Dr. Rosalyn | The Longest Year Ever Happened in November

 

I had to take November off.  I knew the election would be contentious.  I knew that unless something miraculous happened that it would not be over on election night.  And I knew that I was likely going to be disappointed with some of the fallout no matter who won.  Generally speaking I do enjoy being right, and I was about all of those things, but I could not have been prepared for how unhinged things would become.  I cannot promise this will be remotely coherent so if you keep reading you have been warned.

Things that shocked me in no particular order and with no direct admonishment of literally anyone.

1. That so many people thought their religion was under attack because Biden had won.  Biden who has been an active participant in his faith and discussed how it has helped him survive multiple losses was somehow less religious and less moral than a man we've seen in church looking bored, uncomfortable and posing out from with a Bible flipped the wrong way after gassing people to clear the path for the photo op.  I get it Catholics and Christians don't believe precisely the same thing but the nuts and bolts (do good things, treat people like you want to be treated, take care of your neighbors, trust in a higher power) are basically the same.  I also get that people vote on religious grounds but your religious leanings shouldn't determine how any other American citizen lives their lives.  This country was literally founded on the premise of religious freedom because they didn't enjoy how things were going at home.  America's "Christian" nation status is kind like the whitening of European immigrants.  It's great for political fodder and motivating people to do things but doesn't really have a basis in reality.  Biden isn't making everyone Catholic and no other religion is leading the country.  Which is good, no religion should be.  Okay moving on.
2. That so many people were willing to hold on to innuendo and just flat out distortions of reality to believe that the majority of the country was just overtired with the current administration.  Even if people could have overlooked the previous "missteps" (climate change stumbles, hiring unqualified family members for pivotal and well paid positions, not draining the swamp but playing refrains of the Monster Mash while scraping the bottom of the swamp for the literal worst fits for nearly every position and firing anyone that challenged him, attacking military officers and families of deceased soldiers, diminishing America's status on the world stage, attacking other world leaders who were our allies while getting close to dictators and countries that mean us harm, stoking racism, telling white supremacists to stand down and stand by during a presidential debate, locking children in cages, calling African countries shitholes while ignoring the immigrants he wants are running from us like we have the plague and we do because our leadership has been less than stellar on this issue, the litany of attacks on companies that did things he didn't like, the porn star bribes, so many of his administration being convicted of serious crimes that he keeps interfering with, golfing so much that had the secret service budget not been replenished multiple times would have meant they would not have gotten paid, skipping out on ceremonies he had no desire to attend, tweeting like that's what he was being paid to do, or trying to take credit for a million things that had nothing to do with him) they really were just put all the way out when they discovered that after months of downplaying the seriousness of COVID19 that he told a reporter that yeah he knew from day one that it was a bad thing but he wanted to keep people calm.  Now, his supporters seem to be the least likely to listen to the medical experts who are telling them how to survive because their experience has been derided by the sitting President.  Losing family members and friends when you didn't have to if the truth had been told up front is a powerful motivator to vote against someone. 
3. That whole new media entities were moving to the forefront because they were willing to dance around in delusion.  No more Fox News because it's not fringe enough.  Some of you may be going what could possibly be worse than Fox News.  I won't give them space here but alternate reality Facebook and two crazier versions of Fox News have become the go to outlets because they "tell the truth" that the mainstream media which somehow now includes Fox is unwilling to report.  I do like sites that reflect me and my values so on one had I get looking for those spaces.  However, those spaces cannot disengage from factual things or dare I say reality because they can become violent places that stoke ire instead of checking outrage and providing outlets to work on critical thinking and planning.  These are companies that don't care if the truth has been distorted or outright lies are being spewed as long as they are generating income.  They are causing genuine hurt to both the people on the platform and the people that will become targets of people on the platforms.  But it's America so we can't stop them from doing what they do until a direct act happens and even then options are limited.
   
4. This doesn't really surprise me but it has pissed me off that people have been massively disrespectful both to Vice President elect Harris and future First Lady DOCTOR Jill Biden.  The WSJ has printed yet another craptacular op ed from a peon of a man who details how white privilege and sexism let him teach at a well respected college with none of the credentials that women and POC would need to even get a once over let alone an interview.  Again, not given him more ink and I'd skip the WSJ articles that were clearly posted for click bait.  Let me save you the trouble.  Article One: free college is so preposterous that I hate the idea of anyone advancing when I had to work one summer to pay for rowing lessons and it will only work if teachers are paid hourly because they don't do nearly enough work for the outrageous salaries they make never working eight hours a day.  Article Two: Woman who is clearly threatening to my fragile masculinity why can't you and the others who have proven their value academically just be okay being attached to power instead of insisting I can't use my honorary doctorate the same way you use your earned doctorate.  
5. This didn't really surprise me either or really disappoint me because I hadn't expected anything different to happen.  The number of friends/colleagues/acquaintances who were okay with all of the aforementioned behaviors and are still defending the current administration and the ridiculous oversteps that have taken place to overturn the election.  It doesn't surprise me because those folks have been noticeably silent on several things that have happened since 2016.  There have been nearly 60 lawsuits filed with no legitimate evidence to support their claims all to attack voter turnout in areas with larger minority and typically Black voters.  From absentee ballots to cured ballots to deranged poll workers, everything has been tossed out there and in about 99 percent of the cases it's been tossed right back.  And the last bastion of the "stop the steal" crew, the conservative leaning Supreme Court, said not once but twice please stop.  Now they are being accused of being disloyal like GOP officeholders throughout the country that did their jobs correctly.  That's just insane on top of everything else that has happened over the previous month.  I don't expect any of them to react to this either.  I understand that everyone doesn't talk politics and social issues on social media but I'm not that hard to find.  At a minimum my work information hasn't changed or been hidden since 2013.  Comments can be left here, I choose to moderate them so they won't be public if someone says don't share this.  It's interesting is what I'll say and leave it at that. 
   

All of this has been exhausting.  I have looked at my calendar twice in the last week and said well next week is Christmas.  No it's not but I'm trying to speed to some sleep and hopefully a calm transition towards a new administration.  I will say hopefully because there is literally no telling what is going to happen if those who have been standing down and standing by feel as though they have been activated.  I'm still afraid of what is to come because after enduring the last month I am concerned that we are still a long way a way from peace.  For heaven's sake, someone is trying to form new states to avoid having to deal with the liberal parts of their current states.  Forgot to list that in the foolishness because I was trying to forget it.  I'm going to go have a late lunch now.  If you are a person of faith, the country does need prayer but it needs all the prayers in all of the languages from all of the people.  That's how we at one point really were leaders of the free world.  We can get back there again.