Goodness gracious, sakes alive! Here we are, Election Day! With two bottles still up on the shelf. Also a bottle of bubbly. Also a bottle of whiskey. If Joe wins, the bubbly comes down. If not, whiskey shots from here to eternity.

     Looking like it will be bubbly. Even Georgia just might do the right thing!

     The Biden campaign has been nearly perfect, the only stumble maybe his sloppiness talking about fracking at the end of the final debate (which will cost him a little in Pennsylvania). Watching him give speeches the past few days has been like watching Jimmy Stewart play Mr. Smith, corny through and through. Boy a good dose of corniness is just the medicine we need right now! And Obama´s jabbing rhetoric has dovetailed so beautifully. Very good campaign ads (though nothing compared to the Lincoln Project´s work, which will be sorely missed). A fully disciplined campaign, top to bottom. Biden was supposed to make gaffe after gaffe, right? Not a one. If the Biden bunch doesn’t win, it will not at all be their fault. They did their job.

     If Biden doesn’t win, if Trump wins, it’s on us. We can blame this and that and him and her for Trump having somehow won last time. Truth is, we have only ourselves to blame for that one too. If we don’t now rectify that failure, we deserve our fate, which will be horrendous.

     Even if Biden wins and we find a way to drag Trump out of the White House in time to disinfect properly, there will be hard times ahead. Here’s A link to Eugene Robinson´s latest piece in the Washington Post, which clarifies what will need yet to be done. Getting rid of Trump, Robinson writes, is only the first step, a necessary step but only a first step. Because, Robinson says, Trump is not the cause but only the symptom. Treating the cause will not be easy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/defeating-trump-is-only-the-first-step-in-our-national-recovery/2020/11/02/9dd3016e-1d4c-11eb-ba21-f2f001f0554b_story.html

     It looks like Biden will win. If so, what do the Trumpers do? Will they join the effort to heal and reconcile? If not, what then do we do?

     On the other hand, if Trump somehow wins or (much more likely) somehow cheats his way to ´victory´, what then do we do? I so much prefer the first ´what do we do?´ to the second one.

     Two final bottles of beer on the wall, along with prosecco and whiskey. We´re taking that beer down now, drinking with lunch. Please have this be a night for prosecco!

A twelve-pack of Schlitz (at Dartmouth we called it ¨Shits¨) on the wall and only two days until the militias are activated.

ROMAE NOVAE

AUSPICIUM PROSPERITATIS

ET GLORIAE

LUPAM CAPITOLINAM SIGNUM

ROMA AETERNA

CONSULE BENITO MUSSOLINI MISIT ANNO MCMXXIX

Translation: “This statue of the Capitoline Wolf, as a forecast of prosperity and glory, has been sent from Ancient Rome to New Rome, during the consulship of Benito Mussolini, in the year 1929”.

     This statue, a replica of the original Roman statue of the infants Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome, suckling at their she-wolf step-mothers tits, the original believed to be Etruscan (the wolf alone) with the infants added during the Renaissance and today placed at the base of the steps up into the Roman Capoltine, was a gift in 1929 to Rome, Georgia from Benito Mussolini. This replica to this day stands on Rome, Georgia´s Main Street, in front of the Municipal Building.

     As I write this, Donald Trump is getting ready to speak to a crowd of supplicants in Rome, Georgia. Mere minutes away.

     A little earlier I heard Ted Cruz on TV stating that the Republican Party needs to be ¨the party of jobs.¨ My step-father, who I at times have called ¨the last Nazi¨, who indeed served in the German army as a sixteen year-old in 1944/45, stationed in Berchtesgaden of all places, has told me to my face: ¨Jim, Hitler was not so bad! He put us to work! Everyone had a job!¨

     The past couple days, while I´ve been silent due to Tropical Storm Zeta (knocked out our electrical power, which brings us, in these woods of ours, not just light but also internet and cell service), I have shared Skip´s cautious optimism. Lights are back. Optimism greatly diminished.

     I still think the oddś of our navigating life under fascism are greater than the odds of continued democratic fumbling around.  We will soon know.

     A twelve-pack of Shits on the wall. Two days until November 3. Take ten down, pass them around. Get used to Shits, because it will only get worse.

     Two days left guys. Two days to summon your best inner John Lewis.