Some Thoughts on the 2024 Election

So, we had an election earlier this week. Perhaps you heard about it.

I have done my best to remain mostly silent on political issues this time around because I have found that fixating on such matters does little for my mental or spiritual health. Also, no one cares what I think. Nevertheless, here are a few thoughts on our recent election.

1) I didn't vote for Donald Trump, but I'd be lying if I said I'm not glad he won. To be clear, that says more about Kamala Harris than about Donald Trump.

2) This election seemed much cleaner--much less suspicious--than the sordid affair we had in 2020. This election didn't feature any poll workers tallying (discovering? conjuring?) votes behind closed doors in the wee hours of the night, messy mail-in voting, or voter turnout beyond plausible expectations. The 2020 election had me convinced that we would never see another peaceful, uncontested election, but, as contentious as things were this year, it seems like everything went as fairly and smoothly as one could hope. Personally, I regained a little bit (just a smidge) of hope in our electoral process.

3) Even if you're pro-choice, you should find it odd that abortion was the only issue on which Kamala Harris articulated and maintained a clear position. Anecdotally, it seems like abortion was the only issue (other than "Trump is a fascist") that any Harris voter cited for choosing her. Plenty of folks voted for the person who wasn't Trump, but very few expressed positive reasons for voting for Harris. I'm no political strategist, but building an entire campaign around abortion seemed doomed to fail.

4) Boy, Joe Biden has been scarce, hasn't he?! Seriously. Ever since he "stepped aside," the media has practically portrayed Kamala as the sitting President. Watching events unfold Tuesday night, it felt like the challenger was unseating the incumbent. I had to remind myself that Biden was still alive.

5) Yet, Kamala often spoke about the need for change. What a strange strategy for the sitting Vice President? How do you campaign on the need for change when you're currently the second in command? Again, it just seems like a poor campaign strategy.

6) Kamala was a bad candidate. Let's all be honest with ourselves for a minute. She was a really awful candidate. Her own party--the party of DEI and all that--rejected her in 2020, choosing the old, white guy over the minority female. As the 2024 election loomed, the party begrudgingly backed Biden yet again until it became obvious that he was not mentally fit to endure another election cycle. They turned to Kamala because, well, who else was there. So, let's stop it with the name-calling and the virtue signaling. People who voted against her aren't racist chauvinists; they just recognized a fraud. Her own party didn't like her--you can't blame Republicans and Independents for disliking her.

7) This was just an odd election season. As an Independent who never intended to vote for a main-line candidate, it was fascinating to observe. Kamala is the epitome of a politician. She can only speak in soundbites, her positions on issues are neverendingly fluid, and her accent changes depending on the constituency to which she's speaking. She's a politician, but she's a bad politician. Her lack of depth and character was glaringly obvious and her incompetence became increasingly apparent as the campaign progressed. She didn't even come across as an able bureaucrat!

Trump, on the other hand, is the anti-politician. He is eminently himself, which is quite the mixed bag. He lives off-script, saying every narcissistic, fanciful, and incendiary thing that comes to mind.

And, yet, people find it refreshing!

While I generally don't buy the inflammatory rhetoric about this being the most important election in the history of our nation, I do believe that we just witnessed a showdown between the status quo and the bull in the china shop. I think that's why they hate him so much. He isn't one of them. He didn't rise through the ranks of Washington bureaucrats. Republicans and Democrats disagree on many things, but they are mostly committed to perpetuating the bureaucracy. Trump has no such commitment, and that scares people.

8) It will be really interesting to see what happens over the next weeks and months. Will Trump make good on his promises? Will he be as extreme as he and his opponents said? Will there be comeuppance for those who fabricated or hid the truth in their efforts to blackball him? I can't wait for the documentary in 50 years!

Oh, one more thing. Scott Stapp 2028!!!

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