Early Findings from 2020 Election Offer a Dim View of America
Too many Americans suffer from ‘limited cognition’
So, it’s Wednesday morning and the presidential election is still not settled. This result was not unexpected. The increase in mail-in voting, because of COVID-19, means that it will take days to tally all the votes. But some of the early findings offer some alarming views of America. President Donald Trump cronies Senators Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell both won reelection and the Republicans look like they will retain the Senate. Here are some other observations:
Americans are okay with Trump’s racism, corruption
Trump went into the election having bungled the coronavirus outbreak. That cost almost 250,000 people their lives. He’s also a serial liar who’s told more than 20,000 whoppers, is billions of dollars in debt, and his White House is a scandal factory. Yet millions of Americans are okay with this?
Many leftists watched the results and were left gobsmacked. How can people think this behavior is OK? The president is a laughingstock and mocked worldwide for his incompetence and yet some people want to give him four more years?
This tweet from Fred Guttenberg, the father of a child killed in the Parkland, Fla. school shooting, sums things up, “When this election season ends, this country will have to deal with the reality that many of our neighbors are ok with there (sic) President lying, coddling dictators, Americans dying and white supremacy and domestic terrorism.”
Too many Americans Suffer from ‘limited cognition’
This observation relates to the first point. Having lived in America for more than a quarter of a century, I’ve realized that many Americans suffer from “limited cognition.” (This is a phrase that Gen. (rtd.) James Mattis also used to describe Trump.) That’s a nice way of saying they’re not very smart.
A lot of Americans don’t read, can’t think critically and vote against their interests. Why do you think a ridiculous conspiracy theory such as QAnon is spreading? By the way, QAnon enthusiast Marjorie Taylor Greene ran unopposed. So now we have yet another racist conspiracy theorist in government. Greene also threatened members of the progressive “Squad” with an assault rifle in a campaign ad. It’s interesting to see how she’ll work alongside people of color and Muslims she’s denigrated.
However, Greene was the second white nationalist elected last night. The GOP also elected Madison Cawthorn to a House seat in North Carolina. Cawthorn, who looks like he came out of alt-right casting central, even bragged about visiting Hitler’s vacation home and accused Sen. Corey Booker (D-N.J.) of “working against white males.” He’s also been accused of lying on his resume and sexual assault, yet he won his race in a landslide! There are two main political parties in America, but only one of them is sane. The Republican Party nurtures extremists like Greene and Hawthorne.
America Still Isn’t Liberal
I’ve long known that America isn’t a liberal country. Many Americans are so dense they won’t even vote for liberal policies, such as universal healthcare, even if it benefits them. They can’t see the advantages and drank the right-wing Kool-Aid. Only in America do people continue to blindly follow policies, such as trickledown economics and for-profit healthcare — even though they don’t work. And the worse thing about it is the people who would benefit the most often fight the hardest against liberal policies.
Poor Southern states, such as Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, have terrible health outcomes, yet they consistently vote for Republicans who are against the expansion of healthcare. Ironically, former Confederates states hated President Barack Obama and the Affordable Care Act, even though it expanded their access to healthcare. Why? Because, socialism. And to all you Bernie Bots out there, he would have fared even worse than Joe Biden. They accused Biden, a centrist Democrat, of being a socialist. They would have declared Sanders, an actual socialist, a Satan worshipper.
The Dark Arts Work
Why is the race this close? Well, because schemes, such as voter suppression and voter intimidation, work. In the run-up to the election, it was clear that the Republicans were determined to stop people from voting. Trump installed toady Louis DeJoy as postmaster general. He issued orders to slow down the mail. That meant people who voted by mail would be disenfranchised. There were several incidents of piles of undelivered ballots found in Florida postal centers. And when a judge ordered DeJoy to sweep Florida mail centers to find uncounted ballots, he refused. That’s contempt of court and I don’t know why he’s not sitting in jail now.
Also, the GOP flooded Spanish-speaking communities in Florida with anti-Biden propaganda. It worked. Trump, who screwed up aid to Puerto Rico, received more Latino voters than in 2016. Many of them were Cubans and Central Americans who bought into the “Biden is a socialist” message. These communities associate socialism with dictatorship and oppression. But those words are not mutually exclusive. You can have right-wing authoritarians, such as the Pinochet junta in Chile, and Democratic socialist governments, such as Sweden.
Ironically, Trump is setting up the United States to be a right-wing dictatorship, just like the countries many Latin Americans fled. Blatant corruption, disregard for democracy, oppressive police, a ruling family, it’s all there in the Trump administration — and it’s only going to get worse. Last night when Trump declared himself the winner, even while votes were being tallied, it was a move straight out of the authoritarians’ playbook.
Biden could still pull off a victory as ballots are still being counted, but it should never have been this close. The fact it’s down to the wire indicates too many Americans can’t be counted on to do what’s good for the nation.
This tweet from Fred Guttenberg, the father of a child killed in the Parkland, Fla. school shooting, sums things up, “When this election season ends, this country will have to deal with the reality that many of our neighbors are ok with there (sic) President lying, coddling dictators, Americans dying and white supremacy and domestic terrorism.”
