The 2020 election is history!
Well, sort of…
It was definitely one for the record books, having been conducted in the midst of a raging pandemic with record turnout, much of it before election day!
Despite claims to the contrary, it appears that Joe Biden has won and will become the 46th President of the U.S.A. He won by a healthy and still increasing margin, both in the electoral college and even more-so in the popular vote. Biden won in the popular vote by almost 6 million votes, twice that of Clinton’s margin over Trump in 2016.
Nevertheless, for many in the country (over 70 million many) the election is not over. They are clinging to this conspiratorial idea, perpetuated by Trump, that the election was “rigged.”
It wasn’t.
I can remember Trump saying the same thing about his 3 million popular vote loss in 2016. He even appointed a commission to investigate. They found nothing.
Even though the election is “over”, the political division in the United States isn’t anywhere close to being over.
What will it take to make America united again?
As if it ever really was.
I was thinking this morning about what foments this division. Obviously the two sides have different ideological ideas. Much of that is centered on a disagreement about the proper role of government in American society.
I’m not going to get into that discussion in this post. I have in many others.
What interests me more is what is really causing us to hate each other with ever increasing intensity and how can we escape that cycle?
Isn’t it true that when we get angry at someone over a disagreement, or a perceived slight, and take action on that anger to exact some level of revenge, that it only perpetuates a cycle of more anger, retaliation, and damage to both sides?
Generally, such cycles end in either of two ways…
- One side gains dominance and is able to intimidate, or suppress, the other from further retaliatory action, or
- Ongoing reciprocal retaliation eventually results in both sides being totally annihilated.
Well, I guess sometimes we’re able to forgive and make up. However, that requires one side to fess up and admit error. With respect to the current ideological division in the U.S., I don’t think that’s going to happen.
I am late to the series Sons of Anarchy on Amazon Prime. I have been binge watching it lately and currently I am on season 5. The series glorifies the biker life, especially via the experiences of Jax Teller. However, what is evident to me in this tale of violence and revenge is that violence and revenge only results in more of the same. I’m not sure how close I am to the end of the series, but I can already predict what’s going to happen…and it’s not going to be a positive result for Jax, or his beloved SAMCRO.
Trump has been a scorched earth President like none we’ve even had, including Nixon. And he seems intent on leaving the White House, the Presidency, and indeed the entire country, well, scorched!
And he’s got millions of followers who agree with him and are urging him on!
Of course, to be honest, the other side hasn’t been very kind to Trump, or his followers…
And therein lies the issue that I am trying to get at…
We seem to be locked into a cycle of disagreement, anger, and retaliation.
Sure it’s going to be hard to make America united again, when it really never has been. However, I am old enough to remember a time when we could at least disagree without hating one another and seeking the destruction of the other side!
In a democracy the majority does have the final say. We like to say about Presidential elections that “America has spoken” and we (the collective we) must accept that result.
However, that doesn’t mean that the minority, who don’t see things the same way, should just be trampled over. That’s what foments the anger that leads us into cycles of incivility, like the one we seem to be trapped in now.
Social media has certainly played a role in perpetuating the division. It allows us to retreat into echo chambers of like-minded opinions and alternative facts that support those opinions. And with the advent of new social media options, like Parler, that cater to our preferred tribal propensities, social media will likely only make things worse.
Like I said above, you can boil down a lot of the disagreement to the proper role of government in our lives…
Certainly there is some happy medium that we can all live with!
Government is not “our” enemy. When it is functioning properly, it should reflect “our” collective will. Maybe, we should argue less about the role that a “dysfunctional” government should play and focus more on ways to cure the dysfunction!
A government that truly reflects the will of the people will be one that both sides can have greater trust in and thus we might have an easier time agreeing about. Don’t you think?
This election and even this damned pandemic will soon be distant memories. Donald Trump will fade away, trust me. It might take a while, but life will go on.
We can either learn to live together, or we can continue to hate, continue to exact revenge, and overpower and that cycle will go round and round until, like SAMCRO, we annihilate each other and our country in the process.
I believe that it is possible for us to make America united again…
But to do that we have to escape the cycle and re-learn how to disagree agreeably.
Otherwise, I am afraid to tell you, our country just ain’t going to work, for anyone, anymore…
That’s not a good result for America, or Americans, or the rest of people and planet.
#MAUA