In the end, only the people were strong enough, the check and balance we’ve been praying for. On a beautiful Fall weekend, in a year of tribulations the likes of which most of us have never known, Donald Trump was evicted from office by a broad coalition after one term of four long, destructive years. I admit all along I indulged in fantasies of his early overthrow, via faithless electors before the inauguration, by the 25th Amendment, by impeachment. These were but a poor proxy for hope, a way to fill an emotional void. Team Trump held power and no inhibitions about using all of it and abusing most of it. They were recalcitrant and arrogant. And they were bolstered and enabled by a Republican party that any reasonable observer could see had been ethically compromised over decades before Trump became their avatar and their delivery vehicle for policies clearly opposed by most of the country and vast majorities of citizens of the Western democracies. But the electoral system, our state-by-state machinery of trust – as problematic as its been in recent years – proved resilient enough to be our vehicle. We didn’t defeat systemic abuse of power or institutional racism or the self-dealing American oligarchy, but we defeated him. And for now, we dance, we sing, we cry and we let loose with unbridled joy.
When facing a neo-fascist who spreads mistrust and who worked hard to bend the tools of government to his political ends, the effective electoral machinery of Nov. 3 (and months before) just can’t be celebrated enough. We’ve seen no stories of major disruptions, voting machine breakdowns, foreign hacks or violence at polling places. The early voting surge distributed the vote load over many days and kept Election Day from becoming a fiasco. State and local officials stepped up as never before, risking their health and possibly their lives to ensure everyone had the chance to vote. Given Covid and the violent tempers of Team Maga, I thought there would be at least sporadic instances of chaos at polling places if not worse. I never worried about Biden losing a fair election, but I was deeply anxious about system meltdowns that could put the results in existential doubt. Because of planning and the immense dedication of volunteers and low-paid civil servants, America actually pulled off a high-stakes election. In a country where liberals tend to desire federal standards and practices, the decentralization of our elections is a gift in this case, because it put the apparatus of the vote and the count beyond Trump’s reach, which clearly infuriates him. Then the courts rapidly batted away the rash of frivolous lawsuits that came from an embittered, laughably incompetent Trump campaign. We’re still waiting for the full account of how Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s legal beagles wound up holding a press conference on Saturday morning at Four Seasons Total Landscaping at the very moment the networks finally confirmed Biden’s win, but it was the sit-com chef’s kiss we deserved.
Also key to this moment, this survival of a near extinction event, are African Americans, who turned out in astonishing numbers and who voted for the Biden/Harris ticket 90% to 8%. Black women hit 93%, even as white men supported Trump 59/39. Without Black Americans, whose experience, from segregation through voter suppression in old Confederate states, has been reasonably likened to being on the losing end of a caste system, we’d be entering an unstoppable era of right-wing authoritarianism. I don’t know what a Democratic party platform that answers that faith fully and fairly looks like, but I know it involves ending the private prison system, rebuilding law enforcement in many places and taking a long federal level look at reconciliation and reparations. And while I have no leverage and little hope, it will require a reformed conservative movement based on policy and civic engagement that repudiates instead of accommodates white supremacists. As I’ve argued before, the GOP has become a neo-Confederate party, which is simply not compatible with our Constitution or our values. That vision got set back this week. If they get defeated in the Georgia Senate runoffs coming up, it will look like a more historic and effective repudiation.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris accepted this victory with grace, optimism and magnanimity. Their speeches on Saturday night brought me to tears – joyful ones for this big reset, and bitter ones for the victims of this scourge of a pandemic and the health workers so put upon by bad government and bad citizenship. There is of course so much to think about and do to realign the old Democratic order and think through an inclusive policy-making apparatus. There are huge decisions to make about holding Trump and his enablers accountable for the laws they broke (without over-reaching), and there are profound challenges in cooling down our nation’s many fevers. But Biden and Harris bring a mix of tone and temperament that embraces empathy but brooks no bull. Whatever else, we dodged a nuke and put ourselves in at least the position to succeed.
CH 11.8.20
New Work
Sturgill and Tyler's Stringband Turn
for WMOT
I wrote at length last week about the story behind two of the leading men of Americana releasing surprise albums reflecting their bluegrass and old time roots. In the process I learned a lot about the new Kentucky old time and folklore scene, being spurred by a new generation of leaders, including fiddlers Jesse Wells and Brett Ratliff and their institutions, the Kentucky Center for Traditional Arts at Morehead State University and WMMT, the radio station in Whitesburg, KY run by non-profit culture makers Appalshop.
“There were no fiddler's conventions in Kentucky,” Ratliff told me. “So we started one and started having competitions and workshops on a regular basis and basically, just organizing around the music and trying to turn as many people onto it as we could. There's a large gap between the older generation playing it and then our generation. So we were young and raring to go.” Jesse plays fiddle in Tyler’s band, and that’s where the songwriter’s tutelage on the fiddle got serious.
For the story, click the image.
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