Showing posts with label election anxiety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label election anxiety. Show all posts

Thursday, November 5, 2020

Counting chickens Thursday …

During this morning’s brief spell with electricity supplied to the household, I watched the ongoing updates on the presidential race. It was far grimmer than I expected – Trump actually has people voting for him!
WTF?
Who are these people?
Did I – and millions of others – count chickens before they hatched, so sure were we that The Trumpster was out?
***
Let’s pretend we live in a normal time – normal for a pandemic, that is – and do, as I’ve done for months, the end of week numbers for Covid infections and deaths. 
November 5 numbers compared to thirty-plus days ago.
Worldwide (Map
November 5 – 48,136,225 confirmed infections; 1,225,915 deaths
October 1 – 33,881,275 confirmed infections: 12,012,980 deaths

US (Map
November 5 – 9,487,470 confirmed infections; 237,730 deaths
October 1 – 7,233,199 confirmed infections: 206,940 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal
November 5 – 730,500 confirmed infections; 19,585 deaths
October 1 – 674,340 confirmed infections: 16,735 deaths

Could another harder lockdown be in the cards in South Africa?   (6:55 mins)

News blues…

The old world is not coming back
Even if Joe Biden wins the election, he can't quell the forces that spurred Trumpism  ….The US can't just say it's back, as if Trump never happened. Foreign envoys in Washington caution that the political dislocation that led to his rise could deliver another nationalist president in four years.
Turbulence ahead…
***
OK, America, so what the hell happens now? 
With the future and democratic reputation of the American republic hanging in the balance, this is not an occasion for bombast. Rather it is time to reach humbly in the darkness, seeking only to summon such measured words as convey the intense dignity of this moment. In short, I think we all feel the hand of history on our pussies.
***
Van Jones puts it well: “there’s a political victory and there’s a moral victory”  (7:04 mins)....
***
Either Trump or Biden Will Win. But Our Deepest Problems Will Remain.
A presidential election naturally concentrates our country’s attention. For a time, everything seems to depend on the answer to one clear and simple question.
But then what? On rare occasions, the country’s fate really does rest on a discrete set of policy choices embodied by competing candidates.
More often, though, our deepest problems aren’t really amenable to resolution by a president. These problems have been adding up to something of a social crisis, evident not only in the breakdown of our political culture but also in the isolation and despair that have driven up suicide and opioid-abuse rates, and in a sense of alienation that leaves whole communities feeling excluded from the American story and in turn angrily rejecting it. Read the article >>
***
The Lincoln Project…
I watched election day episode of LIVE LPTV  – and the main take-aways: Yikes, who knew Trumpism was so entrenched? And: the advice not sweat it – “it’ll take a little while for the vote to be counted”….
But I am sweating it…
Meanwhile, The Lincoln Project ads continue:
Absentee (1:42 mins)
The Proof  (0:55 mins)

Healthy futures, anyone?

It’s difficult, today, to think of healthy futures for anyone – given the reality of how entrenched is Trumpism in the US – the effects of which are felt worldwide.
My advice? Go out outside. Look at the sky. Think positive thoughts. Imagine a better, more inclusive world and a healthier planet. Then, engage in making it so!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

In an abrupt about face, I’m thankful, now, that the electrical supply to this house, on for a mere ten minutes or so his morning, went off for most of the day. It meant I could not act on my desire obsessively to check election news every five minutes.
During the ten minutes with electricity, however, I discovered, 1) The Donald was doing better than anyone of my political persuasion expected (Biden was still squeaking ahead with electoral college counts) and 2) Trump had already made a victory speech. Trump’s Problem: all votes have not been counted, particularly mail-in and absentee ballots – some 90 million.
A little premature, Donald?
Nevertheless, the tight race is astonishing. The United States is in BIG cultural trouble. It means nothing good for the United States that a man of Donald Trump’s caliber – vainglorious, a liar and a cheat, self-centered, pathologically narcissistic, uninterested in world affairs or the vast majority of people except as a mirror for his grandiosity – could garner the kind of votes that could keep him in the White House another four years.
It’s the end of the world as we know it. (R.E.M: 4:00 mins)