Pulse of Concord: Election 2020–the real Fright Night

As we move into the shadow of Halloween, a greater scare is looming on the horizon with full portents of dread and horror.

We stand within the echo of our pledges to be “indivisible with liberty and justice for all,” but that sweet song is drowned out by a highly orchestrated set of forces of division within and an ever-present valid chorus of challenges that we do not have liberty and justice for all.

Our elections have had a relative calm showcase of theater in the transfer of power, even when the vote of the majority was shouted down in 2000 and 2016 by an electoral process composed in the 18th century by competing colonial sovereign states.

Ironically, 160 years ago the Democrats refused to accept that vote and process as a Republican was elected and that screamed us into a Civil War. Now the leader (in namesake only) of the descendants of those Republicans are threatening to reject the pending vote and process and even called upon extreme violent groups to “Stand By” – just as state militias and local governments were mobilized for treason 160 years ago.

Lost grace

The grace with which Al Gore yielded to a Supreme Court that first stopped a recount of votes and then ruled that there was not enough time to complete that recount is long gone from our civil discourse protocols. Suspicion and dread in the turnover of the high court to highly partisan alignment turns the hope of justice into a whisper of its former voice.

Yet there still is that whisper and prayer to near ghostly divine intervention that we may be able to strengthen our nation’s soul and hope the scariest election in memory will fade into the background to a renewal of unity in purpose of “We the People.”

Let us do more than just hope and pray. Let us vote and raise our song of freedom to demand that there is both justice and peace.

You can send comments to EdiBirsan@gmail.com or 510-812-8180.