On mornings like this, it's good to be a Courant subscriber. A"daily" that's a day late on everything gives us one extra day to live in the world as we wish it to be.
Last week, for instance, I had an extra day to believe that the Yankees would win the World Series.
In the spring, I always have an extra day to believe that my tennis team didn't lose their match...or doubt that they won it...or even played it at all.
And this morning, Kamala Harris is neck and neck with Donald Trump in the presidential race. I can't wait to see Trump thrashed!
It's a great day in CourantLand for those waiting to see Donald Trump tossed onto the garbage heap of history once and for all.
Unfortunately, in the real-time world of real-time—the world we do inhabit—the convicted felon and twice-impeached traitor with a background of sexual impropriety and racism will be moving back into the White House at the behest of the majority of American voters. And his sorry entourage of misanthropes, white nationalists, rabid evangelicals, and Nazi sympathizers will once again be in control of the country. To paraphrase the line from Jaws—You're gonna need a bigger house.
Early analyses point to 54% of men having voted for Trump and an equal percentage of women for Harris. I'm embarrassed at both totals, despite the adage of people seldom voting in their own best interest.
Some will claim that a country that installed Bill Clinton in the White House twice cannot suddenly claim the moral high ground. Point taken.
Others will say that Kamala Harris ran a satisfactory campaign but had only four months to compete against an opponent who had been running for four years and that she was hamstrung by Biden's lackluster support and his association with immigration and the economy. Point taken.
Still, she did enough to have sparked some decency and empathy in the majority of American voters. Of course, in the MAGA world, decency is weakness, and empathy is wokeness. If we didn't know that before yesterday, we do now.
So the world is changing. We see it everywhere. It is no longer sufficient for one athlete to win a victory over another: it must be followed by an exhibition of dominance—a fist pump, some taunting, some fan-pleasing bravado: toxic masculinity has been co-opted by women also. Trump, for all his failures as a human being, understands that better than the rest of us—better than I do. For all the times I have recoiled at something he did or said, a greater number have reveled in it.
And so Harris's declaration—we're not going back—will come to fruition. We are, indeed, going forward, as we always have gone. "We" means all of us who voted to keep Trump away from the presidency. The role of the adversary—the loyal opposition—is ours to seize. We already have the experience, though we don't seem to have learned from it. Then again, goodness doesn't prevail by being good; it prevails by rooting out evil. And the MAGA move to reverse progress won't be stopped by standing still or lying on the fainting couch.
We have been defeated but not vanquished. If. as Trump's adversaries, we share nothing more than a position on the enemies list, then so be it. And if we cannot live in a country as we envision it, we can still subvert the plans of those who will lead us to ruin.
Mark Twain implored us not to part with our illusions. "When they are gone," he said, "you may still exist, but you have ceased to live."
So we'll start living today...or maybe tomorrow, if you're a Courant subscriber.
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