The results of this election do not logically make sense. Let’s start at home. In New Hampshire the reports say the electorate has undergone a change. We are to believe we went from a Democrat-majority State House, State Senate, and Executive Council to a Republican majority in each.
Yet the national positions, those serving in the District of Columbia are all Democrat held. Why would voters vote Republican at home and Democrat abroad?
The governor is a Republican. He is the biggest vote getter in the state. His coattails did not extend to even one congressional or senatorial seat? That seems a stretch but… maybe.
Then there are the recounts. Yes, there were some close races. All the recounts remained in Republican hands. Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe all these things happened correctly and legally. Maybe… but it does not feel right.
The campaign momentum did not feel like the results. The signage did not feel like the results. The rallies did not feel like the results. The turnout did not feel like the results.
The parties
Electoral dissonance is when your head says the outcome does not logically follow from what you know. Now both the political parties seem pretty okay with the results. Perhaps that tells us something. But what is it? We are certainly in a different place than where we were four years ago.
Do you feel good with people nominating a dementia patient? Do you believe people then voted for to elect him? He cannot remember who his wife is… And he got 10 million more votes than Obama and Clinton?
How are we going to interact with a group of politicians, the socialists masquerading as Democrats, who not only hate us, but want to transform the way we live to match their preferences? They make no bones they will use whatever means are necessary. Do you really think everyone is going to sit still for that?
We are sorting out our response. SCOTUS has declined to hear what seems a pretty compelling brief. Their refusal to even hear a complaint about some actual election fraud concerns is based on standing. If the allegations made in the brief prove true SCOTUS: Has stuck us with a President who is NOT ‘duly-elected’? Some would say he is “dully elected”… but that is another whole discussion.
There is a point…
There is a growing perception; we have no recourse when state and Federal Constitutions are disregarded in ways that alter the outcome of an election. If that is true, can we truly say we still live in a Constitutional Republic? That’s the question we’re facing. Clearly there are many who are not good with democracy, a.k.a. mob rule.
We are outraged, many of us are outraged. The temptation is to turn on our own party. We all want someone to blame. Clearly that is the impulse and maybe that makes some sense, on its face. Quislings and traitors are an issue in any movement. But perhaps we should think twice about burning down our own party out of rage and spite.
The stakes in this fight are not small, whichever way we go here. Let’s keep up the fight, sure. But if we’re going to fight, let’s all make sure we’re fighting the right foe. The SCOTUS decision is a real blow to the legal attempts to retain Trump in office. But are they our enemy?
Who is the enemy?
The electoral dissonance is certainly creating a ground swell of recrimination from Trump supporters, perhaps from freedom loving conservatives more broadly. We are hearing SCOTUS, State Legislatures and the GOP have sold us out. The recriminations may give rise to efforts to lash out and sabotage those involved in the process. But we should be careful in enemy selection.
There are calls for starting a new party. This is the road taken in Venezuela. There Hugo Chavez stole the election. Everyone knew it. The opposition did not unify against him. Instead they formed the circular firing squad. The survivors broke up into factional parties. There was no unified opposition. They did not have a strategy to come back and defeat him. They were broken into many small bickering factions expending their energy on each other rather than the real enemy.
Which way do we go?
We do need to denounce what has happened. There is a need to continue to work to expose the basic corruption. We must clean up our election system. Socialism must pulled out root and branch. To do this what is required is a strategy complete with tactical steps to repair the damage. We must reconstruct the process, defeat the opponents and reverse the results.
The need now is for cooler heads to prevail. Yes, the energy, the outrage will drive action. But we need to channel the energy into effective action. SCOTUS, State Legislatures, and the GOP are the process, they are not the enemy itself. They exist to be part of the solution if we can figure out how to reengage with the process to control the participants.
Courage is required in doing the right thing. If SCOTUS ducked the opportunity to do the right thing; we can change that. State Legislatures and the GOP may not have moved toward the desired result, but we can change that. Americans are slow to anger, but from Staten Island to Washington State, defiance is rising. Something is coming. How destructive it will be is on us.
There is a quote from Thomas Jefferson: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” We are long past the refresh point Jefferson expected. Maybe that is our error. The electoral dissonance we are experiencing is telling us we need to refresh the tree of liberty.
