Saturday, November 7, 2020

The Biden win / Trump loss - initial thoughts

1.)  Schadenfreude is an unbecoming coming state of mind to indulge. It's also unproductive. It's also spiritual unhealthy, as it leaves no room for grace.

That said, there is something potentially spiritually constructive about what Donald Trump is undeniably facing in the core of his being, however much he continues to try to bury it in denial, bluster and defiance.

Nothing in the world is worse for Donald J. Trump than being a loser. In his dualistic worldview, winners deserve veneration and losers deserve contempt. Now that he is the latter himself, he has to face the assumption-shattering question: Is that really so? 

Fate has invited him to consider other models for categorizing human beings. This is his opportunity, at age 74, to consider that humility might be of some use in facing what life brings one's way. 

That he'll accept the invitation is, of course, not a foregone conclusion, in which case, we will be witnessing the spectacle of his King Lear-like unravelling for the rest of his life. 

The choice is his. 

2.) As a conservative writing in the early afternoon on Saturday, November 7, I fervently hope that the Georgia Senate race runoff yields a Republican victory. There is no brake available to apply to the imposition of the hard left's agenda without it. 

3.) Well, perhaps public opinion. These election results, including the current 48-48 status of the contest for Senate control, indicate an electorate that does not care for either Trumpism or the progressive vision. If Democrats try to move aggressively on their ambitions, there will be vociferous opposition. (It bears mentioning in this hyper-polarized year that we should hope - indeed, pray - that such opposition does not take destructive forms.)

4.) An example of such opposition is the inevitable reaction to Biden's vow to rejoin the Paris climate accord. That opposition will come from conservatives as well as the remaining fragments of Trumpism. Compliance with the accord's requirements would be prohibitively expensive, cede US sovereignty to an international arrangement, and would yield a negligibly minuscule impact on the global average temperature by 2021. It is also based on an utter fiction - namely, that the global climate is in some kind of trouble. 

5.) Brace yourself for lots of crowing about the demographic significance of Kamala Harris's ascendancy to the vice-president position. It will, at least in the short term, overshadow examination of what a fiercely determined leftist she is.

6.) Real conservatism now has an opportunity to refashion itself and come back as a viable contender in the marketplace of ideas. 

Cross-posted at Precipice. 



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