Conversation

Nov 7, 2020

Congratulations, Mr. President-elect and Madam Vice President-elect.

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2) It's hard to have any real sense of what elections in the 1860s felt like, but at the very least this feels like the most acrimonious race in the past 50 years. That means a lot of things. One is that the new administration was handed a delicate, important, difficult task.

3) The nation is always divided, always ways, and always will be, in many ways. And so there are always debates and votes and dissenters. It's our right as American citizens to vote our conscience, and it's representatives' rights to vote theirs, in the House and Senate.

4) So on most issues there will be people who, locally, lose. But the only way we as a country can exist is if we learn to live with our losses, celebrate our wins, and treat each other--and the processes that tie us together--in good faith.

5) (As an aside, this is somewhat like bitcoin. As long as the world agrees to respect the longest chain, BTC moves forward even if some aren't happy with the blocks. But as soon as each person decides to disregard blocks at their whim, consensus breaks down.)

6) Obviously that means accepting the elections as they are, whether or not they're what we want them to be. But it means more than that, and is not reserved to one party or another. TRUMPFEB was trading at 2% yesterday, and we're all at fault for leading America to that point.

7) The seeds of distrust and dishonest and defection have been sowed, slowly, and then all at once. For decades, no legislators objected to the electoral vote. In 2000, some Democratic house members did. In 2004, one senator joined in; they were overruled, 74-1.

2:07 AM · Jan 21, 2021Twitter Web App

8) But objections were held in check by the vast majority of the country. In 2000, Vice President Al Gore successfully convinced the senate to certify his own electoral loss. In 2008, John McCain faced down a crowd of booing fans to congratulate Obama. youtube.com/watch?v=v5Mba8

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9) At the time, those events felt isolated, and the losers' responses reassuring. Perhaps we be more worried when the cracks begin to show.

10) I don't know whether 2000 was the beginning, or 2008 was, but by 2012 it was undeniable. Trump--at that point mostly an afterthought--ran on a platform of pretending Obama wasn't born in the US (remember that?). Democrats saw Republicans as sowing lies and discontent.

11) And they were! But of course that's not the whole story. Republicans had a growing list of grievances, too. Sometimes those didn't play out in public, but behind the scenes there was growing frustration with the emergence of what came to be called 'cancel culture'.

Motte-and-bailey fallacy - Wikipedia

12) Weinstein fell, and no one shed any tears for him: the story was pretty damning. But many felt like there was a motte-and-baily beginning to envelope culture: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and.

en.wikipedia.org

13) Weinstein was canceled; but also a charity I used to work with refused to attend a conference because a proposed speaker who had since been disinvited had written a middle-of-the-road comment on a Facebook thread once. Complain about one and you're shown the other.

14) The frustrations grew, in both directions. The 2016 election was bitter; really bitter. I went out to canvas in suburban Pennsylvania the weekend before the vote. Every door I knocked on was the same.

15) The person was angry at those knocking on their door, distrustful of the process, and clearly hated both Trump and Clinton. An outsider was coming to confirm their support for a candidate that they were at best holding their nose to vote for.

16) Often they'd refuse to say who they were actually planning to vote for. Not that it mattered; by that time there were enough Black Lives Matter or Blue Lives Matter yard signs that you usually already knew.

17) And so began the most unpleasant and spite filled four years of culture I've lived through. A lot has been said about the former president's antics during his term. But of course there's another side to the story.

18) I've felt fairly alienated from both parties recently. Democrats said that Trump had no plan for COVID, gave no leadership, was costing American lives, and failing to fight the disease. And they're right.

19) Republicans countered that Democrats were dragging out the pain, wrecking havoc on the economy for a year while failing to either squash the virus or live with it. And they're right, too. Neither side really acknowledged the truth: that you had to make a hard choice.

20) And at the climax, Trump himself got COVID. His behavior was bizarre and true to form, taking the opportunity to shill some companies and hold meetings with fake props at a fake desk. And he didn't give the speech I would have, if I were him.

21) Because if you went on CNN, you would see an entire page full of attacks on Trump, for getting COVID, and for not being careful enough. Which, ok, sure, but there's another narrative here, too. Which is that Trump did what leaders do.

22) He got COVID because he prioritized running the government over his personal safety. And then he left the hospital early. Because he was the President of the United States of America, the leader of the free world. The world wasn't got to stop spinning while he was sick.

23) And so he chose to lead, and uphold his duties as president (and, you know, whichever random drug companies he was into that day), even if it meant risk to his own health. I don't know. I'm not Trump's biggest fan, but that was the day I was most proud of him.

24) Anyway, we reap what we sow. And after decades of sowing distrust in each other, we were left with our darkest moment: a part of the country violently storming the capital and invading the senate because they didn't believe the results of the election.

Mike Pence rejects Trump's call to overturn Biden election

25) And, to top it off, the president (at the time) of the United States of America attempting to overturn an election he lost. There were a ton of things at stake, but I guess at some point many people were single issue voters.

cnbc.com

Pence's statement breaking with Trump came before the vice president was due to preside over a joint session of Congress to declare Joe Biden the victor.