65 Days Of Holding Your Breath

The country has largely accepted a Biden victory for the U.S. election but that doesn't mean much. If the current administration doesn't transition power on accepted timelines things are bound to get much worse. I saw something from a friend that said something to the effect of, "If you have ever broken up with a narcissist, you know what's coming." I felt my shoulders physically slump when I read that, because I have done that, and I do know what is coming.

A number of years ago, my relationship with someone ended, and they have made it their personal mission every day since to ruin me. Any website that mentions my name is bound to get a hateful email bemoaning my many failures as a person. Even though I have not seen this person in almost a decade now, I was informed of this type of communication as recently as August, when someone quoted me in an article. But this isn't one person coming after another person, this is a president coming after a country that voted him out.

It's almost kind of funny, that Americans of a younger generation, younger Millenials and Gen Z folks, don't have any memory of a president that didn't serve 2 terms. I was born towards the end of Reagan's second term and was too young really to remember the election of George H. W. Bush, but I do remember the election of Bill Clinton the following election cycle. My significant other is 6 years younger than me, and thusly a one-term president has not happened until now in their entire life.

I am not a fan of George W. Bush, but despite the way that he behaved, even he got a second term. I am also confident that if he had been defeated by John Kerry, that he would have handed over power gracefully, just as his father did to the Clintons, and how he eventually did for the Obamas. There will be no polite welcome to the Whitehouse for Joe and Jill Biden. Melania Trump will not give Jill a tour and likely will not answer her questions the way that Michelle Obama did for her.

At this moment 65 days feels like an eternity yawning before me like a canyon too vast to ever traverse. There are enough days to start a war, to roll back even more protections for marginalized groups, and for now, he still has the power of the Senate behind him. Especially with the re-election of Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, his most championed sycophants. This also means that no further COVID-19 relief is bound to happen this year. The administration will want to punish us for this mutiny.

Meanwhile, much of the country is still out of work, and the ones that have work are being criminally underpaid, and criminally overworked. The housing market is still so far up that it is essentially unattainable to most of the country. Additionally, the jobs that are available are the kind of high risk, working with the public jobs that while essential, are largely minimum wage and thankless. The Vice Presidents of companies that have suddenly found themselves superfluous and redundant, will not be willing to stock shelves at Walmart for minimum wage. Since the CARES Act addition to unemployment insurance ran out, I know a lot of people who are sincerely struggling right now.

The time between now and January 20th is long enough that people will suffer greatly and by the time Biden takes office, assuming the Trump Administration allows him to do so peacefully, I don't know that there will be much that could be done quickly enough to matter. I hope I'm wrong, the same way that I always hope I am wrong, but so far I have not been wrong. I would love to be more optimistic, but I am too old for fairy tales.