting context at: “Abbie Lives!”)

On 9-11, our family lived in suburban Washington, DC. For weeks after, we kept hour-by-hour tabs on loved ones, with plastic sheeting and duct tape at the ready in our home, in case of a chemical attack. Then there was the DC sniper, where for a long time, pumping gas was a life-threatening task. Duck and cover for real.

Now, once again, we’re waiting for a return to normalcy. We’re in another unique crisis of history, to be decided tomorrow. It’s an amazing time, an awful, awful moment, led by an awful, awful man. How do we get out of this mess?

We start tomorrow by throwing out the asshole in the White House. And his family of dimwits. And his crew of grifters and fanatics.

Tomorrow begins the long road of healing divisions. I know it’s necessary, and Biden’s up to that dirty job. But count me out. Fuck healing. I want the Democrats to do whatever it takes to drive Trump’s dumb-fuck supporters back into hiding. Pack the court, eliminate the filibuster, do what you have to do to undo Trump’s bullshit.

And speaking of fools, everyone understands that after our traumatic experience in 2016, only a fool would bet the farm Biden’s victory tomorrow. As for me, I’ve been wrong more than most about Trump. I was just sure he was too incompetent and narcissistic to survive all his scandals. At one point, I predicted he’d be gone by last Valentine’s Day. Needless to say...

So, am I a fool for believing that those long lines of pro-Biden, masked voters outnumber the maskless morons cramming Trump’s rallies, chanting inane slogans, spouting nonsense to curious reporters? The ones who sold their souls, and put kids in cages, to further their “pro-life” agenda?

We’ll know soon enough what history has in store for us.

No, you can’t always get what you want,
You can’t always get what you want,
You can’t always get what you want,
But if you try sometime you find
You get what you need.

                        --The Stones