Relax.
Take a deep breath.
Things are going to be OK.
Not easy but OK.
Just imagine what might be going on in our country today if Kamala Harris had been elected president in a very close election, let’s say a handful of electoral votes, with very close races in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada or Georgia.
Blood in the streets.
And not just today. Every day, every week, between now and Jan. 20. And beyond.
Seventy-five million people voted for Donald Trump. He won. Just imagine what those millions would have done if he had lost. He had them fired up and ready to storm the courthouses and state capitols and march in the streets with their red MAGA hats in search of LIBERALS who rigged the elections.
Here are some interesting numbers:
- Those 75 million people are just about the same number that voted for him in 2020. But four years ago, Joe Biden got 81 million, 10 million more than Kamala Harris, who got just 71 million four years later. You want to know why we didn’t win? BECAUSE TEN MILLION OF US DIDN’T VOTE!
- In 2016, Hillary Clinton got just 66 million votes,4 million more than Donald Trump. She won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College vote because her voters lived in the wrong states.
- The total number of voters in 2016 was 129 million. But when Joe Biden won in 2020, the total was 155 million, with Biden getting 81 million of them, and Trump 74 million. When we vote, we win!
- And then, in 2024, Trump held on to his 74 million and added another million. But 10 million Biden voters stayed home. Because of that, and not because of anything else that happened in this election, Kamala Harris is not going to be president of the United States.
- Let me repeat. 2020: 155 million voters. This year: 146 million. Case closed.
I’m just sharing the numbers. I’m not going to try to analyze any further because I am not going to fixate on what happened last week. I have better things to do. My wife just painted the bathroom. I’m going to go watch it dry.
But, yeah, we’re probably going to get some bad government, and the U.S. is going to do some crazy shit, and good people are probably going to get hurt. Poor people. Old people. Sick people. People of color. And yes, women.
And bad things are probably going to happen around the world. In Europe. In the Middle East. In Southeast Asia. In Mexico and Central America.
But I have faith in the American people, and in our FRIENDS around the world. We’ll step up and step in, we’ll do what we can to prevent the disasters a lot of us think are forthcoming. There is still strength in numbers.
I am old. I am not as active as I once was. Golf and hunting and hikes in the Bad Lands are not as much a part of my life as they were just five years ago.
But I have the YMCA with its walking track and for ita swimming pool. And I have tree-lined city streets for walking outside when the weather is nice. I have a wine store and a grocery store just blocks away. I have a vehicle with a remote starter for cold days, and gas is under $3 in some stations, so I can afford to drive it. I have a warm stove in my upstairs living room and cable TV and Internet and a 2024 crop of potatoes and garlic in the basement, enough to get me through the winter. And just enough money in the bank to pay for things I need, and some of the things I want, but don’t really need.
I have a loving wife and more close family than I can count on my fingers and toes at the other end of my cell phone signal.
So, I’m relaxing. And taking deep breaths.
I know, not all of you are as lucky as I. I also know that most of my friends are liberals, like me, and want to jump in and save the world from this goofy fucker we just elected president of the United States.
My advice: Don’t.
Don’t give in to that temptation. It’s just what he wants us to do. He wants us to fight, so he can say, “I told you so. Look what they’re doing. We’re trying to get this country back on track after Crooked Joe Biden’s time, and they‘re fighting with us. I told you so.”
Because whatever he says, half of Americans are going to agree with him. Maybe more than half. And we’ll lose. Again.
So let’s be very, very cautious about what we do. Let’s pick our fights very carefully. And let’s not be in a hurry. Let’s ACT, when the time is right, and not REACT, to all the stupid and selfish things he is going to do.
It’s OK to be sad. For a while. We lost. To a goofy, foolish old man. But don’t let that sadness linger. Life is still good in America. And North Dakota. And Bismarck. And at 920 Arthur Drive.
4 thoughts on “JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — What The Hell Do We Do Now?”
Richard Henry Watson November 11, 2024 at 3:54 pm
nice article–the pundits, the polsters, Harris folks, Trump folks, all had it wrong–the media sucked air–now we all pile on–I like your take–I am trying not to fixate–My mother in law, a life long Dem, forecast this lanslide, My wife, the Viking, says “woman/racism”–and I add, on my own, never underestimate the ability of humans to work against their own best interests–someone last night, a good friend, told me that he thinks I, Rick, will reman hopeful–I hope for the redemption of the cosmos and the Kingdom of God–I hope Trump and his nutters do not destroy the global culture–
ReplyJohn Burke November 11, 2024 at 4:00 pm
Thanks Jim–good advice. I agree with your sentiment for avoiding further conflict and violence. For me, it’s time to “hunker down.”
Donald is exactly the kind of person that the founders intended to keep out of office when they created the electoral college. In Federalist No. 68, Hamilton argued that the electoral college system was superior to direct popular election. First, he recognized that the “sense of the people should operate in the choice” and believed it would through the election of the electors to the Electoral College. Second, the electors would be:
“…men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.”
Such men would be “most likely to have the information and discernment” to make a good choice and to avoid the election of anyone “not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”
Unfortunately, the teeth of the electoral college have been pulled by laws in a majority of states and the District of Columbia that require electors to pledge to cast their votes for their parties’ nominees for President and Vice President, regardless of whether they are “in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” So now the electoral college is just another device to relatively disenfranchise voters in the more populous states, which tend to favor “blue” candidates.
I’m older than you, and I plan to live out my days as comfortably as I can, avoiding the “mind police” as much as possible. The coming battle will be fought and won or lost by the generations coming after mine.
ReplyJackie Brodshaug November 12, 2024 at 9:14 am
Well said, Jim. A time for deep thought, not humor. I still hope we have senators who will remember the senate (and house) is/are equal to the president and Supreme Court in power. I’m looking for backbone.
ReplyDINA SCHOENTHAL BUTCHER November 12, 2024 at 8:56 pm
How sad that the stock for privately owned prisons shot through the roof. Let’s see if they rename them Dachau II, Auschwitz, Buchenwald etc. etc. etc. And let’s see, who are big owners in those industrialized penal institutions, soon to house “illegals” or ????? To paraphrase
Reply:”First they came for the immigrants—–“