We Vote (DAY AFTER-) Tomorrow!

All these last several weeks, some folks—whose main occupation seems to be thinking about the political situation—have been driving themselves distracted, worrying about what the outcome of the election will be; will Trump win a second term; will the Democrats win a majority in the Senate; will they maintain a majority in the House, what will the State Houses look like after the election, and so on.

All we can do is go out and vote, and then worry about what to do next.

There are a number of things that we ought to worry about—after the elections:

* How to eliminate, or strongly reduce, the role of money in politics.

* How to deal with this problem of Gerrymandering, which is particularly bad in Pennsylvania.

* How to get people back to work, given that there is a highly contagious virus in our environment.

* How to get—and keep—school-age and college-age youth's minds sharp, given that conventional classes are really not an option—even though some Democrats seem to support a return to school.

* How to stem the tide of the GOP's little presents to the 1%, and to the business community generally.

* How to deal with the incoming tide of immigrants from the South, without being cruel or harsh.

And—

* How to deal with the Corona Virus, and COVID-19.

But first we have to vote, and verify that there is indeed a strong leaning towards the Democrats in this election; so much so that the entire Republican Party is bearing the brunt of people's dissatisfaction with how political business has been conducted in the last several years.

As one writer wrote (quoting Senator Ben Sasse [R Nevada]), Trump seems to have viewed the Presidency as a business opportunity.  There is no legal means for us to combat such an attitude, except to vote him out.  There have been numerous instances where Trump has shown a lack of understanding about what is expected in a President.  As far as we can tell, he seems to be thinking: what's in it for me?

Even without the problems with Trump's deafness to voices of conventional rectitude, the GOP has had his back for four years.  They defended him against the impeachment, and they watched while Trump subverted the Justice Department and the State Department, and made them instruments of the Trump so-called Empire.  It will take a long time to repair the damage done to the administrative agencies of government, and even longer to repair the damage, and build back the public's trust in those agencies.  The Democrats are considering a number of constitutional amendments that will block some of the moves that a president might take, inspired by the example of Donald Trump.  Another analyst says that what is most worrisome is that another nominee will arise, whose objective would be to do more of what Trump did, but do it more ruthlessly, and more competently.  This is a frightening thought.

In some ways, things are beginning to look like a pendulum.  Sometimes pendulums are such that if there is a swing in one direction, there is a bigger swing in the opposite direction.  (Little kids know this, by riding on swings, and pumping their legs.)  Perhaps Trump was made possible by Obama's great success.  If Trump makes possible a huge landslide towards the Democrats, they must be careful about not overplaying their hand.  An even bigger swing towards the Republicans next time around, will be very unpleasant for everyone, especially minorities and women.

We must be careful to moderate the propensity of some among us to take retaliation against the conservatives.  There is the possibility that some anti-social elements might respond to the results of the election by destroying the property of the winning side, especially if they're marked with Biden-Harris stickers, and so on.  If Biden-Harris win, the best we can do to the frustrated Alt-Right is—for a few days—pretend that they do not exist.

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