WAS: What Adults are Saying about November 6th

The campaign will end. Then what?

All “things” as in events or life chapters must come to an end. Whether good or bad, so too, will the 2024 Presidential election. At a later date we’ll reflect on it as an election like no other—filled with its unprecedented spending, an 11th hour candidate switch and an openly authoritarian candidate.

November 6th will bring electoral “winners” and “losers” that will influence America—at least for awhile—and perhaps we best prepare. These results will receive an unprecedented amount of scrutiny. Regardless of the outcome some will see conspiracy, fraud, malfeasance or evidence that America has lost her way—although there is plenty of evidence that happened some time ago.

In a divided culture any election of leaders is bound to prompt such consequences. Voters today are widely frazzled by the endless thumping of the “we face the vote of our lifetimes” meme. This may or may not be true but resolved to be our “brother’s keeper” is in very serious question as a community guidepost in part because of electoral stakes. Election to the oval office can produce only one winner, under existing rule, regardless of the number of asterisks or “whatabouts” some may claim.

Like all days November 6th will dawn with an east sunrise. A couple of days later there will be scads of high school football games on fields that suddenly have turned crisp. That weekend families will finalize Thanksgiving travel plans to one another as football fantasy players return to their candy land. This is pretty much what it looks like on every November 6th—and that’s good.

“We”, you know the people, will have ended for the season our civic responsibility a mere 24 hours previous. That will be good too because campaigns often now needlessly raise the blood pressure of all. We pay too much attention to largely inconsequential campaign “reporting” to the point we learn more and more about less and less. Of course we will also start to grapple with the election result. Some will be more pleased than others but social tranquility is unlikely to emerge. Expecting that seems excessive so lets consider some of the things likely to happen depending on the outcome.

A Trump victory will likely:

+ Repudiate fully the idea of “law and order” applies to all in our society and speedy justice for the indicted. Perhaps even more troubling will be that at least a third of the country seemed unmoved by this when casting their ‘24 vote.

+ Elect for the third time in this century a candidate who lost the popular vote.

+ Further entwine our judiciary and the Oval Office in ways that not even Madison or Jefferson could have imagined. Trump’s mere appearance as the GOP nominee means some of this has happened already. It will become more apparent and the re-elected President will still have to meander a sentencing and additional trials.

+ Invite the application of project 2025—something that reads more like a modern treatise on stoking the Confederacy than 21st century governance. This is what passes for Federalist thinking. The moneyed backers of this movement will want their goals met pronto leading to a lot of ugliness early in 2025.

+ Be a bitter rebuke of many women and younger voters in electoral politics. If “women” as voting block against Trump can’t get Harris into the White House (after failing to get Hillary Rodham there) then when can they move the needle? Similarly, more broadly engaged young folk who became energized when the donkeys changed quarterbacks, will be re-invited to a generational norm for many that says politics isn’t worth the trouble.

+ Further narrowing of America’s social safety net—a pernicious trend that started with Ronald Reagan over four decades ago.

+ A legislative branch in four-way gridlock in that the House of Representatives will almost certainly tilt Democratic come January. This additionally means any Trump progress will come from Executive maneuvering or judicial action.

+ That same judiciary potentially emboldened by the election result. Amid strong evidence parts of the Supreme Court have already been compromised, this trend should not be expected to end.

+ The JD Vance watch. If Biden turned supporters tepid about he surviving another term, Trump will suffer the same review.

Of course Trump may not win. A Harris victory may bring:

+ A repudiation of the idea that Presidential campaigning is an endless four-year cycle. Beyond Trump himself, nothing exhausts Americans more than unending campaigning and the disproportionate energy spent on it by a fractured news media. If Harris’ victory would mean nothing more than the Presidential campaign season is now nine months—not 48—would be significant progress.

+ Reflection about the purpose of many Presidential primaries in ‘24. Though virtually unopposed Biden amassed nearly 15 million votes. Why and what might that foretell?

+ Many concluding that some aspect of ballot-box democracy remains.

+ Invite instant ridicule, rebuke and cherry-picked analysis in the most vile forms from the right wing media ecosystem on things small, smaller and smallest. Trump and it are codependent for survival and when the favorite son goes oh-for-three, creativity goes into high gear to maintain viewership..

+ Send the Heritage Foundation back to the drawing board and their coffers to imagine a 2028 win. These folks are mean and moneyed and just like their favorite SEC football team—never rebuild, but simply reload.

+ Permit American women as a voting force to proclaim finally, they got the job done.

+ Engage many, especially in the under 40 set to realize, politically speaking, America does belong to them too.

+ Surface a variety of ideas that will instantly be rejected from many Trump supporters—acting like children— thereby meaning we adults should pay close attention.

+ Invite legislative challenges. Though the Dems will rule the house that is not likely to be true in the Senate. The GOP is already girding for that and what is sure to be a nasty in-fight about who will replace Mitch McConnell as Senate leader.

But however, you feel about the prognostications, more critically the following will be encountered by whomever is inaugurated:

+ The growing rumblings of a widespread, multi-theater war never seen in the television age.

+ An international standing with allies and foes that will require at least an Ouija board to understand and a level of diplomacy for which only one party seems capable, or for that matter, fully interested.

+ A domestic economy that struggles to level inequities between the haves an have-not’s.

+ A culture, whose affection for guns passed “crazy” about 15 years ago, that will continue to idle about the catastrophic damages wrecked in our communities by virtually unlimited firearm ownership. Continued attacks on both elected officials and public servants will follow.

+ Continued climactic change so severe that soon can be expected “environmental refugees” from Houston, Salt Lake, Phoenix or various areas of California.

+ A birth-rate at historic low levels in a culture that does little to aid those in prime seeds and eggs age.

+ The aftermath of an entire generation (some now in their 40’s) witnessing widespread institutional failure in both the government and private sectors—rightly wondering about the “great“ America of which their grandparents spoke.

+ A health care delivery system (forget about the cost) that lies somewhere between collapse and laughingstock among all Western democracies.

+ Consistent failure (or community indifference) to temporarily housing those who routinely sleep on our streets and alley-ways—especially in Western cities.

+ News media so detached from its tradition of the fourth estate that when filling our devices and screens old-timer’s wonder how Quaaludes became so popular again.

You get the idea. A vote and win (or loss) for your candidate is far down the totem pole of making shit better. Without question, a Trump victory will severely constipate our country for a long time, but a blue-ribbon for Harris simply means step number one on a long recovery toward social and political sanity. That journey cannot be expected to unfurl without serious road potholes.

You are urged to cast your vote with authority and vigor but more importantly, do not shy away from Washington after that vote has been cast. If you think the election this year is the most consequential in modern times. Great. But wait, stuff is gonna get a whole lot more challenging before it gets substantially better.