Last March I was wandering the southern states in a rented RV as each team’s playoff season was unfolding -- we missed out on helping choose the red- and blue- team contestants on March 8th because we hadn’t planned ahead for a mail-in vote. On vacation we didn’t have a tv, but we talked a little about what was developing.
I told my husband I didn’t want to have to get into watching the red and blue team picking process, but I also said that I had one absolute nightmare scenario: The blue team picking the Establishment Candidate of Amazing Pedigree and Qualifications (who happens to be carrying an epic quantity of baggage), while the red team picks the Unbeholden Outsider Who Channels The Vox Populi (who just happens to be a narcissistic sociopath).... aka the Heir Apparent From The Same Noble Lineages against The Nouveau Riche Clod Of Boorish Tastes. I saw the nightmare on the horizon, and I turned away in horror. I wouldn’t let anyone talk to me about politics during the playoff season. I knew I was helpless to do anything about whether my nightmare was going to play out, so I just acted like I wasn’t watching what was happening.
I pretended I didn’t see how tiny the Establishment Candidate rallies were, how poorly she did defending herself against opposition in the primaries, and how quiet some people who had resisted her in the blue-team playoff season became on supporting her during the run up to the Big Vote. My town that had been wall-to-wall Progressive Outsider stickers during his Groundbreaking Candidacy in 2008 and his Necessary Second Term in 2012, was strangely stickerless throughout this contest, even after the selection of the official blue-team nominee. I’m not saying that she didn’t win her playoff fair and square, or that any of the other blue-team options was a better choice, and I’m not saying that I know the reason why those things happened. I’m just saying they did.
I also pretended I didn’t see the giant stadiums filled by the Populist Agitator by whatever means, being charged up and galvanized in areas of the country that the educated elite has decided it can ignore because in their elevated opinion the communities there are dying anyway, supported by undesirable industries, or full of ignoramuses whose opinions are not to be considered by people of taste. The knives were out in the red- vs- blue contest, and blue had decided that its tent was big enough already to have to worry about such hoi polloi, and surely the populist threat could be contained by the social pressure of cosmopolitan disdain.
It was a while ago, but to be fair the blue team doesn’t always faint and clutch its pearls. Does anyone here remember the protests with a red-team sitting president hung and burnt in effigy? A lot of decent, well-meaning red-team people do. Remember, any population can feel “othered” by the community at large, and even though they may not talk about it, they can hold a grudge for a long time. Back in 2012, the red team did field a decent, qualified human being in the pro-forma finals against overwhelming odds, and the blue-team acted like he was some kind of monster and tore him to pieces for blood sport -- it shouldn’t be a surprise that the red team took no prisoners this time around if only for payback.
This time the red team was going to do what it had to do to win the actual contest, the electoral college vote, and someone put together a plan to bring the right population to the polls IF the space was left open for it. Irrespective of exactly how, in any case the blue team managed to leave the space open, and the red team won. The Establishment Candidate herself seems to have figured out that this was always a possible outcome: should everyone else not also, and get over thinking that this means TEOTWAWKI? This was an election, not a palace coup.
The leaders of the respective teams have asked the population to treat the red-vs-blue contest as an intramural sport, and turn a united front towards the world, viewing ourselves as examples of how to behave in a society that respects the rule of law and works within its own institutions towards the betterment of all. How can we, as civilized people, behave in any other way? We have faith in our institutions, in our fellow citizens, and in our core values as a society; one intramural contest is not grounds for doubt in any of them.
Go Purple… United We Stand.
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