The Dreaded Political Post

Someone more eloquent than me has probably said, "No matter who wins, at least half the country is going to be upset." 

It's certainly the way I look at this election.

I feel like every election year it's always "THE" election year. If the right person is elected, there will be sunshine and rainbows and life will go on. If the wrong person is elected....

Only there's always a problem eventually. The problem changes based on who's elected, but it's never 'all good.' 

With all the conflicting reports and polarized comments I read, I'm honestly not sure who will win. I think it will be like the recent school board votes for virtual school and for phase 3: Divided.

If you go by the signs, we live in Trump country. Our neighbors hung banners.

I see mainly Trump signs on the drive into town and in town. There's an occasional outlier, but Ellie's neighbor had someone drive into their yard to steal their Biden sign. 

Caught it on their game camera, too.

Yet, there are news reports in Orange County that someone was stealing Trump signs.

There are crazy people in both camps. There are people who bring guns to shoot peaceful protestors and there are people who try to use the protests to assault police officers and/or loot. 

I'm sure much of the news that bothers you relates directly to where you get your news.

Just look at the coronavirus. 236,997 people have died or 0.072% of the population? Is the statistic you pick more likely to indicate who you will vote for?

Or was it biased to write it that way? Should I have written 0.072% of the population or 236.997 people have died?

Both facts are certainly true (at least at the time I pulled the numbers). 

And I don't buy into this sort of talk. At all.

I could write a whole post about that quote, but I won't here. 

So where do I stand this election? 

This post has already started to grow beyond the size I originally intended. The more I write, the more I want to write, because my own feelings are complicated. I have serious qualms about both candidates. 

In the end, I decided to base my vote purely on my personal experience. I feel like Trump's presidency has had a negative effect on my life. 

My world feels more divided and I feel Trump's character, mannerisms, and strategy fuel that. There have been times he could have offered words of healing and direction (Remember the Aug 12 march?) or just admitted he made a mistake, so that the course could be corrected (The entire start of the pandemic being a flu) yet he seems incapable. He called names and 'shouts' in all caps on Twitter. He labeled COVID-19 the 'China virus' in a time when people are already being targeted for being different and, again, promoted division and strife rather than understanding and support.

So I voted for Biden.

And yet it wasn't without reservations. I disagree strongly with parts of his platform and if he does win, I don't want a sudden overreaction or course-correction with lockdowns. While I believe the initial responses to the pandemic were bungled and Trump bears much of the responsibility, I feel like a second clamping down this late in the game would be a second disaster. 

Obviously, I have no data on the future to tell if Biden would call for a second lockdown or not. It's more my perception of the trends in voters. 

The schools cautiously moved to return more students to in person school with a 4 to 3 vote. I'm willing to bet there's a strong correlation that the people who voted for moving forward tended to vote for Trump while the ones who voted against tended to vote for Biden. I wanted to move forward, albeit cautiously.

I voted in person the day of the election. It wasn't crowded.

I renewed my license from home in May and realized that while legal, the expiration number on the front had passed. I spent half the morning looking for my updated voter registration card, but didn't need it. No one wanted to touch a stranger's license amid COVID fears. The poll worker looked at the back of my license for half a second from behind a plastic shield to scan the barcode.

I was the 275th voter out of a projected 6,600 something.

I started to write this Tuesday and I'm wrapping it up Wednesday morning after editing to keep it concise.

We still don't know who won. 

And that won't stop time from moving on. I'm going to go about my day. There are chores to do, family to hug, and kids to teach. 

God is in control whoever wins.