Since Tuesday’s Election, Our Not-So-Brave New World
Blame the Democrats for not figuring out the U.S. electorate? How about the electorate for not figuring out what it has to do to survive? The reality is that the Trumpified U.S. electorate has moved far away from a grounded political center, a center the Harris campaign had an excellent grasp of and laid claim to. The factor no one seems willing to talk about is the relentless impact of the rightwing media in an environment in which lying and deceit are now considered OK.
Could the Democrats have done things differently? Not without selling their collective soul. The task before us now is one of damage control and a longer-term very serious commitment to restore the brain cells of America with a lot of basic realities. It is a moral challenge like none we, as a species, have faced since the days of the Holocaust. Dumbed down approaches need to be tossed. This is not a struggle between “left” and “right,” it is between up and down — between the better angels of our souls versus the dark ones..
When David Brooks chuckles on NPR that “we all know Trump is a liar and racist,” but still defends the GOP victory, he is obfuscating the fundamental point that it is the current majority in the nation, not simply Trump, that are liars and racists, and that emboldened by this week’s election result, many will act on those impulses to the detriment of us all.
