Let’s hope for calm after U.S. election
Big day south of us. So a story. And a digression. Four years ago, I had a nice dinner somewhere in the Bricktown area of Oklahoma City (not at the too touristy Mickey Mantle’s, I can assure you) and repaired to the lobby bar of the Renaissance to end the night. It’s an oddly shaped bar, only about half a dozen seats with a couple of small TVs, a half-wall dividing the room. It’s generally quiet — you’d often see a visiting writer or two and that night’s refereeing crew in there — and since it was election night it was particularly slow.
Until about 11, that is, when a group of conventioneers — I believe they were educators and mostly middle-aged white women — came in from wherever they were.
As the results rolled in — and my astonishment grew that a country might elect a multi-bankrupt, failed businessman turned reality TV show huckster who didn’t seem at all bright or a leader, a divisive force rather than an inspirational one — the women grew louder and happier and more exuberant and I headed to bed rather than listen to them. It stunned me. Still stuns me. Now I’m watching the boarded-up buildings and battening down the hatches and I’m hearing and reading about armed “poll guards” intimidating voters and I’m watching all manner of voter suppression, blatant and subtle, go on and the one thing I think more than anything is this:
Surely in the name of all that’s good in the world they won’t do it again, will they? Inconceivable, isn’t it?
I know it’s not and I understand the other choice may not be the most dynamic person on Earth but, really?
Can anyone really handle four more years of this? Four more years of fostering hate and fomenting racism and all the other despicable actions the majority of Americans have had to put up with, and have had to try to survive? It’s too much to ask. I think what so many of us want, here and there and basically everywhere in the world, is some kind of calm.
No lurching from one divisive action or antic to another, no waking up every morning and wondering right away what the knee-jerk reaction to the morning news shows was.
No mad tweeting, no nonsensical rants, no name-calling, no inciting. No noise. Wouldn’t that be nice? I’ll watch because much of what happens in the U.S. has an impact on us here and we do have a vested interest in how that election turns out.
Tomorrow is going to be dangerous, I fear. I fear for the safety of some people simply trying to exercise their right and duty to vote. I fear for the men and women who are trying to ensure a fair and just election, where every vote is counted and every citizen is allowed to cast a ballot. Lots of fear. But maybe enough hope that the storm is coming to an end and there may be peace and quiet on the horizon.
Wouldn’t that be nice?