Like everything else in the year of our Lord 2020, the American election of 2020 was an ugly mess. As I write this, it looks like Joe Biden will probably manage to scratch out a meager victory, however any hope he had of accomplishing anything as president is already comprehensively and utterly ruined. Mitch McConnell’s icy skeletal grip upon the Senate remains, and McConnell will not allow any legislation that would benefit any non-billionaire to ever pass that ghastly house. There will be no new fiscal stimulus, or, if there is, it will be a miserable pretense which really only helps billionaires. There will be no improved medical care system. Indeed, the Supreme Court is almost certain to strike down the ACA in the immediate future, driving tens of millions of citizens out of medical care and into bankruptcy (to say nothing of what those charlatans in robes will do to reproductive rights or gun control rules). The next four years will feature no technological innovations, discoveries, or breakthroughs of any significance (Republicans and their corporate overlords have no interest in such things when the current status quo serves their purposes just fine). There will be no infrastructure deal to rebuild our crumbling nation. Americans will become poorer, sicker, and face greater day-to-day insecurity. The coronavirus will continue to kill us off and keep us separated from each other for the next several years until it burns out on its own (or do you envision folks from Kansas rushing to follow President Biden’s health initiatives?) Our standing in the world will keep on plummeting, as our autocratic foes coerce lesser nations into their thrall. Worst of all, environmental devastation will continue at a breakneck pace. Soon most ecosystems will be irrecoverably degraded and most wild lifeforms will be impossibly rare or outright extinct.

So…was the election a complete disaster? It was not! Getting rid of Donald Trump was the most important thing, and, unless he manages some Robert-Mugabe-style dark contrivance in the immediate future, he will be mercifully gone within a few looooooooong months. I am not looking forward to the cash grabs, parade of pardons, and graceless & dangerous transfer of power which we will witness during those months. However Donald Trump was the biggest threat to representative government in modern U.S history, and staving off such a threat is not nothing!. The fact that 48% of the electorate joyously voted for a white supremacist con man who has looted & preened while a quarter of a million Americans died is discouraging. Yet with Trump out of the picture (in exile, prison, or the grave) his cult of personality will recede and we will be able to look to the future and solve some of the problems which are destroying us.

Except will we really?

I did not write that first paragraph for no reason. I believe everything I said will come to pass. It is the future which Mitch McConnell is building even as I write this. And, as soon as we (non-billionaires) are being crushed beneath it, he will blame it all on Joe Biden. “Government is the problem” McConnell (or his mouthpieces) will say. Just privatize everything and let business cartels write their own rules and there will be no problem! Americans are already figuratively corporate slaves. The terrible years to come are all about making us into literal slaves.

We need to prepare for this as soon as possible. Harden your heart and stiffen your upper lip. Things in America are about to get much worse than they have been for the last 4 years. This will be entirely the fault of the Republicans. It is not even a mistake or miscalculation. It is their plan! Only by carefully explaining this again and again and again will we be able to help voters understand where their misery is truly coming from. Right now voters seem to think it is liberal snowflakes raiding their bank accounts, raising their insurance premiums, and threatening their social security. Perhaps if we can help voters understand who the true villains are (McConnell and his cronies!) we can escape some of the harm which is about to cascade down on us.