Civil Commotion

Like a lot of other people as this pandemic rolls on, Dawn and I are doing a lot of online shopping, with corresponding curbside pickup or delivery, in order to minimize our interactions with others.

The street we live on is scarcely more than a half-mile long, and ends in a cul-de-sac; it’s a suburban stereotype. And every day — every day, including Sunday — I see the Amazon Prime truck go by. It never makes less than two stops, and some days it makes more (Today: 7). And there are probably a half-dozen more deliveries using personal automobiles, a-la Uber.

So Amazon — and Uber, and LaserShip, and on and on — are having a great pandemic; unlike Pfizer, their stock is probably going to go down when vaccines come online.

I’ve thought for years that the great divide in American life is education, and Paul Krugman seems to be coming around to my way of thinking.

How did Georgia turn faintly blue? As The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson wrote, in a phrase I wish I’d come up with, the great divide in American politics is now over “density and diplomas”: highly urbanized states — especially those containing large metropolitan areas — with highly educated populations tend to be Democratic.

[ … ]

In practice, density and diplomas tend to go together — an association that has grown stronger over the past few decades. Modern economic growth has been led by knowledge-based industries; these industries tend to concentrate in large metropolitan areas that have highly educated work forces; and the growth of these metropolitan areas brings in even more highly educated workers.

Yes — and close association with a wide variety of people with different backgrounds and beliefs conduces toward their acceptance and the death of stereotypes. Four years at a residential university doesn’t ‘indoctrinate’ you with liberalism; it kills ignorant preconceptions.

Let me tell you something. Every Christian, every pastor out there that voted for Joe Biden last night, you have brought a curse upon yourself and your family, your children, and your children’s children down to the third and fourth generation, and you need to repent.

You cannot call yourself a Christian and call yourself a Democrat and vote for Biden. You are implementing the dark agenda. Satan’s agenda. The kingdom of darkness. You are not supporting the kingdom of God.

And if you cannot see that, if you do not repent, judgment will fall upon you, I believe, and your family and your children’s children down the third and fourth generation.

Prophet Mark Taylor

Apparently, Trump’s defeat doesn’t mean that the pious loonies will be leaving town with him.

The fact that the election came down to the wire in the swing states, that around 70 million Americans looked at the last four years and opted for more, is an ominous sign for the future of the Republic.

Michelle Goldberg, New York Times

This mirrors my own thoughts over the past few days. It’s a national disgrace that Trump got elected in 2016, and it compounds the disgrace that so many Americans considered him a plausible candidate in 2020. Trump is on the way out, but the sickness he exploited will remain.

The air is predictably thick today with appeals to come together, to talk, to understand each other, et cetera, et cetera.

I say … bullshit. Count me out. I don’t want to be pals with, and I’ve no interest whatever in understanding, the lowlifes that have made fear a staple of the lives of racial– and ethnic-minorities; Muslims; Dreamers; refugees, LGBTQ. I want to be part of the movement to drive them out of polite society and back under their rocks.