What to do when the election gets overwhelming
Tuesday morning my usual pre-breakfast run/ walk around the neighborhood brought a new sight — frost.
A roof on a home across the street wore a frosty sheath, making it seem the inside was all the more cozy. That was the first sign I noticed. Then, down the street, north-facing lawns shimmered with dew suspended in time over every single blade of grass, making each stand out among the mass.
Turning a corner up a hill, the sun had risen enough to cast a melting path across someone’s yard. Glittering frost on either side punctuated the narrow trail of melted dew.
Fittingly, it was the first day of autumn.
I thought about the sun softening the frost and wondered what could soften the cold grip across our country at this time.
On this day, we would surpass the 200,000 mark of Americans who died from COVID-19, a number that at once shocks and numbs.
As the president ignores the reality and continues to hold large indoor rallies, and pandemic-weary people tire of masks and simple social-distancing tactics, the unseen virus asserts itself. Positive cases are on the rise, even in Connecticut which has done so well after the spring spike in deaths.
Distrust in a possibly rushed vaccine is an issue. Medical experts say it will take months before a vaccine can be approved as safe and effective, yet the White House Coronavirus Task Force led by Vice President Mike Pence is ordering every state to have a distribution plan in place by the middle of next month. Is it a coincidence that a national election will be only weeks away? I think not.
Gov. Ned Lamont properly set up an advisory panel to develop a strategy, with transparency. But if it takes longer — and to be thorough the work will have to take more than two weeks — it is more important to get it right than to hew to an arbitrary deadline long before a vaccine is proven, let alone produced.
On this first week of fall, the cold grip grows colder with twists that seem more unreal than the virus.
A Louisville, Kentucky, grand jury Wednesday declined to indict the police officer who shot Breonna Taylor six times in her bed after midnight in March, or the other two officers involved in serving the noknock warrant. The grand jury would only indict on three charges of wanton endangerment for shooting into another room where no one was hurt. How could striking a wall be more important than taking a human life? No wonder people are protesting in Louisville and elsewhere in the country.
This week Senate Republicans did an about-face from 2016, when they insisted the next administration should choose the replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia who died that February. Now, following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg on Friday, they are saying a vote will happen in the Senate fewer than 40 days before the election.
Then, on Wednesday, our president said he may not go along with a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election. Be very worried about that, people. That would be the end of democracy, with no exaggeration.
A hallmark that sets our government apart is an adherence to our Constitution; whoever wins the November election is sworn into office the following Jan. 20, whether it’s an incumbent or a different political party. To ignore the will of the people (or the Electoral College) is to flout the very foundation of our republic.
As a journalist, I will take you to the source — President Trump’s news conference.
“Asked whether he would ‘commit here today for a peaceful transferral of power after the November election,’ Mr. Trump demurred, passing on a chance to call for a calm and orderly election process,” according to The New York Times.
“We’re going to have to see what happens,” he told a reporter during a news conference at the White House. “You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.”
“Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation,” the president said.
His unsupported distrust in mail-in ballots — during a pandemic, no less — sows doubts in the results, unless he wins, which he might despite the latest Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday showing Democratic challenger Joe Biden ahead by 10 points. Anything can happen.
“Mr. Trump’s refusal — or inability — to endorse perhaps the most fundamental tenet of American democracy, as any president in memory surely would have, was the latest instance in which he has cast grave uncertainty around the November election and its aftermath,” The New York Times story stated.
But a greater threat to the country, postulated in a much-talked-about story in the Atlantic magazine this week, isn’t that Trump wouldn’t leave the Oval Office — “The worst case is that he uses his power to prevent a decisive outcome against him.”
“He could prevent the formation of consensus about whether there is any outcome at all. He could seize on that uncertainty to hold on to power.”
The editor of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, considered the article so important that he released it online this week, although it won’t be the cover story in print until mid-October. The report “is a warning about the fragility of our entire system of governance,” Goldberg wrote in an email to subscribers with the subject line: “The story that couldn’t wait.”
Does this make you as anxious as it makes me? No matter whether you support Trump or Biden, the threats to an orderly election are greatly disturbing.
What to do? Turn off the news, close your newspaper, cross your fingers and hope for the best? That’s not the way to go.
Thursday morning, as I ran intervals around the neighborhood while my husband prepared our breakfast, I paid attention to political signs on the frost-less lawns. In the nearly 1-mile route, I saw one flag for Trump, two small signs for Biden, and one that says ByeDon (with horizontal stripes for the “e”).
I saw five signs for the Republican candidate for state representative and one for the Democratic incumbent.
How many voters will see those signs and be persuaded? Well, lawn signs are a staple of campaigns, but a much wider audience can be reached with a Letter to the Editor. Yes, write to your local newspaper and describe why your candidate deserves to be elected. Keep it short (250 words), make it persuasive. Include your name and town.
This is an action you can take. This is a way to counter the weight of feeling overwhelmed. Be involved.
We will have many more mornings of frosty landscapes as fall is just beginning. Can you be a sun creating a path?