Mind the gap

Something is rotten in Denmark

“The space between the tears we cry is the laughter — keeps us coming back for more.” — Dave Matthews

I have never been to England. Apparently, there is a message they tell everyone that rides the subway there. “Mind the gap” is that message. Apparently, the gaps in the platform are an injury hazard. I’ve never been, but somehow I came away with a tee-shirt that says “Mind the gap.”

Months (or maybe years) ago I wrote a piece titled “Mind the gap.” I probably will say many of the same things I did then, but since I have so many new readers and so many things have happened that it seemed time to reprise the point. The idea here politically is that there is a gap between what people want and what they actually do in the voting booth.

I suppose I should start with that notion right there. I have a hard time believing that 77 million people want what is going on right now. That ultimately means that one of two things is true (or both at the same time). Either the election results do not actually reflect the way that the majority actually voted or they really did vote that way, but they didn’t vote for all of this.

I say all of this in full transparency. I have nothing substantial to back up the claims that the election was stolen. They are just rumors at this point. However, there are numerous investigations going on, so this is a little more than water cooler talk. Elon Musk himself said that Trump would have lost the election without his help. Obviously, that is not an admission of guilt. It could be he was simply referencing the cash he infused the campaign with.

It should be noted that that no one is claiming that votes actually changed hands yet. Most of the conjecture surrounds a mysteriously low voter turnout and Harris votes not being counted. At the end of the day, it is a dangerous rabbit hole to go down. Maybe enough votes were erased to make a difference in the outcome, but it doesn’t change the fact that more than 70 million people voted for a sociopath.

They voted for “alligator Alcatraz.” They voted for a big beautiful bill that’s really none of those things. They voted to potentially have their status as a citizen revoked even if they were born here. They voted to strip protections away from millions of Americans. They voted for veterans to lose their jobs and lose benefits. They voted to make us less healthy, less safe, and less financially secure. No amount of pontificating over election fraud can possibly explain all of that away.

There is a space between who we are as human beings and what we seem to be okay with being done in our name. There is a gap between the better angels of our nature and what is currently going on. Even when you look at polling data, most of these measures are unpopular, but these were things he bragged he would do. I’m trying really hard to understand this. I’m trying hard to understand an overwhelming majority being against the very planks that he campaigned on.

It takes awhile to process all of this information. It takes awhile to process that my citizenship status is no longer guaranteed. I’ve lived my whole life here. My parents lived their whole lives here. Their parents lived their whole lives here. If they were to deport me then where exactly should I go? The notion seems absurd, but for millions of Americans (and I will purposefully call them Americans) this is not just theoretical.

The gap is both a source of hope and a source of despair. On the one hand, it is always possible that people will finally vote the way their beliefs dictate they should vote. They will vote their own interests. They will vote their own humanity. They will vote their conscience. Their conscience cannot allow them to continue voting for a group of people that can do these things and do them with glee.

On the other hand, the presence of a gap does not seem to be stopping them from doing all these things. It doesn’t seem to help the opposition in stopping these things from happening. It’s all very soul crushing. I’d like to believe that the people rooting for all of this are a loud minority, but it’s sometimes hard to keep telling yourself that. It’s hard to see a group of people in power that can callously treat people like this. It’s hard to see those same people suffer very few if any ramifications for their behavior.

There’s something ugly in that gap. There is something dark. There’s real pain and real fear for the future. That fear and pain has been weaponized into hatred. There’s misinformation and propaganda. There’s a lack of knowledge. What’s more, I don’t know how to fix it in the short-term. I don’t know how much longer we can work our way through this. I am open to suggestions.