I cheer Joe Biden for his temperateness

Nov 05, 2020 Letters

Dear Editor,

The 2020 United States Elections are not over; far from it. That was my first takeaway, which took firmer hold, as the hours ticked away after midnight towards Wednesday morning. Some other observations and personal conclusions are now shared, and like American baseball philosopher, Yogi Berra, did say: “it ain’t over till it’s over.”

As I watched and listened and read the screen all at the same time (unlike many, I can multitask), I thought for a long moment that I was hallucinating and had gone back in time to post March 2 in Guyana. For there was each channel – ABC, Bloomberg, BBC, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and Aljazeera, among others – with its own prediction, pontification, and conclusion. Thank God! for a truly free press and real democracy at work, and live and direct, too. My focus was on the vital, all-important Electoral College and that magic number of 270, which given what followed increasingly took on the appearance of 666. My continuous television tours confirmed that they all carried a devilishly different number. Whoever said that Guyanese were the only ones who can’t count owe them an apology.

One channel injected the sober: we want to get it right, not first. That was refreshing, since being second to last was thought to be alright. Just do the right thing. Give it a hand. A Black contributor on CNN delivered the most piercing moment through a somber note: “we may still win a political victory; but the moral victory expected, by a landslide, was largely missing.” That was well said, Sir. The sustained outrage, the great despairs, were but a sorry caricature of themselves as the numbers kept coming in to remind that this is where the proofs must be delivered. Score one for the right-wingers and rednecks and rabble-rousers.

Now all of this deposits me right back to this soggy business about polls, pundits, predictions, and similar such perversities. Either they all have the methodologies and approaches wrong; or those polled know how to game the system. I settle for the latter, which is confirmed time and again. This is not so much about an inexact science and all of those fallback defensive positions. It is an indictment of the pretended uncertainty (maybe) or the lack of honesty (definitely) on the part of many of the respondents in polling exercises. I used to hang up; politely, of course.

A positive takeaway occurred around 02:30 hrs., when Mr. Joe Biden went on air to articulate some measured words, while being carefully confident. I cheer him for his temperateness. He and his people have to be sweating ballots; those would be the ones that did not materialize in the anticipated avalanche. Too close for comfort, and so tight as to induce fright. Though Mr. Biden showed his age and looked glassy, I salute him for his timely and thoughtful expressions. Now I wish that the same could be attributed to the President. But what would an election be these days without the dark side casting a wide shadow?

I gathered that from the Chief Executive, there was a claim of stealing the election and promising to head to the U.S. Supreme Court. By then it was time to reach for the sanity of my Daily Scripture reading from a little red book. But the president knows what he is saying and planning on doing. After all, he has a clear majority there, and after the shameless vulgarities of Mitch McConnell’s and others of like ilk, I do travel back in time this time to 2000 and Bush v. Gore. I hope nobody is so brazen as to remind me of integrity and the independence of the judiciary. This could be as good as a done deal. To hell with that long held sacred mantra of Republicans about State rights; just get it done. All the conservative majority has to do is to refine their legal camouflage to make things look profound, lacking in prejudice, and on the up and up.

All of this led to the repeated use of two words: nail biter; some have guillotined themselves by then. By then, the dawn’s early light came through the rain to remind me that the dog food still had to be done. Clearly, I am going to the dogs, too. First, it was Guyana; now it is America. This is simply too much.

Yours truly,
GHK Lall