Not many years in living memory have been as bleak as 2020, but Americans are doing their level best to dispel the gloom during the season of giving. The coronavirus pandemic that dampened Thanksgiving celebrations from coast to coast only sharpened enthusiasm for the ensuing shopping spree of Black Friday. The unfolding holiday period demonstrates there is little market for misery during the most spirit-filled time of the year.
Buckminster Fuller, the eccentric architect, inventor and author, once opined, "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change things, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." But Fuller, who died in 1983 at the age of 87, didn't live long enough to see the advent of social media.
With Thanksgiving now passed, Americans have entered into their yearly no-man's-land until the mid- to late-December holidays. Psychologically we are in a similar state of limbo, as we wait for both a new presidential administration (as of this writing not a done deal) and COVID-19 vaccines to flow into the American bloodstream. All this waiting, especially with the onerous lockdowns taking place in many parts of the country, is maddening.
A refurbished product is seldom as desirable as a brand-new one. Joe Biden must be assuming Americans can't tell the difference. Even as President Trump battles uphill to overturn the results of the recent presidential election, faces familiar during the earlier Age of Obama are reappearing in President-elect-apparent Biden's pantheon of power.
The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed another victim. In addition to the more than 256,000 dead Americans and nearly 1.4 million worldwide, the virus' murderous grip has left a dark stain on the vaunted U.S. election system. Regardless of the eventual outcome of the 2020 presidential contest, efforts should be unsparing to restore the process so that it drips with integrity.
One thing the left does much better than the right — other than shut down city blocks for days at time — is agitate for their needs. They grab the megaphone, collar the media outlets and raise Cain. Consequently, they find the odds that their grievances are acted upon increased. It's a nice little cycle, or racket, which is why it has been in the liberal playbook forever.
The American electorate's apparent decision to replace their leadership amid a tumultuous pandemic is adding energy to progressive ambitions worldwide to engineer "a Great Reset," a reordering of society along socialist principles. Enthusiasm is no substitute for wisdom, though, and the current apostles of radical change will be hard-pressed to surpass the prudence of the intrepid sojourners who disembarked from the Mayflower 400 years ago this Saturday to found a society unmatched in history.
Iran wants something from Joe Biden that Donald Trump took away. The Islamic Republic is pressuring the presumed president-elect to return to the terms of the Iran Nuclear Deal, and also to "compensate" Iran for the errors of U.S. ways. Mr. Biden campaigned on a pledge to re-enter the deal, but now that rhetoric is giving way to reality, any new agreement must contain added conditions that better safeguard U.S. national security.
The concept of civil disobedience, defined as the peaceful refusal to follow a particular law, is most often associated with its greatest practitioner, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. But it's an old notion, and it's been followed by Americans since the start of our country. The desire to demonstrate upset with perceived government injustice by means that do not topple society, is, in a decisive respect, very American.
Stay away. That's the message Americans are hearing as the coronavirus spike sharpens with the onset of the cold season.
During a difficult American election season, one can always count on Kremlin criticism of our nearly 250-year-old democracy for a laugh. This time commentary came from Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, who quipped that our "electoral system is the most archaic of all that there exist in countries of at least some importance around the world," adding "if the Americans are prepared to stick to a tradition that considerably distorts the expression of people's will, it is their right."
If power corrupts, as it is said, Americans are going to feel a jolt of degeneration when Joe Biden plugs back into the climate-change network. Rather than save the world from global warming, a President Biden would force Americans to spend more of their hard-earned dollars just to keep the wheels turning and the lights burning.
The forces labeled as fate are not always fair. The immediate aftermath of the 2020 presidential election is shaping up as one of those times. While Democrat Joe Biden seemingly has benefited from an unexpected handout, Republican Donald Trump is simply getting the back of the hand.
Conservatives, beware — the politics of retribution and score-settling are upon you. If you think for a second that your vote to reelect President Donald Trump was interpreted as a ballot cast for the candidate you believe best championed your everyday concerns of life, liberty and the pursuit of justice, former First Lady Michelle Obama begs to differ. According to her and, one might assume, the DNC apparatus, "tens of millions" of you voted for the president even though it meant "supporting lies, hate, chaos, and division."
The man behind the mask is Joe Biden. As a candidate for president, Mr. Biden has spoken strongly in favor of face mask mandates as a means of suppressing the spread of COVID-19. With the coronavirus spiking again, a coronavirus task force appointed by a President Biden is likely to urge states to implement orders that masks must be worn outside the home. While the coverings foster a sense of personal protection, there is little to reassure Americans that such directives will bend down the upward curve of disease.
When riots erupt, there is always a reason -- ; it just might not make sense to rational people. When it comes the election season, most Americans relish their chance to cast a ballot.
On Election Day, in response to exit poll data coming out of Florida indicating that President Trump had garnered the support of Hispanics and Blacks, Josh Kraushaar, a columnist at National Journal, tweeted, "The path forward for the GOP: multiracial working-class party." To which Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, responded: "Uh, yea."
Hold the confetti. America has spoken, but the final outcome of the 2020 presidential election is still a secret. Most of the credit, or discredit, goes to Pennsylvania. Rather than a keystone from which it takes its nickname, the commonwealth has tossed a brick at the fragile U.S. election system. Americans pondering their future course can do nothing but wait.
At the time of this writing much of America is heading toward the polls. Then they are heading home, sheltering in place and waiting. Fear and uncertainty are high, especially for small shopkeepers in major U.S. cities who have — in anticipation of unbridled anarchy and rioting by those on the left — boarded up their storefronts. If President Trump is reelected, they know the carnage nightfall could bring.
Thanksgiving is still a couple of weeks away, but the chance to have a say in the nation's leadership is not to be overlooked as an occasion for gratitude. The fact that over most of the nation, Election Day dawned bright and crisp — perfect elements for poll lines — is all the more reason for a hat tip toward our shared good fortune. Weather may remain beyond human control, every American adult is endowed with the privilege of casting a vote no less weighty than any other.
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