Abraham Lincoln had a recurring dream.\u00a0\u00a0He was in a boat in the night, out in the water.\u00a0\u00a0He was moving forward towards \u201c\u2026a dark indefinite shore\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0He didn\u2019t know what was on the shore, and he always awoke before the boat arrived.\u00a0\u00a0But, as Lincoln told his Cabinet on April 14th<\/sup>\u00a01865, that dream always foretold some great event, perhaps a great battle.\u00a0\u00a0And since on that day a week after Appomattox, there was only one major Confederate Army left in the field, Lincoln thought that it must means their final surrender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It would be two weeks before Confederate General Johnson surrendered to Sherman in North Carolina.\u00a0\u00a0But, of course, there was an even more important major event in the meantime.\u00a0\u00a0After the Cabinet meeting that night, April 14th<\/sup>, Lincoln was shot and killed in Ford\u2019s Theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COVID has changed our world. Instead of the Election Night celebration or nightmare that we knew from the past four elections, we watched a slow motion count. More like the \u201cdimpled chad\u201d election of 2000, or the slow \u201cBlue Wave\u201d of 2018, the path to Biden\u2019s potential victory is incredibly drawn out. We went to bed on Tuesday (for those who could) convinced that Americans turned back to Trump once again. But Wednesday, it was Arizona that oddly gave us emotional hope. And then we began to see the pattern of our new world of early and mail-in voting. What used to be voting day became voting month, and what used to be a one-night count, Election Night, has stretched into ninety-six hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This morning Biden edged into the lead in Georgia. As I literally write this paragraph, the load of votes in Philadelphia were just added to the totals. The results show Biden in the lead for Pennsylvania\u2019s 20 Electoral Votes. There is only one conclusion. In spite of Trumpian anguish, the gnashing of teeth, tearing of cloth and inevitable Court battles, Joe Biden will be the 46th<\/sup> President of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At least he better be. Trumpians have warned of us a \u201ccivil war\u201d when Trump was re-elected, of \u201cAntifa\u201d inspired mobs attacking the cities. It was convincing enough that prudent merchants in urban areas began to board up their windows. So now what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Should we expect a reverse war now? Will gun toting, flag flying pick-\u2018em-up trucks mass on the interstate highways, shutting down commerce to support their President? Here in Pataskala, should we start boarding up our windows to keep \u201cTrump\u201d rioters from tearing up the suburbs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n They’ve been \u201cconditioned\u201d (brainwashed) to believe that all the \u201cmail-in\u201d ballots are \u201cfake votes\u201d. Trump himself led the charge for months, and now right-wing media is screaming it on the broadest bandwidth. Their analogy: \u201cI watched the game end, saw the score, and knew we won. Now they are changing the score, cheating to win!\u201d. The car that drove by our \u201cBiden sign\u201d house last night knew it well \u2013 they screamed \u201cCheaters!!\u201d into the darkness. But of course that analogy doesn\u2019t work \u2013 we all watched the game, and NO ONE knew the score. We are more like those poor smiling figure skaters, sitting with flowers and stuffed animals, waiting for the judges to reach their calculations. We have waited this long ninety-six hours to find out the actual results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But figure skating \u201cain\u2019t\u201d popular \u201cout here\u201d. And I\u2019m sure there will be more protests, more \u201cTrump Trucker Rallies\u201d, more \u201clong rifles\u201d appearing on the streets. And probably more than just \u201ccheaters\u201d yelled from speeding cars on our road. Here in ex-urban Ohio, it will grow tense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1974 the Supreme Court in the\u00a0United States v Nixon<\/em>, ordered the President to release \u201cthe tapes\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Nixon recorded most conversations in the White House.\u00a0\u00a0He hated reporters, and wanted to have direct evidence of what was said and done when it came time to write the \u201chistory\u201d of the Nixon years.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n He \u201cbugged\u201d himself. All the conversations and plans of covering up the Watergate break-in were on long reels of audiotape. When the world found out about the tapes, the Watergate Special Prosecutor moved to seize them. Nixon refused, claiming \u201cexecutive privilege\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When the Supreme Court issued their decision, some of Nixon\u2019s staff argued that they should just destroy the tapes, perhaps in a bonfire on the White House lawn. But the Republican leaders of Congress, Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, House Minority Leader John Rhodes and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, went to the White House. They told Nixon that he no longer had the support of the Republicans in Congress, that impeachment and conviction were now inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nixon resigned two days later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n America is headed towards a \u201cdark, indefinite shore\u201d. We cannot expect Donald Trump to concede, to gracefully leave the stage. It\u2019s not in his nature, and it\u2019s also not in his own personal interest. His financial future is tied to the \u201cTrumpian cult\u201d he has created. Based on his own \u201cvictimhood\u201d, Trump must play out the role of the aggrieved leader, illegitimately removed from office. It\u2019s going to drive subscriptions for \u201cTrump TV\u201d, coming soon to a cable network near you. They\u2019ll place it between CNN and MSNBC on your schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We can fight this out. I do not expect a \u201ccivil war\u201d, and I don\u2019t expect marauding bands of pick-\u2018em-up trucks to tear through my neighborhood. But our nation will remain so severely divided that we will have to wait a whole generation to recover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or, like Scott, Rhodes and Goldwater, the leaders of the Republican Party, absent for so long, can finally stand-up. They can take the walk to the White House, and support the Constitution and the American model of government. While not every Trump acolyte will follow, enough will to avoid the inevitable alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They can steer our boat from the \u201cdark indefinite shore\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s their last best chance for legitimacy.\u00a0\u00a0And it\u2019s our best chance to move forward as a nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Slow Motion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Pick-\u2018Em-Up Truck War<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Hugh Scott<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Out of Darkness<\/h3>\n\n\n\n