He Asked Us to Pretend He Was on the Ballot

And the people answered with a resounding rebuke

In the weeks before the mid-term elections, the blowhard-in-chief flew around the red parts of the nation asking voters to “pretend I’m on the ballot.” It was just another one of the Orange Felon’s chaotic mistakes because America responded with a rebuke of Trumpism that we haven’t seen since the Watergate investigation of Richard Nixon– another Republican crook. And who got elected was an even more resounding defeat of the anti-DEI white Christian nationalist policies and actions. More women of color, a liberal Christian, a Muslim, and the first Black governor of Georgia. All in all, the blue wave swept 154 democrats into office in the House, and 55 in the Senate, plus two independents (they are still counting votes in Alaska as of press time).

In short, this is a government that is beginning to look like the people they represent; isn’t that a novel idea? No, it’s what the promise of the Declaration of Independence intended.

As historic as this victory is over MAGA Republicanism, it is not a total defeat. You see, Trump led the assault against the cultural revolution that came out of the 1960s. The political revolution that was inclusive of Blacks, gays, Latinos, and women’s equality and inclusion. Trump led the insurrection against all of the progress made over the last 50 years of struggle. And now he’s losing this culture war, but he’s not yet defeated.

This has echoes of America’s own Civil War with the great last push from the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg. It was probably one of the most documented battles of this war, remembered most famously by Gen. George Pickett’s charge up Cemetery Ridge; it was a disastrous defeat with over half of the 13,000 soldiers killed.

This wasn’t the end of the war, but it was the beginning of the end for the Confederate army of Northern Virginia and Gen. Lee’s surrender almost two years later. Remember President Lincoln’s speech, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” To one extent or another, we are still defining just what that “proposition” means today.

I make this reference because the culture wars have been just as divisive as our Civil War, pitting neighbor against neighbor and splitting families. In fact, it has been pursued specifically to divide us, and just like in the other war, the Union is beginning to prevail; the MAGA troops are starting to defect or retreat, and Commander Trump is losing on all fronts. It is not yet a surrender, nor will he ever admit the loss­– it will always be someone else’s fault. It is the beginning of the end of Trumpism.

What I am most cautiously proud of is the millions of Americans who woke up, stood up for One Nation with Liberty and Justice for All. Perhaps we may find some solace in the idea that we are stronger together as a nation than divided, that there is something to e pluribus unum after all.  And yet if our history is to teach us anything from the 1860s it is that our country was too quick to forgive and forget. Only Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, was arrested and jailed, only later to be released without a sentence. And with the end of Reconstruction, the myth of the Lost Cause arose, along with Jim Crow laws and the disenfranchisement of Black civil rights for the next 100 years.

This time, the people are demanding accountability; they are demanding justice for the abuse of power, the illegal ICE raids, killings, and detentions, all of the Trump family’s acts of corruption, and this stupid war on Iran. The list is practically too long to list, but there is certainly cause for impeachment of many in the cabinet and grounds to prosecute the Orange Felon once and for all.

Clearly, the anger of the American electorate was a judgment on the president himself and all of the co-conspirators who just stood by and watched him make a mockery of the ideals and democratic institutions that once made this nation great. And yet what this fool has done is to break so many of the bipartisan traditions of governance and expose the limits of our constitutional safeguards, so that whatever gets done after him will have to consider fixing what was broke — like changing the laws on convicted felons from holding office and putting an enforceable code of ethics on the U.S. Supreme Court.

 The work of taking back America didn’t end at the ballot box but will continue in the months and years to come. I am proud that our people had the fortitude to stand up against tyranny and to once again show faith in our democracy. For we can never allow such a tyrant to ever gain power in our republic again. The watchword is Eternal Vigilance!