Five Reasons To Hope

I've been rather doom-and-gloom in my posts lately. That's for good reason, of course, but always being negative doesn't do our collective mental health any good. So in this post, I thought I would do something positive and outline five reasons why we might have hope that democracy isn't quite dead yet. We may yet be able to snatch democracy from the jaws of fascism. (And if we do, we'd better make damned sure we don't blow our opportunity.)

Here are my five reasons. See if you agree:

1) Trump is utterly incompetent. We're seeing it already, as a transition team he should have had fully assembled way back in June or July has yet to name any but the most rudimentary of cabinet members, such as Chief of Staff. This is exactly the same mistake Trump made in 2016, and he never quite recovered from it. In fact, at no point during his first four years did Trump ever have a fully staffed cabinet, or diplomatic corps. There is a realistic chance that what saves democracy isn't the failure of those who defend it, but the ineptitude of those who would destroy it.

With Captain Wrongway Peachfuzz back at the helm, the one thing you can count on is a bevy of mistakes.

2) Because Trump won this election with an actual majority, he may not be tempted to subvert it in the future. Trump really and truly believes that he will always win. Twice now he has overcome being behind in the aggregate polling average up until the last possible minute, at which point he somehow manages to win. By winning an actual majority this time, he (and Vance, we hope) may come to believe that the vote will always go his way, and will therefore not attempt to subvert the electoral process in either 2026 or 2028.

You can count on a delusional man to maintain his delusions.

3) Biden can use these last remaining months to blunt Trump's future retribution. Perhaps he will give a blanket presidential pardon to all those Trump has named as enemies, preventing Trump from using the Justice Department to enact revenge. Perhaps he will enact other measures to blunt any future takeover or move towards totalitarianism. I very much hope he will, and it's something to watch for. Hell, I hope he pardons his son, Hunter, too. That would be a nice, parting kick to the Republican groin.

You can count on Biden in his final days, just as you could these past four years.

4) There will be a strong sense of betrayal which will play to our favor. The entire crossover vote will feel the pain of buyers' remorse as Trump's administration unfolds in a way other than what they expected. Muslims who voted for Trump or didn't vote altogether because they didn't like the Biden administration's approach to the genocide in Gaza will be shocked to see Gaza utterly destroyed to make room for new Jewish settlements. Young black men who voted for Trump in order to shake things up will find themselves dismayed as they and/or their friends fall victim to reinstated "stop and frisk" policies, racial profiling, and immunity for police brutality. White women who chose religion over a woman's autonomy will find themselves shocked by one news story after another of a woman dying of sepsis as doctors, too afraid of abortion bans to give the appropriate care which was needed in a timely fashion, end up waiting until the last possible minute, which proves to be too late for the patient. Latinos who voted for Trump will be shocked as their friends, and possibly even their relatives, are suddenly arrested and deported, despite many of them being documented.

You can count on customer complaints when you sell a phony product.

5) If the worst truly happens, and blue states are forced to secede from the Union, the majority of those within the MAGA echo-chamber will undoubtedly say, "Screw 'em! Let 'em go! We never liked those damned liberal states anyway! Good riddance!"

You can count on MAGA's irrational hatred of "woke liberals" to help prevent a Civil War.

Eric

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