SPEAKING ELECTION-WISE THIS IS THE SEASON OF HANDWRINGING OVER THE RESULTS. Those who had expected a different results are perplexed at what happened. The pundits are engaged in a post-mortem of the results. That is normal.
What is not normal is the lack of focus on the true nature of what happened.
Let's examine the nature of the two campaigns and the messages of the two candidates. Let's grade them on what were obviously the key ingredients of their messages. This is what I heard from the winning side, roughly in the order listed.
Anger, Threats, Falsehood, Ignorance, Obscenity, Vulgarity, Promises, Policies.
Let's face it. The losing side could not compete with this performance. They couldn't, and wouldn't, even try. The plurality of the voting public enjoyed this performance, clapping and cheering with obvious approval. No wonder in the voting booth, they chose the one who epitomized what they clapped and cheered for.
Now one might argue: "I am not like that. I condemn that kind of behavior and approach."
So, what? The end result of an election is not the doing of one individual. It is the voice of the collective. So, while individually we might be fine people, collectively we are the epitome of who won the race. Collectively, as a nation, we are represented among the nations of the world by how they see the winning side.
Perhaps we should not take all this so seriously. However, without accepting what this means and what won the day, we cannot reverse it. How can we take obscenity out of the character of our elections without recognizing the over-sized role obscenity played in winning the election?
It has been an American tradition to teach children to look up to American presidents as paragons of virtue and emulate them for success in their lives. This is a tradition we will have to break.
But, as the English theologian and historian Thomas Fuller is reported to have said 'the darkest hour is just before the dawn'.
No comments:
Post a Comment