Biden didn’t Win
It’s more accurate to say that the swing state voters (shout out to Philly!) who dragged Biden’s prone carcass over the finish line won. It’s also more accurate to say that Trump lost. The majority of people who voted for Biden were not enthusiastic about him. He was very few people’s first choice candidate. The record turnout for Biden had very little to do with his policy proposals, his record, or him personally, and much more to do with the fact that the majority of people in this country hate Trump. I am relieved and happy to see Trump lose, but I can’t say I feel real happiness that Biden won. I don’t have high hopes for the Biden presidency, and there are genuine fears for what will follow Trump’s loss.
What’s most disturbing about this election is that it was close. Biden beat Trump soundly in the popular vote, but as we all know the popular vote is meaningless in this country’s idiot electoral system. But even by the abomination that is the electoral college, this should not have been a close race. It should have been a historic landslide. Turd should have been demolished. It is a travesty that the election was as close as it was and that Turd got as many votes as he did.
Over seventy-million people voted for Trump.That’s more votes than he got in 2016. Many millions more. He somehow became more popular and brought out more people. More than seventy-million people lived through the last four years, through the flagrant racism, sexism and extended bigotries, through constant lying, idiocy and pathetic bullying, through brazen corruption, encouraging violence against American citizens including elected representatives, allowing (arguably causing) a preventable disease from killing well over a quarter-million people to date, expanding wealth inequality and creating perhaps the worst economic crisis ever, doing everything possible to speed up the destruction and poisoning of our air and water and the Earth itself, and every other horrible, despicable, and completely batshit stupid thing this deranged turd has done, and still voted for him. They’re still okay with him. Not just okay, many of them like him. They’ve witnessed his evil, incompetence, and depravity, and they’re still all on board. We’re past the point where we can write the majority of these people off as simply ignorant, give them the benefit of the doubt that perhaps they just don’t realize that Turd is bad. They know. There’s been far too much evidence to profess ignorance, and wilful ignorance, ignoring or denying the facts to keep supporting him with a “clean conscience” is as bad as openly embracing his worst aspects, and those who do are no less complicit.
The more than seventy-million degenerates who voted for Trump aren’t going anywhere. The people who support Trump and feel like he represents them are not going to shut up and go away just because of an election. The ideologies of bigotry and cruelty and universal destruction that Trump rode to power preceded him, and will outlast him. While he amplified and gave license to the worst traits of the worst people in this country, he didn’t create any of it. He didn’t force good people to do bad things; he supported bad people doing bad things. To his ignominious credit, he did do a great deal to rile them up and inflate their malignant egos. But they’re not going to shut up just because their demented demigod is out of office. If anything, they’re going to get louder. They’re going to get more aggressive. They’re going to get more violent. They were already monsters, constantly pretending at being aggrieved, acting as though they were under attack while their guy was running this burning ship right into the rocks. Now that they have an actual loss to point to and another bullshit fraud conspiracy, however little Turd did for them and despite not giving a genuine fuck about them, with their irrational and fictitious as ever cause to blame for their shortcomings, they’re going to be even more insufferable and dangerous.
We also shouldn’t expect Trump or any of his klan to disappear. They won’t. It would be nice to believe the memes about the Trump family’s next stop after the White House being prison, but it’s truly not likely and we can’t count on it. No president has ever been held to legal account the way regular citizens would. It’s been tradition for the past half century for incoming presidents to forgive and dismiss all crimes of their predecessors. Nixon, Reagan, and Bush were let off the hook and never faced any justice; there’s very little reason to believe the same won’t be true for Trump. The best we can hope for is that he’ll be caught up in state court, but even that’s a big maybe. It is extremely rare for rich and powerful people to face justice and be judged in any way commensurate with the way the rest of society is. Trump will go on being Trump, along with his idiot criminal children. Scum like Stephen Miller, William Barr, and Betsy DeVos will go on bending politics, the law, and the economy to their malicious will behind the scenes. And look at scumbags like Steve Bannon and Michael Cohen. Sure, they got arrested, but have gone on giving interviews, publishing books, and hosting podcasts.
They may be forced to give up their seats of power, but that doesn’t mean they’re giving up all or even that much power. The ramifications of their actions and their continued influence will still be felt. The fascists have taken a hit, but they are not vanquished. Celebrate this victory then get back to fighting. The war is not over.