John Young is a journalist transplanted from Texas to Colorado. He wrote this brilliant column which lucidly explains why so many people were dancing in the streets on Saturday after Biden’s victory was announced.
It begins like this. Open the link to read the dazzling ending.
This is not fake news.
Donald Trump does not run the country.
You say he never did. You say the Constitution does. Ah, but he was prepared to show you differently.
When he was impeached, Republicans in the U.S. Senate told him he could. All but one of them barely flexed an eyebrow over his illegal act of extorting a struggling nation to help him torpedo a campaign rival — that rival who just became president-elect.
After those proceedings, Trump knew he could get away with anything.
Oh, yes, Barack Obama was right: The fate of democracy itself was at stake in this election. Democracy won.
This just in: Vladimir Putin has no more sway over U.S. foreign policy.
Today, like Trump, Vlad paces his quarters, steaming at what our voters have done. Vlad would never let this happen in his election.
Russia invested so much in destabilizing this nation. The good works of the 1,000-plus-employee Internet Research Agency paid off in 2016. Now? Nyet.
So much invested in making Americans disbelieve in their system.
Freedom. Many a Trump supporter has sent that word ringing through hills and valleys. But what does that word represent to them? For too many, it represents the freedom to stomp around in camo, an AK slung over the shoulder.
Freedom from fear? Don’t change the subject. The camo crowd couldn’t care less if you are a fearful person of color, or an immigrant, or if you are gay, or lesbian or transgender and fear for your rights.
GOP support wasn’t necessarily about freedom anyway. Look at the Republican Party platform. Basically it says, “What Trump says.”
Now he’s bound for civilian life and the life of a criminal defendant. What does his party do now?
Back to the Russians’ designs to mess with American voters’ minds, particularly people of color. Trump gloated over the lower-than-expected Black turnout in 2016, rightly pointing out that a no-vote by them was a vote for him.
As his presidency seeped away it was mostly Black votes that provided the drip, drip, drip that took him down, in Detroit, in Milwaukee, in Philly, in Pittsburgh, in Atlanta, in Savannah.
If ever an American election had a fitting coda, it was provided there in those communities.
Trump had trashed voting by mail. We in Colorado who have been doing this for years knew he spewed bilge. Now voters in many more states fully appreciate the process.
In the end it was mail-in votes — drip, drip, drip — that caused the waters to swell around and snuff a Trump dictatorship.
Read on. The ending is the best!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
The same type of self reliant belief system exists in the South. I do not believe that all Southerners are racists either. I think those on the right have been influenced by Libertarians. They espouse support for “small government” without really understanding what this means. They also despise paying taxes, but I guess that idea goes along with the idea of small government. Some of the Republicans voice a lack of trust in anything the government does, particularly the federal government. My husband works part-time for the Dept. of Commerce. He does the census, but not the ten year one. He works other surveys from NIH and the CDC. While most people in conservative northwest Florida are cooperative, he always comes across a few anti-government types that refuse to take a survey for the federal government. While there are certainly some conservative racists, many of them are often religious family people that believe that Republicans are better for business. They are largely pro-life. Many of them supported Trump despite the fact that the deficit ballooned under him.
I intended to post this on the post about Montana and understanding conservatives.
As a native Texan with family in Georgia and Alabama, I believe that the South’s wholesale switch to Republican was 99.9% racism, with lots of cover stories.
There is hope for our country. The first step was getting rid of the anti-democratic, anti-rule of law demagogue and Stephen Kingesque clown, Trump. Biden won the all important Electoral College vote (should be abolished) and the popular vote. Thank goodness.
We Blacks vote in every election. I disagree that we stayed home in 2016. We Blacks voted. I voted for Hillary, because she had elective office experience. 🤓