Something amazing happened yesterday. Something so sublime, so beautiful, so completely infused with import that it should take your breath away. Do not let that astounding event go unnoticed.
A Republican sweep? Not a chance! That will be soon forgotten. The amazing miracle we just witnessed is a nationwide series of hotly contested elections. They were executed successfully among peacefully cooperating citizens. Their decisions will be final. The most powerful nation on planet earth shifted it’s government entirely because citizens voted. Nanci Pelosi didn’t hole up in a bunker fondling her majority speaker’s gavel. The Nation’s President and Commander In Chief had a sleepless night and the next morning got in front of us all and said “Yes, indeed, I’ve been shellacked”. People as different as Rand Paul and once and future Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown stepped into power. Incumbents who lost stepped aside.
This, like the rising of the morning sun, is a miracle. Enjoy it.
Any free society is always at risk of collapse. Dependence and weakness can erode self reliance and strength. Debt can and has incrementally tightened the noose. There is never a time when free citizens are not either guarding their freedoms or slowly losing them. A people can always devolve from citizens to subjects. It has happened before and it will happen again. To some extent that insidious process has taken root even here. Fortunately it hasn’t gone too far yet. Nothing is written in stone. The future is entirely up for grabs. Nobody on earth truly knew the election results before the ballots were counted.
We are still a republic of free, self-determining, citizens who can and do send politicians to Washington and/or kick them to the curb at our will. Elections matter. We, the people, just proved it.
When some unimportant yahoo in flyover country can drive a rusty Subaru to the polls and stand in a little box deciding who shall be in power a thousand miles away simply because he’s a citizen…that is a powerful event. We can vote for morons or great leaders. We can make informed deliberations or vote for the candidate with the hottest wife. Either way people who’ve spent their whole life aggregating power can do nothing but accept whatever we and a plurality of our peers decide.
Win or lose, every time you vote in a free election you have witnessed a miracle. Congratulations citizens.
