Supertankers of Guano, an Exploration of America

I teased this on Twitter yesterday, or at least the turn of phrase that ends the first graf. There's only one Gheorghie that writes like that, and when he's on a roll, best just to follow the advice Boone gave Otter. Kids, I give you our man in the OBX.

As we inch toward a Biden Administration, a handful of folks within the political gasbagerati make the point that one of the new president’s tasks must be to reach out and legitimize his election victory among all people. This idea is, not to put too fine a point on it, a supertanker of guano.

May or may not be guano aboard

There’s a lot of talk about healing and relief and recapturing the soul of America. But if the first three or six months of the next administration become a national couch session or campfire gathering, then Democrats are to politicking what the Washington Snydermen are to footballing. 

Joe Biden won the popular vote by more than five million, at last count. He carried Georgia, which last voted for a Democrat for president in 1992. He won in Arizona, which has voted for a Democrat only once since 1952. He flipped Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, all of which went Republican in 2016.

By the same token, the current President lost the popular vote by 2.9 million in 2016, yet spent exactly zero time reaching out to the majority and to those states that did not vote for him. Aided by a compliant Senate and, his first two years, a House majority, he spent four years golfing and grifting and embodying many of the worst qualities of human beings in general and Americans in particular. He is a transactional figure who believes that empathy and cooperation are for suckers. He bears responsibility for tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of deaths in a pandemic. He denuded and belittled government agencies. He antagonized allies and rolled over for belly rubs from authoritarians.

This is a big fucking fe

Biden delivered hopeful remarks, about how he’ll work just as hard for those who didn’t vote for him as for those who did, that he’s the president of all Americans and not just those who supported him. To be sure, he’s wired differently than his predecessor and is a product of a more collegial era in national politics, when legislators argued over policy by day and then retired to the Occidental for T-bones and bourbon. His lengthy legislative record includes many cringe-worthy measures and moments, but he appears to be a fundamentally decent fellow who leans toward public service and inclusion.

For those hoping that the election would be a repudiation of Donald Trump, consider that he received almost nine million more votes and a higher percentage of the electorate than he did in 2016. After witnessing him and his policies for four years, almost 72 million people thought him the better choice this time. Granted, many of those voters were motivated by fear and the demonization of Democrats as godless, communist, gun-snatching, tax-raising tree huggers. Still, hard to see the result as total rejection.

Plenty of people look at the stain of systemic racism, the cruelty of immigrant kids in cages, the violent putdown of peaceful protesters and respond with: “That’s not who we are.” Biden himself has said it. He and everyone who say so are wrong. It’s a national bedtime story we tell ourselves, girded by the lofty language of the founders. It’s all precisely who we are. We’re big and complicated and diffuse. We’re generous and welcoming and selfish and mistrustful. We’re tolerant and bigoted and informed and ignorant. We’re ambitious and complacent and hopeful and corrupt. To believe otherwise limits our chance for growth.

Ain't nobody scares the GA GOP more than this lady

Those who have gone down the Fox News and QAnon rabbit holes will never be convinced that Biden and Kamala Harris were legitimately elected, never mind interested in their lives. Biden and Harris and their allies shouldn’t try to convince them. Simply do the work. Explain what they want to do and why. Pass legislation. Send it to the Senate. When Mitch McConnell leaves bills on the shelf to wilt like arugula, call him on it. Publicly. Repeatedly. When his reasoning is, we won’t pass it, then hang it around his neck. If he can be pressured into holding votes, and he and his colleagues reject legislation, hang it around their necks. For four years, we’ve heard from conservatives that “elections have consequences,” which is a nuanced version of, “we won, so suck it.” Works both ways.

And speaking of the Senate, Georgia’s upcoming runoff elections for both seats could tilt the Senate blue (side note: Thanks, Cal Cunningham, for putting libido over service). Democrats’ message to Georgians every day should be: You voted for change and an opportunity for better lives for all Georgians, in health care and pandemic relief and living wages and participation in democracy; Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff will give you those opportunities; David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler question the legitimacy of the election and will oppose such measures at every turn.

The election and accompanying optimism were nice moments, but they were only a start. Regardless of your political leanings, lotta work ahead. Giddyup.