The World Historical Year 2020: Intermission: Joe Biden Wins the Election

To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy.

We are not enemies. We are Americans.

The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season — a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to heal.

This is the time to heal in America.

In my chronicle of 2020, which is only half done, a key theme is the bitter and rancorous rhetoric, the executional incompetence, the antagonism, and the bullying of the 45^th president, Donald J. Trump. Facing him in an election on the 3^rd was former vice-president Joe Biden. Despite having mismanaged the coronavirus pandemic to the tune of nearly one quarter of a million deaths, continuing a display of manifest bankruptcy of character, and corroding the honor, norms and decency of the office, Trump’s brand remained surprisingly strong — far stronger than polls predicted. The day after the election, the key states were too close to call and an anxious nation waited for the declaration of the winner.

In the days after the 3^rd, we refreshed news media constantly looking for an update. While early returns seemed to favor the president, so much so that he announced his victory on the 4^th, slowly but surely an edge emerged for Biden in several battleground states as mail-in ballots were counted. We hoped the edge would endure and grow. As Biden’s edges endured, the possibility of denying Trump the electoral votes needed to win inched painstakingly to become reality.

On the 7^th, I stood cleaning out my Bialetti pot over the kitchen sink. Lauren was about to run errands in the hollowed-out, plague-ravaged shops along Broadway. It was the most quotidian of moments. Suddenly from the streets, we heard screams of joy and the clanking of metal pans and spoons.

The streets of New York City were telling us to check our news outlets.

The election had been called by cnn.com. It seemed too good to be true so we set to reloading other news sources to wait for confirmation. The jubilant sounds from the street continued growing louder. That Trump, the odious, repellent, authoritarian-leaning, lying, narcissist could soon become an irrelevant, orange, one-term memory hung thick in the household. Nothing that good could happen in this plague-riddled year of 2020.

Several tense, skepticism-laden moments later, the right-wing outlet, Fox News, and The New York Times announced the same and we knew it was really real. Biden had taken Pennsylvania to lock in both a popular win and an electoral victory.

There’s only one thing a New Yorker could do on a day like that: head to our streets. We grabbed Byron, our masks, and spilled out to share our joy and to see others’ in the streets.

Here's what happened next...and what our glorious city looked and felt like.

Upper West Side Celebration

We headed out to the traffic island in the midst of Broadway. On either side, North- and South-bound, cars were honking, passengers were leaning out the window cheering and folks on the sidewalk were waving and laughing. Windows in cars were down and music rang.

I can honestly say I just stood there dumbfounded. There was so much spontaneous joy on the corner: ladies in yoga pants and masks were fist pumping, at the fruit stand there was laughter among friends. It was more joy than I had seen in New York in over a year. I cried a bit. First that the elections had been fair and clean and none of my worst-held fears about what could happen, happened; but simply because I had become so accustomed to dourness and stress as a way of life.

We headed south.

A Haunting Moment

As we passed our way under the scaffolding (it’s New York, always scaffolding), near City Diner on 89^th street, a young orthodox Jewish boy of about fourteen wearing a “TRUMP” yarmulke and mask was seen running Northbound, dodging the crowd and weaving between the scaffolding supports. He seemed afraid.

I wanted to stop him and tell him:

Don’t worry, we aren’t the violent ones, the ones who menace and carry assault weapons. We aren’t the bully. We reject all that! We reject that man and his poisonous treatment of us and his disregard for the sanctity of the democracy and its norms. Take a new mask and celebrate with us! Let him go. He can only serve as a symbol of something that will metastasize. Find a new standard bearer for conservativism, but today celebrate elections with us!

But he ran as if chased by a specter. A specter that an orange-colored malefactor in mismatched bronzer conjured and taught him to fear.

Atop his grievous mismanagement of the nation’s health, Trump, perhaps most horribly of all, made Americans fear each other. For this sin, a President can never be forgiven. He poisoned American hearts against each other. He has been a pox and a curse on our nation and his toxins’ damage will be felt for many years hence.

Dancing in the Streets

As we cleared the scaffolding, we reached literal dancing in the streets. If there was any music that could dispel the dour specter of Trump’s politics of fear, it was the most joyful music I know of. A dozen floors into the sky, someone had turned their speakers out to blare down onto Broadway Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke.” Stevie’s hope was like shower water washing orange fake tanner off of us and down the drain.

Music is a world within itself
With a language we all understand
With an equal opportunity
For all to sing, dance and clap their hands

With apologies to Nietzsche, if your movement’s celebration doesn’t or won’t include Stevie Wonder (or people the same color as him, ahem), I want no part of it. We stopped on the corner to simply wave at other cars going by, to pet other dogs, to wonder at the amount of happiness being on display to happiness.

I looked up at the apartment buildings astride Broadway and I could see our elderly neighbors, avoiding the streets for their safety, beaming down and clapping their hands through opened windows. We continued on down to 86^th street, a major East-West transverse, where there were dancers and crowds on all 4 corners and the two traffic islands. They was waving and honking and dancing and yelling. There were campaign signs and images of the brave fighters for liberty who had moved on from this life: Martin Luther King Jr. and Brooklyn’s own Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Virus’ Shadow

Sadly, on this day, we must remember that the coronavirus was still rampaging. In fact, on the day of Trump’s defeat, the US hit a new high-water infection mark and a number of states were approaching new lockdown measure-triggering caseloads. Grimly, those high-water marks were topped in the days subsequent. So this chronicle won’t describe much hugging, kissing or proximity. So it was waving to each other and jumping and yelling that had to suffice. Some couples hugged or danced, but the happiness was palpable — even in this season of plague.

Headed Cross-town

Our friends (who had recently relocated to the area) texted. While we live on the West side and they the East, they suggested we meet up in Central Park to share our joys together. Being on 86^th meant that we were headed straight to the park.

As we reached Columbus and 86^th, there was more dancing and music playing. Strangers were handing out small single-use paper cups and sharing champagne poured from gloved hands. Laughter and joy were all around.

About this time, I became aware that my shoulders were relaxing for the first time in years. The venture capitalist Paul Graham compared it to having a background process on one’s computer that had gone haywire finally being forcibly shut down. Trump and his fetid ego had invaded so much of our mental space for so long. It was staggering to consider that those traumas were going to be released. Some persistent level of mental drain was going to stop in short order. It made one’s chest feel more open.

A Jazzy Stop

The announcement of the Biden victory fell on the most beautiful Fall day New York had seen in a while: clear blue skies, crisp colors and leaves, surprising warmth. It was the perfect day.

As we walked into the park, a jazz quartet was playing in a shady nook. As we neared them we recognized the tune: “After You’ve Gone.” We had to laugh, being among the few who had the jazz vocabulary to recognize the tune. As we approached the quartet, after crossing the central park ring road, they started their next number: “Exactly Like You” — my beautiful bride and my’s wedding song. It seemed ordained that perfect weather and some of our favorite music should appear in this moment of happiness.

We let Byron idle next to a glorious oak tree and we did a swing dance of happiness. To hold Lauren, to feel optimism again, to do the dance they did when World War II ended, it was absolutely perfect. As the drum solo kicked in, we waved bye-bye and headed off to met our friends, their adorable toddler, and their sweet dog.

Together, we five humans and two dogs wandered all over the park marveling at how good it felt to see happy people for a moment in this year of plague. We eventually ambled down the tree-lined walks to the Bethesda fountain where bubble artists, roller skaters, and artists all let their inner joy out in their preferred media.

Lincoln Center

We exited the park somewhere in the low 60’s and headed West back to Broadway. A bit hungry from walking, talking, and laughing, we stopped at an outdoor restaurant, Cafe Luxembourg to rest.

I won’t lie, we ordered champagne.

We toasted the new administration and our joy at the prospect of it. I ordered a lobster roll and fries and ate them with relish (I had skipped breakfast in the tumult).

We finished lunch and packed up. Together we headed North up Broadway back homeward. In the 80’s our friends took their leave to start their walk back home. Lauren and I came home, relaxed, and enjoyed the ongoing pictures of celebrations in other cities.

Celebration Elsewhere

In particular, I really enjoyed the celebrations in Philadelphia whose votes had played a critical role in securing the state for Mr. Biden’s campaign. Philadelphia, the plucky and proud birthplace of the nation, basked in its roots-of-the-nation role with references to Philly pride, hoagies, the Philly accent, and their NHL mascot “Gritty.”

A word about Gritty. Gritty is a very strange looking mascot that, originally, was received with mockery and derision. But receiving derision and not yielding is like sweet rejuvenating nectar for Philadelphians. The home of “fuck around and find out” upon seeing one of their symbols mocked turned to embrace Gritty 1,000-fold. On top of that the mascot’s persona was pure Philadelphian: he mocks other teams’ mascots, he menaces, he even aims at seduction.

For Philadelphians, in the battle of orange faced…beings, there can be only one. Gritty, a particularly chaotic mascot is the pugnacious and, well, gritty, agent of ridicule of tight buzzkills. His big mockery energy is the perfect antidote to the bafflingly serious-while-incompetent Trump administration.

Sobering Message

That evening, former vice-president Biden and Senator Kamala Harris delivered moving speeches noting Senator Harris’ victory for representation (first woman VP, first black VP, first Asian VP). The president-elect’s speech was moving and sober. A man of senior age, his perspective on what’s important never wavered. He set as his first focus the ravaging plagues tearing the country apart: bitter partisanship and COVID-19.

Of the former he said:

And to those who voted for President Trump, I understand your disappointment tonight.

I’ve lost a couple of elections myself.

But now, let’s give each other a chance.

It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric.

To lower the temperature.

To see each other again.

To listen to each other again.

To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy.

We are not enemies. We are Americans.

The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season — a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to heal.

This is the time to heal in America.

And of the latter:

Our work begins with getting COVID under control.

We cannot repair the economy, restore our vitality, or relish life’s most precious moments — hugging a grandchild, birthdays, weddings, graduations, all the moments that matter most to us — until we get this virus under control.

On Monday, I will name a group of leading scientists and experts as Transition Advisors to help take the Biden-Harris COVID plan and convert it into an action blueprint that starts on January 20^th, 2021.

That plan will be built on a bedrock of science. It will be constructed out of compassion, empathy, and concern.

This are thee words of a leader who has their priorities in order.

Conclusion

It was a joyous day to celebrate the end of a grievous threat to our democracy. Meanwhile the perfidious Trump was up to perfidious Trump-y things; but I’ll not mention them now except that, as (yawn) expected, he’s off defying norms and trashing the democracy in order to prop up his sham of an administration and to protect his tender ego. A wounded animal is more dangerous and Trump is playing a dangerous game and fomenting violence for his own egotistical ends.

But those actions are for another post. That Saturday, was a day of joy and not even the tantrums of Donald J. Trump could stain it (“bigly” orange).

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