I had time to withdraw what I’d written on Election Eve (not recanting, for I don’t think my pessimism having to do with the wisdom of the electorate has entirely vanished), but decided, what the hell, to let it ride in favor of eating some humble pie this week — though with one less tooth, owing to an extraction the day before the election. That may have impelled me to project my sour mood, which has, in light of the red tide that wasn’t, brightened in the days since.
Let’s pray that people are truly fed up with attacks on the Capitol, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and reason. (Of course, the skewed Electoral College can still subvert the popular vote, but that’s for another day.)
On this Thanksgiving then we can give thanks that the country has not fallen apart at the seams. It seems that E Pluribus Unum continues to remain our motto rather than E Pluribus Nullam.
Evidently, there is “a more brotherly mood” abroad in the nation than I had thought, one that may incline us toward a more perfect union if we continue to put the greater good ahead of personal aggrandizement, if we continue not to drink the antisocial Kool-Aid.
It seems fitting that the recent rejection, by and large, of ranters comes at a time of year in which families come together, in all-for-one-and-one-for-all fashion.
Perhaps we really have dodged the autocratic bullet that, if not shunted aside as it was in these midterms, would strike at the heart of this democratic republic. I would love to think so. The brutality and lack of free speech in the world’s dictatorships — where, for example, 15 years in prison awaits those who speak the truth about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine — ought to stiffen our spines as we drink to one another’s health this Thanksgiving.
And I’ll have just a piece of that humble pie.