Post-Election Ramblings

My, but I’ve been neglecting my blog as of late! I’ve just been so depressed by the results of the election that I’ve barely been able to drag myself out of bed. This is the first time I’ve lifted my head since Tuesday…….NOT.

Actually, I’ve just been busy with work, family, and a new friend who is facing a challenge with which I am fairly uniquely qualified to help. This is a case in which the needs of the one outweighed the needs of the many.

So why did the obviously disappointing results of the election last Tuesday not generate more concern from me?

For starters, the results were not overly surprising. The base has not been thrilled with the Republicans for some time now. They seem to have run on one platform and then governed from another. Conservatism is alive and well. It’s merely Republicanism as recently practiced that has suffered.

The results also were not all that shocking as Americans are a bit finicky. We like controlled change. How often do we vote in a President of one party and a Congress of another? We actually seem to like the friction which seems to bring a sense of balance in our minds, keeping any one group from being too powerful. At least that’s my observation.

To tell the truth, I went to bed Tuesday night, knowing things weren’t looking good and yet slept quite well. That’s rather significant for an avowed insomniac. I rested in the knowledge that the worst that would happen if Republicans managed to pull it out was that we would have to listen to a lot of whining, complaining, widespread accusations of cheating, demands for endless recounts, and other examples of poor sportsmanship. If, on the other hand, the Democrats won, there’d be some fairly mature displays of resignation to the will of the people by Republicans and it would all be over. In other words, it really wasn’t going to be all that bad either way. There’d be no buildings burning, cars being over-turned, or armed militants in the streets determined to force their candidate’s way into office. The world as I knew it would not end either way. America’s capacity for accepting the will of the people is remarkable. The system works.

Now, do I have some worries about a Democratically controlled Congress? You betcha. For one thing, Pelosi keeps using the word “civility,” yet I have deep concerns regarding her understanding of that word. But we’ll see. They can do a fair amount of damage in the next two years, especially if they see the election as a referendum for their own policies (which were?….I still don’t know!) and not as a rejection of leaders who failed to listen to the people who elected them. At least that’s how I interpret the results. I could be wrong. Time will tell. On the bright side, two years may be just enough time for them to so thoroughly disgust the American citizenry that they respond by putting another conservative into the Oval Office, maybe even a more conservative conservative next time. We’ll see. We’ll see.

Anyway, life goes on. Thankfully.