America in Waiting

 

                    President Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site Indianapolis courtesy photo

    As America waits I share history and sentiment. I spent a lot of time at this wonderful historic site, serving on the board and eventually as president of the Benjamin Harrison Home board of directors. There is a connection to where we are now.

        Harrison was elected in 1888, defeating Grover Cleveland in a campaign that had its share of controversy and dispute. Harrison, who had served in the Senate, lost the popular vote by 90 thousand but won the electoral college 233 to 168. Almost 80% of eligible voters, some 11million, cast their ballots.

    Harrison was an advocate of civil rights and voting rights but America at that time was not ready. It would be another 32 years before women were extended the right to vote. Harrison spoke often in favor of African American rights. Most modern Americans know little if any of Benjamin Harrison, who's Grandfather was William Henry Harrison, the 9th President. He was also the great grandson of a name sake who signed the Declaration of Independence. Dispute over tariffs cost him his re-election bid, as he was defeated by Cleveland, the man he beat four years earlier. His one term is a rich tapestry of an emerging American nation on the cusp of the 20th Century.

    Watching recent campaigns painfully serves to inform how poorly educated we Americans are about our history. The last 4 years has been a catalogue of ignorance and lies. If we knew our history, perhaps we'd be better citizens. 

    The 2020 campaign will be studied as an oddity. There will be volumes to come but already Tom Friedman writes the US is the loser in this election.

    "We have just experienced four year of the most divisive and dishonest presidency in American history, which attacked the twin pillars of our democracy-truth and trust." Friedman wrote and I agree.

    My Irish friend Jack, a devotee of US history and culture, wrote to me on election day with a powerful assessment I share here.

    This could be a day of days or the end of days.

I expect Joe Biden to be elected with a significant majority in the Electoral College and a big majority in the popular vote.

However, if Trump is re-elected the American people will not be able to claim that they did not know what 4 more years of Trump will entail, even if the Democrats take the Senate. They will have chosen corruption, moral bankruptcy, division, lies, lies and more lies. The US will be shown to no longer be a democracy. It will be a plutocracy, put in place by the Supreme Court (Citizens United), enabled by the Supreme Court (the evisceration of the Voting Rights Act) and by a once great political party, the party of Lincoln; a bandit country in which people armed with weapons capable of firing 60 rounds a minute can invade a state capitol without hindrance or consequence (Supreme Court on 2nd amendment; a justice system which is getting more and more unjust; a country in which civil rights are in retreat; a country which is a pariah in the world; a country which is reaping the harvest of a criminal lack of investment in public education and no investment in public health (socialism!); a country in which the First Amendment right to protest will be suppressed by troups, whether federal, National Guard, ICE or other; a country where the media have been captured by the plutocracy (Murdoch/Fox 'News', spreading like a malevolent virus across the nation, shutting down local newspapers, radio and television); a country where JFK's 'Ask not what your country can do for you...' would be laughed at... I could go on. We all could. The list is endless and the 'appalling vista' (Lord Denning in Bermingham 6 appeal) would become a rooted reality in a once great country, a country to which the free world (does it exist anymore?) looked for leadership.

It is staggering that it has come to this but, as many have pointed out, this did not start with Trump, it has been many years in the making.

Let's pray that Biden's election will be the first step in the re-building of the USA, a re-building that will take generations, a re-buildng that so many good, decent Americans of all political hues deserve.

    It is truth and logic. I am embarrassed at America's decline in the eyes of the world. I am embarrassed by Trump, his destruction of the Republican party, and those who support him and condone his attack on truth and trust. His gains for his partisans are not worth the destruction he has rendered.

   It troubles me this nation has descended where millions can condone unAmerican and boorish behavior by a man who is ultimately a Russian stooge playing a starring role in sowing division, discord and eroding our confidence and trust in who we are. He did it for his own aggrandizement. It is a fact that we cannot dismiss. And as we pick through the next four years and beyond, it is a recent history we must account for. He fueled it for gain and greed and we are a divided people.

    There is work to do, rebuilding the United States, despite ourselves. We hope the days of the divider, working only for his base, are over. We need a uniter, a healer, a president for all Americans and a leader for the world. 

    For the time being, stay positive. Catch up on your sleep.

       Thanks to Bruce, the editor.

       See you down the trail.