By David Rutter
This is not exactly Reagan’s “Morning in America,” but then, neither was Reagan’s “Morning in America” real either.
Stash the marketing fakery.
Breathe, America.
It’s going to be OK.
It’s like being freed from the Kardashians, R. Kelly and Kanye West in one grand sweep of emancipation.
Somebody has got be President of the United States, and exactly how bad is it that Joe Biden gets the job? Worse outcomes have happened. Worse outcomes did happen four years ago.
While I’d like the next four years to be filled with wonderful progressive legislation and national innovation, I’m more comforted that the basics of competent government return.
The malevolent frat party is over.
Think of those who will be cast into darkness.
The terrible regulatory assault (EPA, federal lands, wildlife, banking) can be ended almost immediately by presidential fiat.
The FBI and intelligence community can return to being professional, non-political support for the national interest . . . We will never have to fear that Army troops will storm the streets to teargas peaceful demonstrators . . . Betsy DeVos will leave through the back door . . . Not perfect, but nice. Something more violently precipitous would have been appropriate.
But fundamentally, bootlicking no longer is required as a government oath.
Competence is back.
No more Ivanka, Jared or the Alfonse and Gaston brothers . . . No more Mike Pompeo at State debasing allies, or the very oddly xenophobic Stephen Miller banning all immigrants with darker skin than his, and kidnapping children at the border . . . No more career federal prosecutors abused and manipulated. They can be federal prosecutors again. Justice can return.
William Barr can find his rock and slide back underneath. We’ll have laws again.
No more subsidized golf outings at Mar-a-Lago . . . or embarrassing NATO meetings . . . or Leader of The Free World happily dry-humping dictators.
Think of the parade of doomed, soulless creatures Trump has paraded before America as our masters. There’s the door.
Air Force One can be fumigated and deloused. The Louse-in-Chief has been jettisoned.
Somebody has to pick up all the Big Mac wrappers in the Oval Office.
COVID-19 truth-speaker Dr. Anthony Fauci can tell Trump to go Ef Himself, and he can say a truth-speaking Fuck if he wants. He’s earned it.
Maybe Biden’s transition team can resurrect the careers of fired USS Theodore Roosevelt captain Brett Crozier and National Security Agency aide Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman – at least ceremoniously. They told the truth about COVID and Ukraine as patriots, and were metaphorically guillotined.
Civic honor can return. Yes, actual honor as a human virtue. How necessary and comforting that will be.
And best of all, we won’t have to watch the hideous automaton Mike Pence. Can somebody please arrest Rudy Giuliani?
The results could have been more dramatically victorious. We need not dream of perfection and deny the good. Today is good and will get better on January 20’s Inauguration Day.
All the tally “leans” strongly suggest that’s the outcome of the quest to be “45’s” successor.
We’ll dot the “i’s” this weekend. Sure, Trump has declared victory – which is like the Bears scoring a touchdown in the third quarter and declaring preemptive Super Bowl triumph.
But you’d almost think Democrats are glum that the verdict wasn’t more cataclysmic. What they needed to calm their souls was for Trump to be obliterated, pummeled, humiliated and left pleading for mercy on the dusty streets of Laredo.
We can always hope Trump resists leaving on January 20 and requires an armed platoon of Marines to evict him bodily and leave him on a Pennsylvania Avenue curb.
Biden is not Obama, or JFK. He’s a guy named Joe, even if that’s not quite real either.
But Democrats’ sightly downcast perception misses the point.
Trump will genuflect before the Supreme Court he believes he owns. But the truth is that very little presents itself to be overturned.
He will not lose by votes found or submitted after Election Day. No tricks; just counting. Biden actually won with votes delivered on Election Day but counted later.
He was always the winner. He didn’t flip any state. The election was over that last Tuesday night. The next president had been chosen. We just didn’t know it until they counted the ballots.
Like every other national election.
Trump will lose from mailed-in votes received before Election Day, just like the ones he uses to vote.
“I don’t like the result” is not really an actionable petition in court.
Biden will accumulate the majority vote even larger than the one that was not enough for Hillary Clinton. You want the person with the most votes to win, right? He has.
Perhaps Biden does not pose well in Speedos. He’s old and plain, and likely sags. But a win is, as they say, a win, and there is no such animal as winning ugly in politics. Politics is natural selection in life action.
Natural selection always defines the scoreboard. It’s Thunderdome. Two go in; one comes out.
Once Democrats and the nation calm down from Trump’s incessant bleating and provocation, they will see the America they now manage. Maybe it will a nice place again, and become the nation we hoped it would be.
Even if You-Can’t-Kill-Him-With-A-Flamethrower Mitch McDonnell obstructs for four more years, Joe Biden has taken over the corner office. He has the big penthouse view.
If not morning in America, at least we can see a hint of brightness at the edge of dawn.
Take a deep breath, America.
It’s nice to feel good.
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David Rutter is the former publisher/editor of the Lake County News-Sun, and more importantly, the former author of the Beachwood’s late, great “The Week In WTF” column. His most recent piece for us was The St. Louis Flat-Earthers. You can also check him out at his Theeditor50’s blog. He welcomes your comments.
Posted on November 6, 2020