See you after The Vote

View From Here
By David Mark Greaves

It is a source of amazement that the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is judged to be a virtual dead heat coming into the finish. The Harris team is a well-oiled machine working for every niche vote they can and driving, even literally, to the polls. Every single one of them will count.

For many, the race between a person with the credentials of the vice president who believes in democracy and a felon, described by those who know him best as a “Moron,” “Stupid,” and a “Fascist,” and who says he wants to rule as a dictator on day one, according to those closest to him, is this close, is an impossibility.

Every morning in school, our elementary school class would stand, raise our right hand, and join the voice over the loudspeaker reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Later, we learned about the Declaration of Independence and Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death,” the three branches of government, and the role of a citizen.

Then came the dark side of America and the 400 years of slavery when men like Donald Trump and Elon Musk ruled as they wished in that Golden Age of White Supremacy.

In fits and starts, through the Civil War, Reconstruction, lynchings, segregation, voting rights, and Civil Rights struggles for African Americans and women, the nation has been headed toward a society that acknowledges that all men and women are created equal and now we are at risk of being diverted from that path.

I do not believe the country I’ve come to know will elect a fascist. But I never thought we’d be confronted with that choice either. Now here the nation stands with a choice we never thought we’d have to make, and we have to consider how far back the MAGA core wants to take us.

I understand there are Black men who would vote for Trump or not vote at all rather than vote for the vice president for whatever reason. It seems to me, that in another time and place, choosing an ignorant and cruel White man over a Black woman would make the great Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman pull out her pistol and say move forward or die here.

Vice President Harris says, “We won’t go back!” and I don’t think most Americans want to go back, and yet we have the polls, which I believe are evidence of the effectiveness of the anti-democracy forces’ disinformation campaign.

When foresters take the census of mountain lions, they look for the “scat,” the animal’s feces, as the cat itself is hard to find and, when encountered, dangerous. In the same way, a lot of what is shaping the perception of the election is the disinformation scat of the Russians, the Chinese, the multibillionaires with their dark money, and the -wannabe fascist remnants of a time long past in America.

I am an optimist. I believe most Americans have a visceral belief in the country’s core values and possibilities.

I believe this, too, will pass. That is the thought I hold onto to untie the knot in my stomach at the possibilities in store for the country and the world if the vice president loses.
This may well be a squeaker of an election with no winner known on election night or certified on January 6th, a descent into hell if Trump wins, or a Harris landslide and a saner future.
See you after the vote.