Yearly Archives: 2020

I am posting this Biden vs Trump electoral map on the blog — and I will be updating it periodically — because I believe that the 2020 presidential election is the most important of our lifetimes and our children’s lifetimes.  I know, every presidential candidate says the same thing, in every election cycle.  But it is the first time I have said it.  This can’t go on.

This map shows the most recent (high-quality and non-partisan) Biden vs Trump polls from each state, as reported by FiveThirtyEight.  Blue means Biden is leading in that state and orange denotes plurality support for the racist autocrat.  Light shades indicate that the candidate’s lead is 2 percent or less.   States with no color have had no polls since March 1.

I fervently hope that Joe Biden is able to make the case for his election that Hillary Clinton sadly assumed was her foregone destiny.  He and we cannot let the mini-Mussolini now in office be re-elected — our vision of America is up to us to preserve.

This is no time for silence or complacency or “let’s hope the young people and black people show up this time.”  I don’t have the stamina for marches or rallies, and I think cold calls to potential voters can be as alienating as they are persuasive — so my contribution will be to transport voters to their polling places in November.  This is critical, given the sustained v0ter suppression efforts by right-wing forces over the past decades.  Biden has work to do and so do we all.

There seems to be a profound lack of indignation by whatever entity kick-started, and now marginally oversees, our precarious existence.

The fact that humans prey on one another; that the weaker of us are sought out, exploited and abused by the strong; that only the lightest scratch seems to unleash our propensity to say and do bad things to each other; and that those who rise to defend the disadvantaged are decried as apologists for weakness…

It would seem that any such omnipotent Overseer of our sad affairs is either too shy to impose His/Her will to end these injustices, or that He/She is a voyeur-sadist.

If you were to believe there is such an Overseer, which of those traits would be worse?

• • •

There are some who do not wait around for a passive god (or president) to address what is broken in our dealings with each other.  These persons point out injustice when and where they see it — not just when a high-profile case dominates the news cycle, but all the time.  They often remind us that, for many, injustice is life.  You may find such people tiresome, with their near-constant talk about what ails humanity.  And you may wonder, why don’t they lighten up a little?

The answer is, would you lighten up, if you were a god?

There are 5 billion adults on earth.  Each of us has agency — each of us is one 5-billionth of the god that humankind needs.  It is not just a daydream, “If I were god for a day…”  You already are!  And not just today, but tomorrow and the next day.  So why not think and act like a god, as someone with the responsibilities of a god?

Unlike the Grand Overseer, we are not up in the clouds helplessly looking down on events.  We are lucky to be right here in the midst of them, with real power to identify ills and do something about them.  Let’s not pathetically stand by and pretend that injustice to others does not affect us — this makes a mockery of our own godhood.

This is no time to be shy.  Use your powers.