Putting Events in Perspective

Annamaria on Monday

The news of the past few days has been pretty gloomy for me and most of my friends.  Yesterday, I did physically what I think my country did politically last Tuesday.  You know what happened in the election.  For me, I acted it out on my way to get milk for my morning coffee. I tripped and fell down.  Suddenly, I found myself face down in the street.

Those of you who have read my post from last week will recall that I bragged about  my City of New York, referring - among other things - to the fact that if someone falls down, the people nearby immediately try to help.  The three people who were there bore me out.  Immediately, those strangers rushed to help, got me to my feet, and waited to make sure I was okay before they went about their own business.  

If you were going to categorize me in one word, it would be optimistic.  Some would say I'm a cockeyed optimist. The results of the US election last week have made millions of Americans profoundly unhappy.  I was disappointed in the result and spent a couple of days not wanting to think, much less talk about it.  Those New Yorkers, rushing to my aid, put my mind back on track.  For most of us, when it comes to day-to-day life, not much is going to change abruptly.  People are going to continue behaving as they have. 

Life will continue until the new administration takes office.  At least, given the result, we will not be subjected to endless claims of a rigged election.  The people who have been screaming about the cheating and  election fraud suddenly have faith in the process.  My worst fear, attempts at trying to take over the government by force (as happened on January 6, 2020) will not occur.

As far as the changes that Mr. MAGA has promised, I imagine he will try to enforce them.  But will that be easy?  And will the results produce what he told the voters to expect.

Here is what Harvard historian Heather Cox Richardson predicted in one of her "Letters from an American."

Social media has been flooded today with stories of Trump voters who are shocked to learn that tariffs will raise consumer prices as reporters are covering that information. Daniel Laguna of LevelUp warned that Trump’s proposed 60% tariff on Chinese imports could raise the costs of gaming consoles by 40%, so that a PS5 Pro gaming system would cost up to $1,000. One of the old justifications for tariffs was that they would bring factories home, but when the $3 billion shoe company Steve Madden announced yesterday it would reduce its imports from China by half to avoid Trump-promised tariffs, it said it will shift production not to the U.S., but to Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico, and Brazil. 

There are also stories that voters who chose Trump to lower household expenses are unhappy to discover that their undocumented relatives are in danger of deportation. When CNN’s Dana Bash asked Indiana Republican senator-elect Jim Banks if undocumented immigrants who had been here for a long time and integrated into the community would be deported, Banks answered that deportation should include “every illegal in this country that we can find.” Yesterday a Trump-appointed federal judge struck down a policy established by the Biden administration that was designed to create an easier path to citizenship for about half a million undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens. 

Let's look back at the results of similarly rightwing presidents of the recent (by my standards) presidents of the past.  Both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were elected by even greater majorities of voters than Trump.  And with a greater percentage of elegible voters going to the polls.   

In 1972, Nixon won with 520 electoral votes, to George McGovern's 17!  That win propelled Tricky Dick to way overstep his bounds and eventually to resign in disgrace to avoid impeachment.

  

In 1984, Ronald Reagan got 525, compared to Walter Mondale's 49!.  But his "trickle down”economic approach led to an ever widening gap between the rich and the poor, and many members of the middle class dropping into poverty.  As his second term ended, large swaths of the population became aware that he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and the world had discovered the Iran-Contra scandal that smeared his reputation.

Those presidents, with their enormous wins, began to think they could do no wrong.  Truth, as we know, is the daughter of time.

If we look even further back in time, we see that progressive changes keep happing all over the planet regardless of the ups and downs of year by year politics.  Here is the truth about the trends in human experience:

Optimism for the world in general...

I think young people worldwide are growing up more tolerant than other generations have.  We can chalk this up to trends going on for a century or more.  Here is the good news about what the human race has been up to.

Far fewer people live in extreme poverty

Child mortality is also way down.

Illiteracy is waning around the globe.

 

Similar worldwide gains in education show that average education level of the citizens of the world improves enormously every single decade.

You won't hear about this progress on the nightly news.  Why?  Because, by its nature, the news concerns itself more with the unusual and negative than with positive trends.  But if you take the long-term view, the world is heading in a beautiful direction.  And, given what we know about the youth of the world, when people my age turn the reins over to the young, they will not try to push the world backwards.

World wide, women and people of color are more and more taking leadership roles in political life.  this will not go way.

In the year 2000, my husband David and I were in Rome on Election Day, watching the results on CNN in our hotel room.  When the station declared the winner to be Al Gore, we went to sleep happy.  By morning, though the result was changed.  We woke up to the news that G.H.W. Bush had won.  Out on the streets of the eternal city, we met many other American tourists who were down in the dumps.  David was very depressed, seeing his hopes dashed for an environmentally astute president.

"Look around us, David," I said.  "This beautiful city.  Vibrant. Full of energy.  it is gorgeous.  Populated with people leading very nice lives.  Taking their children to school.  Going to work.  Making great coffee in the cafes.  Falling love.  Careening up and down the hills in taxis.  This is a happy place. It was once ruled by Caligula!  And he had no checks and balances on him.  Yet, not even a ruler as miserable as Caligula can ruin human progress forever."

In the words of Mohandas Gandhi:

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall – think of it – always.”

LOVE ALWAYS WINS