The exit polls are puzzling. The top 1% think things are fine. The remaining 99% feel “left out.” The reality, released two days after the election, is that the economy is moving forward at a solid pace. Too many voters (and especially non-voters) fell for the well-spun hype of the highly-monied Republican Party and their cohorts. On all sides, money poured into this election like rotgut in the ’20s. The Democratic Party was incapable of maintaining a strategy or clarifying simple issues. This was not an election. It was a melee.
If we can practice courage and discernment, we know we live in a swamp of violence — gun violence, economic violence, judicial violence — and all the inequities of a country in priority flux.
One thing is sure: the first to suffer will be the poor, the homeless, the disabled, the old, and all those experiencing the cold, hard grip of poverty. More cuts into social resources seem inevitable.
So many people, at the drop of a coin, will declaim about the “founding fathers” and their intentions in our “founding documents.” If we could channel a founding father or two, we might inquire how a homeless starving woman, man or child is to engage in the “pursuit of happiness” if they are denied the means of basic survival.
As Bette Davis advised us, we must “fasten our seatbelts” because we are in for some “bumpy nights.”
Mary Young
Oak Park