Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times
I don’t know what song you had playing in your head when you woke up this morning.
For me, it was this Dolly Parton anthem. (Some of you may recall, it was the opener for my Soundtrack for an Apocolypse piece, back in April.)
For a lot of us, it is indeed the light of a brand new day….
Look, I know this isn’t over.
Trump, his lawyers, and his militia men still have a lot of trickery left in them.
And I know the Coronavirus isn’t going away, simply because Joe Biden is President.
But Joe Biden will be President, with Kamala Harris right by his side.
And things will get better. As this article from the authoritative STAT News makes clear.
Watching the dance parties break out across the nation, the spontaneous joy that erupted in cities from Philly to LA, it was hard not to crack a smile (unless you happened to be on the losing side).
I think my favorite celebration might’ve been this one.
Why Mariah Carey? Who knows? Christmas coming early, I guess.
All I know is that those people were sure having some fun.
Watching all the those celebrations, it was hard not to feel grateful.
To a lot of people.
To the mail carriers, who despite Louis DeJoy’s best efforts, delivered ballots to the city and town halls.
To the polling place volunteers and town and city workers, who sat through hours of training, then gave their time on Election Day – and for several days after.
Despite what Donald Trump would have you believe, they counted the ballots earnestly and fairly, for one reason – because it was the right thing to do.
They were there because of one thing – they want to help our country run smoothly.
To the law enforcement officers who kept the peace at the polling places, and made sure there wasn’t any mischief.
It’s not easy for them. This is uncomfortable territory for them, and they feel like they’re in the middle of two immovable forces.
To Neil Young, and the Rolling Stones, and John Fogerty, and to the family of Tom Petty – for refusing to let Trump debase their songs.
All of them went to court to stop him from using them at his rallies.
To Sarah Cooper, Blaire Erskine, and J-L Cauvin.
We owe a huge debt of gratitude to this merry band of troublemakers.
They not only made us laugh in this surreal, mind-numbing year – they shined a light on the absurdity of Trump and his crowd, and showed us a way out.
Shout out to Blaire in particular: she packed her wickedly funny satire with some muscular activism. She showed how important local politics was, trying to flip the Georgia state Senate and House.
Now she’s working hard at winning the US Senate seats for the Democrats in Georgia (Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock).
It’s every bit as important as the Presidential election; if the Democrats win, they can give the Democrats a tie in the Senate, and break Mitch McConnell’s stranglehold, letting them pass legislation that has been been left to die for years.
To George Conway, Reed Galen, Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson, John Weaver, Jennifer Horn, Ron Steslow, Mike Madrid and the fun-loving criminals in the Lincoln Project.
As Steve Bannon (former Trump advisor) said, “If 3 to 4 percent of the Republicans leave Trump, he loses.”
The Lincoln Project ads shifted the ground beneath Trump, and they managed to move that line – and then some.
Just like Sarah Cooper, they managed to highlight the absurdity of Donald Trump.
They exposed the immorality, the hypocrisy of the Trump administration – from the viewpoint of former Republicans.
They showed that there was a place for moderate, centrist people, people who were tired of fringe elements taking over both parties.
To Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast, and their outrageous, but always dead-on-the-money podcast, The New Abnormal.
It may have been “Trump outrage porn,” and they may have been a little too in love with their inside jokes… but man it felt good to hear them rage against the machine.
Heck – even to Mitch McConnell, for playing games with the Supreme Court and packing the Federal courts. As it turned out, his shenanigans enraged good Americans.
But mostly, we owe a debt of gratitude to the people who stood in line to vote, sometimes as much as 11 hours, spiting the people who tried to deny their vote.
To young kids, energized by the Parkland shooting and the Black Lives Matter movement.
To suburban women voters. Who didn’t love Trump, despite his desperate pleas.
To the good people of Atlanta, Georgia… To Philadelphia, Pennsylvania… To Detroit Michigan… To Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
To Stacey Abrams.
Ms. Abrams suffered a heart-breaking loss in the race for governor of Georgia in 2018.
Her opponent, Republican Brian Kemp, was Georgia’s Secretary of State during his own election, and used that office to suppress black votes, by limiting polling places, throwing out thousands of votes for “questionable” signatures and registration info, and limiting urban polling places.
Stacey channeled that disappointment into a drive to energize and register black voters in Georgia.
And guess who turned blue, as the ballots were counted from the cities and the suburbs?
Ms. Abrams’ effect on the national election cannot be overstated.
To black voters everywhere: there is no way to overstate the effect you had on this country.
As Ben Rhodes (former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications) said, “It’s striking that people who have been treated the worst by our democracy consistently do the most to save it.”
Or, as this chaplain in Detroit put it…
They were the ones who stood in line, for longer than most people.
Theirs were the votes that rolled in over Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday – from Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia – as the nation watched in wonder and amazement.
While Donald Trump squirmed.
And finally: To the reporter who spoke for all of us.
Daddy Gibs 