Turn Out The Lights

 

“What? Over? Did you say ‘over’? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!” - Bluto Blutarsky

 

One of the perils of sort of/kind of writing with a deadline in mind is that sometimes you publish something in which you make a joke about how long it is going to take to "call" the Presidential election and it happens the very next day.  I wonder if Dave Barry ever had days like these.

You might have heard that President Trump has taken his election defeat graciously.  Just kidding. Trump is acting like Trump. He's filed lawsuits alleging voter fraud. Which probably occurred because it occurs in every election. The question is was there enough to change the outcome of the election.

The answer to the question is no, there is not.

Andrew McCarthy of The National Review, which isn't a liberal magazine says,  "Even with the election having been close, we are talking about the need to shift tens of thousands of votes — I’d estimate at least 80,000, and probably more, spread in the right quantities over three states — before the outcome would arguably be in doubt."   

That's a lot of votes to find and they are not there.

The reason for Trump's loss is in his mirror. He was just too much Trump for his own good. 

After Mitt Romney lost to President Obama, there was a lot of talk that Romney was just the latest in the line of Republicans who didn't fight back and were gracious losers. Somewhere after the 1988 election, the GOP lost its mojo and wouldn't punch back when punched. 

In comes Trump who not only punches back but does a whole MMA on his opponent, whoever it may be: a former party nominee, a Pope, a beauty queen, parents of a fallen solider, a senator from your own party.  It didn't matter to him.

This caused a daily drama that frankly wore the country out.  

I'm not saying that a Republican should be a namby-pamby type that accepts all criticisms. For a Democrat to receive Republican type scorn from the national media he has to start a land war in Southeast Asia.   It comes with the territory of being a Republican. However, there has to be some middle ground somewhere between Romney and Trump.

It was nice to hear a Democrat say, "Let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end here and now.".  Especially the Democrat that said, just eight years ago, that Republicans wanted to put people in chains.

It was nice, but Biden has people in his own party wanting to put people on "lists", to make them "accountable" for being Trump's "enablers".

I'm old enough to remember when Nixon had a list and all of the people at the New York Times had a tizzy.

But this is a different time and the people making the "lists" now have a (D) beside their name which makes their intentions pure, clean, and bright.

So forgive me for being cynical, but I'll believe this dawning of the Age of Aquarius when I see it.

Four years ago, "The Resistance" started and featured people going into the streets wearing genitalia hat ware and speaking in glowing terms of blowing up The White House. You had several entertainers publicly fantasize about killing Trump  

I remember Mark Halprerin comparing Trump's election to 9/11.  I remember people arguing on Facebook. I had a person on Facebook tell me that I was the reason Clinton lost Wisconsin, which was a cute trick since I live and voted in Georgia.  I remember one person told somebody on a thread I was involved in to "drink bleach". The Resistance folks were nice people.

This year you have Conservatives putting this message on Facebook:  "I'm Going To Parler"

So, sure, I agree there are those that are in the Five Stages of Grief and haven't left the denial stage. They should. They will. It like the old song Don Meredith used to sing on Monday Night Football: "Turn out the lights, the party's over".

Any-who, the Trump administration will soon be history. It's been fun. It's been real. I'm not sure it has been real fun though.