On every election night since 2000, I’ve stayed up until I knew, well, something.
In 2000, Bush vs. Gore, a Mercury retrograde screwed things up. I’ve written about that before. But the Merc retro had some help from the awful butterfly ballots in Palm Beach County, where I live, and that election ended up in the supreme court. We all know how that one turned out.
In 2004, Bush vs. Kerry, I went to our voting station and voted for Kerry. The voting machines were made by Diebold. Google it. There’s plenty of info about who and what. At any rate, I punched the square for Kerry. Bush’s name came up.I hit cancel, tried twice more. Same thing. I voted for Kerry, Bush’s name came up. Finally, in the fourth try, my vote worked.
I think that’s when I knew Bush would win a second term. Nonetheless, I watched the returns until early in the morning for that election. But one really beautiful event during that election cycle gave me hope. And that was a speech by then Senator Obama at the Democratic National Convention. I thought, He’s it. 2008.
And during that campaign season, Rob and I drove down to Boca or Fort Lauderdale, can’t remember which city, and waited three hours to hear Obama and Biden speak. I came out of there certain that Obama would be the next president.
On election night 2008, I started sobbing when Obama took Florida by a 2.8 percent margin, the first time since 1996 that a Democrat had taken Florida. Even the polls had indicated that McCain would take the state, Obama nabbed it with 51 percent of the vote and became the 44th president.
No, he wasn’t perfect. He should have pushed for indictments for Cheney, Wolfowitz, people in Bush’s swamps. In Flint, Michigan, during its water crisis, he shouldn’t have sipped from a glass of water that supposedly came from a Flint faucet but actually came from Air Force.
On election night in 2012, I sobbed again when Obama won a second term.
Then we come to 2016. I stayed up until two, I think, and went to bed sobbing because trump had won the electoral college.
Now here we are. November 2020. Trump vs. Biden. This is NOT 2016. We’ve had trump for nearly 4 years now, and know these things about him:
His lying is constant. Believe nothing of what he says. Where’s his health care plan that 4 years ago he said he would have in two weeks?
He’s the emperor with no clothes. Here’s what I’m going to do for you, he announced in 2016. And in 2020, the people reply: Yeah? Where is it? Well, hey, the boy is too busy tweeting.
We’re going to see a red wave like you’ve never seen before, he proclaims. Uh-huh, in which universe?
We’re rounding the curve on the pandemic, we’ve done a great job, the pandemic is over.
Oh, over? Even though we now have an average of about 70,000 new cases a day? How do you figure that one, trump? Because you announce the pandemic is over, is the virus going to flee?
Do you really believe you control the virus?
Huh?
Do you?
On election night 2020, I’ll be up until Biden wins Florida or Pennsylvania or Michigan or some other outlier. And I hope to be cheering and doing a happy dance because it means we’ll have a national plan for dealing with this virus. Because it means the president won’t be on the national platform 24/7 creating some new drama. Because it means civility is returning to politics and perhaps our country has started to heal.
Trump isn’t without purpose. He has exposed the racial, cultural, and monetary divides in this country. He has exposed where the constitution is really weak and needs to be amended. He has shown us why the Senate Majority Leader should be obligated to bring every bill the House passes to the floor of the senate for a vote. He has shown us why the supremes need to have term limits. Trump has shown us the ugliest, most vile parts of the collective American psyche and folks, it’s really dark.
But I think trump is also an American example of how a coup might happen. The stunt with the Bible, for instance, was one such signal about autocracy. The other was his photo op of removing his mask after his release from Walter Reed, hen he’d wanted to wear a Superman shirt.And behind that shirt is William Barr, his attorney general, his private lawyer dude.
A lotta people have gulped the trump Kool-Aid.
Yeah, he’s great at media opportunities.
And fails at everything else.
The Simpsons attack Donald Trump in last-minute US election video 🙂
https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/the-simpsons-attack-donald-trump-in-lastminute-us-election-video/news-story/4f0bf436f8dfe0a16b6e459d8039e1fc
Thanks for the link, Daz! Your links are always great.
Well said, thank you. I guess I won’t be sleeping much tonight either.
❤️❤️
Your vote has never counted before.
Theater. All of it.
This year it will count. You might be surprised by the outcome.
Ballot box chain of custody.
Who was responsible for election security pre-2018 mid-terms?
Who is responsible for election security now?
What changed?
District->County->???->State->???->Nation. Fill in the blanks.
Tools of the trade.
Snowden knows.
I’m not here for me.
You have been lied to. For a very long time.
How do you know what Snowden knows?
Here’s what I know.
I grew up under a dictatorship. It wasn’t like Pinochet’s Chile or Putin’s Russia. But political foes disappeared. Schools closed because of “revolutions,” The dictator eventually fled with 13 million bucks from the country treasury. He settled in Miami Beach. Venezuela, since 1963, has gone from great prosperity in the 70s and 80s to a corrupt, impoverish country ruled first by Chavez, then by Maduro, and somewhere in between, they were ruled by oil. Trump fits the mold. He’d love to be a dictator. I made that comparison early on and FB removed that post.
I know that in 2004 when I voted for Kerry, the Diebold machine in my voting station gave me bush. Not once. But 3 times.
I know that in 2000, the will of the American voters was usurped by the supreme court.
I know that trump hopes the same thing happens this time and that’s why the senate rushed to confirm Barrett.
I know that the patriarchal society in which we live – and which is dying – would love to push women back to the 50s or earlier. Want to open a bank account? Oh, sorry. You need your husband’s signature and okay. Need an abortion? Oops, not possible. Find an alley and a hangar. Oh, you were raped? Well, we’ll make sure our boys make it look like the woman’s fault for being “provocative.”
So honestly, whoever you are, ce qui se passe – Russian bot, someone holed up in an attic somewhere, spy, mental patient – I don’t need or want your veiled secret references to the real truth, the real deal, the real whatever’s going on. YOU’VE been lied to. For a very long time. Or, you’re delusional in your belief that you’re not here for yourself.
Hostility misplaced.
You are now free.
Never before.
Perception was reality.
I do know what Snowden knows, and more.
Much more.
Your vote has never counted.
Now it does.
You’re welcome.
Go. Vote.
Clarity will come with time.
I voted 3 weeks ago, at the election office. It’s not hostility. It’s annoyance. Anyone can make veiled references about the “truth.” Share what you know.
I can’t share what I know.
I can only point to information that is public.
Ballot chain of custody before/after 2018.
What changed?
District->County->???->State->???->Nation.
Fill in the blanks. Public information.
Your vote counted this year.
What is different?
Not here to annoy.
Here to inform.
A gift.
Not just for you.
Fair enough.
As a great fan of what Trish and Rob so generously offer in this Blog, I do wish very much you would just go away and bother someone else. Why not switch to a conspiracy theory blog? Sounds like that would be much more entertaining for you.
Bravo, Trish. The emperor with no clothes – never would have occurred to me but trump’s a perfect fit for that tale. You nailed it.
The 2 biggest lessons I have learned while Trump has been in office is just how many ignorant sheep there are in this country AND we MUST get rid of the electoral college.
Amen, Adele.
Watching the votes by state and by county tonight, I am impressed with the fact that Democratic areas are overwhelmingly urban, which means also means more of the educated, because urban areas are where most of the educational institutions, professional and cultural centers are. A Trump victory means a celebration of anti-intellectualism, anti-science, ignorance, and isolation from the larger planetary community, represented by withdrawal from NATO, the Paris Accord, even the World Health Organization. So very sad, to see our country become so diminished so quickly. If Trump wins again, I see this as the end of American democracy, and so many of the things that really did make it a great country, into an ugly, impoverished, authoritarian country. I don’t know how I am going to live in such a wilfully ignorant, and fundamentally immoral, country,
He hasn’t won yet.