Next Day - What Are You Seeing?

11/9/2022

It was a late night last night, wasn’t it? Len worked at a polling place 6:30 AM until 10:30 PM. He said the actual experience is a lot like working retail (which he has not done since he was 22). Stand up most of the time, pleasantly say the same thing over and over. Wonder if lunch is soon.  

Professional reporters and pundits are talking a lot about “what just happened”, but heck, we are noticing interesting things, too.  Let’s talk about what We The People saw and heard and are watching now.

Here are some things catching my attention.

1. I read this ironic tweet. “A person who had a very good night who wasn’t even on the ballot was Liz Cheney.” Neither she nor Adam Kinzinger were on the ballot, but I don’t think, after this election, they are out of the picture.

2. Trump has been in our headlights for six years and he’ still there. It wasn’t congress, committees, DOJ, or courts that finally cut him off at the pass – and yes, I know he’s not over; I know this endless unraveling will continue – but from where I sit last night We The People disempowered him. Took this long, but I think it is finally happening.

3. Because there has been so much drama and violence about “stolen elections” we all know now, very clearly, that counting all the votes takes time. There are many races still up in the air today and most of us understand and accept this. Interesting what we've learned along the way.

4. I turned on TV at 7:00 last night to watch returns but quickly realized it was going to be boring and aggravating for at least another hour or two – so I watched a Nova show about the Nazca lines in Peru. I’m chuckling because I now realize for rest of my life I am going to associate them with sitting on the sofa waiting for election returns. 

5. When I mentioned in the comments yesterday that I made lentil soup so I would have something to eat besides chocolate and wine – I’d forgotten we have actually had a big bag of miniature Halloween chocolate bars. We have less now. 

What are you seeing and thinking this morning? Are we witnessing the slow churn of actual democracy? There is no huge landslide to either side, but it seems as if something is rolling back to the center.  We are disgusted by violence. We don’t want our rights taken away. The new youngest voters will be a force to contend with. Go Gen Z!  We still live in a very racist, sexist, classist society that can be exploited by the ultra-rich, but maybe not forever.

Thanks to all of us who particpated, volunteered, voted, and worked the polls.