Unity? Don’t Hold Your Breath

Four years of a nightmare are in the rearview mirror. January 20, 2021 was a joyful day for many of us. I laughed, cried, noshed, drank mimosas, wore pearls, reveled in Lady Gaga’s passion, obsessed over our new discovery in poet Amanda Gorman.

And I spent some of the day in unrest.

That’s right. While most of my tribe celebrated, I had lingering moments of dread and fear for the future.

You see, I saw this Joe Biden and Kamala Harris victory as a culmination of hard work. Marching in 2017, keeping our elected reps on speed dial, emailing them relentlessly, watching people who have never gotten involved in elections before (except for voting) lining up to phone bank and write cards for candidates. I wrote a lot about all of it, sometimes at great personal cost.

But all the polling shows that Republicans overwhelmingly don’t believe the election was fair. They think Dems cheated. “Stole” the darned thing. Some of them are people I love.

Cheated?

What did you do for your candidate? He declared his crowd sizes meant he’d win. That seemed to be enough for you. Maybe you attended a rally. OK. But that was a feel-good event. It didn’t actively recruit voters. He catered to his base but didn’t attempt to grow it.