Fake fight, real fight

With the election over, both sides are gearing up for what they see as the next battle. But one side is engaging in a pointless protest against objective reality and math, while the other is preparing a sober assault upon the last bastion of entrenched right-wing minority rule in Washington.

Trump, of course, has been spattering out a random barrage of legal challenges against the voting processes and outcomes in various states, while refusing to cooperate with the normal transition of power -- a strategy about as dignified, and as likely to succeed, as a toddler's screaming fit against the arrival of bedtime.  This was the most secure election in US history.  Officials of both parties, in every state, have affirmed that there's no sign of fraud or irregularity.  Biden's margins of victory in even the closest states are too large for recounts or other such maneuvers to reverse the outcome.  79% of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, accept that Biden has won the election, while only 3% say Trump won.

Die-hard Trumpanzees, of course, are not taking all this lying down.  Small clumps of them have been holding "Jericho marches" to support Trump in various state capitals -- allegedly every day and in every state capital, though I haven't heard of anything in our own capital (Salem) since one pro-Trump protest of only two hundred people right after the election.  Others are planning a "million MAGA march" in Washington tomorrow, though based on the last few years' pitiful track record of "million"-this-or-that wingnut events that fizzled out, I'd be surprised if more that a few thousand actually show up.

I suppose all this ostentatious public praying, camo cosplay, and waving guns around is therapeutic for the participants, but such displays have no impact on who actually wields power.  To affect who wields power, you have to actually vote -- and we already did that.

Which brings me to the fight being organized on the left, which is for the runoffs for Georgia's two undecided Senate seats -- where there is still more voting to be done, on January 5.  If we win both, the Senate will be split 50-50 with Harris as tie-breaker.  This would dethrone Moscow Mitch and put the more ambitious parts of our agenda -- Medicare expansion, Supreme Court enlargement, DC and Puerto Rico statehood, a federal ban on state gerrymandering and vote suppression -- back on the table.

Are these runoffs winnable?  We certainly have a fighting chance.  Biden carried Georgia, however narrowly.  And Stacey Abrams's Fair Fight organization, which deserves much of the credit for turning Georgia purple since 2018, will be fully engaged.  If you want to help, it's probably best to donate to them -- the money will go toward voter contacts, registration, legal action against vote suppression, and the like, far more effective than the negative ads most political campaigns spend most of their money on.  Trump is too focused on raging against his own fate to do much campaigning for the Republican candidates in Georgia, and may even turn against the party as more and more of its top figures break ranks with his denial of Biden's win.  Top Democrats, by contrast, can be expected to give Ossoff and Warnock as much help as they believe might be useful.

For years the right wing has lived in a dank fever dream of delusions, conspiracies, and reality-denial.  It seems only fitting that the drama of this election comes down to them marching in the streets, yelling and waving signs, imagining that this can reverse a defeat that has already happened -- while we soberly focus on the one remaining actual contest which could deliver full control of this nation's government.