Celebrate First, then: the Work

It was a Saturday morning, with Cass bouncing around, enjoying his second waffle after his cereal. Camille laughing and gazing at her brother, happily alternating between her yogurt and eggs.

I had the curtains open, since it was after 8 and we try to flood the place with natural light. My neighbor was again in her makeshift garden, in a small patch of private space outside their apartment door. Then, a commotion. Her voice from inside her apartment carried...a shriek: giddy and truthful. Then, she was back outside, screaming, "It's over!"

Soon, car-horns and cheers would resonate throughout our neighborhood. People would take to their roofs to shout at the sky. Catharsis. Regime change.

Old-fashioned regime change. The election of 2020 was called on Saturday, five days after the titled Election Day, after it was apparent that Biden would be taking over the Oval Office.

One telling thing from that Saturday was the amount of celebration spontaneously commencing. When people celebrate you losing an election like the Death Star has just been blown up, it SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT YOU OR THE REST OF US. OR BOTH.

But now the real work begins. Does anyone have any illusions to what lies ahead? 

The answer to that emphatically: YES.

While we can celebrate the 74 million folks voting against the dude, we need to soberly try to strategize working with the 70 million folks who were, in the least, not turned off by the racism and misogyny, by the lies and ineptitude, in the glorification of unthinking machismo. The story of this country's ailments goes beyond one-dude, goes beyond one destructive quartet of years. Is Joe Biden the answer?

Would Bernie have been the answer?

How will we move forward with dismantling systemic racism? With dismantling the patriarchy? How much does Biden even care about all that? Kamala, sure, okay, I could be convinced she's an ally.

But the DNC? The RNC is obviously against any altering of the status quo, but so are the Democrats. They torpedoed Bernie, just like they torpedoed Howard Dean in 2000 and tried to torpedo Obama in '08.

I'm afraid they'll take the W for the White House and try to "move forward" while not actually doing anything positive for the greater good.

First order, though, is avoiding the million-cases-a-week projection of this pandemic. And a subset of the the 70 million thinks they shouldn't have to wear masks.

All I can say is: IT ISN'T ABOUT BEING FORCED, IT'S ABOUT GIVING A SHIT ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE.

This is what we're dealing with, and the outgoing regime just made this kind of personality somehow socially defensible and mainstream, a truly terrible and sickening thing that's come out of the last four years.

Meanwhile, we ready the torches and sharpen the pitchforks.

A return to normalcy would be a waste and a mirage at best. The time for civility may have passed, but I'm open to talks about the best way to get the results we need.