Early voting in Texas begins tomorrow. If there are any Republicans in the older
Metroplex suburbs, the rapidly changing Metro Austin area, or outlying wards of
Houston, chances are you have the privilege of finding an office not too far
down the ballot that is a simple, classic matchup between a sophisticated
conservative and a truly ignorant Democrat.
For the rest of us across the state, we must suffer from our success in
recent decades at hunting Ds to extinction.
And I do mean suffer, because all many of us Red people have
left upon which to train our sights is this blankety-blank Presidential
race. Hillary “Rodham-got-deleted”
Clinton versus Donald “Boy-named-Sue’em” Trump is like that troublesome pimple
that blemishes a perfectly scrubbed face – and that can’t be gotten rid of even
if we try to pop it.
Election Day ’16, for the nation, will be a day of ecstatic
relief, no matter who is elected. For me
personally, I will glory in the liberation of my Facebook page from the dire,
apocalyptic finger-raising of all my Christian brothers and sisters from across
the political spectrum. I recognize my
jadedness – I have in fact embraced it many ages ago – and so I openly admit
I’ve spent much of the year laughing and snarking at what people have written,
posted and shared. I guess I feel I
should confess here and now the ridicule I’ve privately put on old
friends. I’ve watched good-hearted,
rational folks, some very dear, turn into hysterical, hyperventilating,
self-righteous lunatics these past several months as they’ve all picked their
various hills upon which to die. And yet
at times my scrambled-idealism would burst through and I would consider joining
different ones of them, depending upon who had the better cupcakes.
As Honest Abe said, “I laugh so that I must not cry.” And that’s the true nature of the relief we
will all experience some time the week of November 8 (I believe this year’s
Presidential race could tangle up into a Florida 2000-type situation). Week after next, we don’t have to make it ok
anymore. We can simply accept our
misery.
A new, shadowy life will set in. The judge’s gavel will fall, and the
visitation schedule will commence. One
parent will bear the day-to-day, cash-strapped responsibility of managing the
household while the other stews in bitterness and poisons us with it on the
weekends. We will resent the one who
tries to take care of us and become detached from the other who goes emotionally
adrift. Worst of all, we will be told we will be ok because
“children are resilient.” On SNL last
night, Tom Hanks – a mega-Hillary supporter – said as much in his opening
monologue.
This all sounds really gloomy, I know. But there is a silver-lining. Some have asked me, a failed political hack,
if I think this election will somehow “get it out of our system” – the “it”
being this scummy and covetous rage against the
Man/Establishment/Illuminati/Them. Well,
history is somewhat mixed in its record. I actually
think it will be cathartic for our country, though we will never be free of the
envy that spawns conspiracies.
I believe Election ’16 will be a cleansing because it has
forced many Americans to consider that their system of government may in fact have
become a graven image of sorts to them.
There’s an expectation we’ve had for far too long that whoever’s in the
White House, the Capitol, or state legislature should make us feel good. The way we say this is, “I feel good about
him/her being the X-representative” or “he/she is a true one-of-those, because I am
a true one-of-those.” Well, this year
we’ve gotten a set of candidates that can churn different sections of our
abdomens with gifted success. What does
this reflect? That we have made an
office holder’s ability to make us feel good our master – or mistress.
Abraham Lincoln also wrote, concerning democratic
principles, “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.” He put this on paper before the War and the 650,000+ Americans who would die as the result of his policies.
Can we find Lincoln's high-minded balance today? Instead of spending the rest of our
childhoods and adulthoods wishing things had been different, we can make a
decision, with God’s help, to become better parents - and citizens - ourselves.
