Best, Worst, Probable, the World in Five Years

As I write today's blog, I don't do so feeling unbridled optimism, more a deadly serious realism.  Most of our lives are spent with real, but relatively personal issues, superficial on a global scale.  That doesn't mean that global scale issues don't exist, it just means that they are relegated largely to scholars, specialists in fields, and national leaders.  Not now, for they are in the forefront for a plethora of reasons.  I am going to try to give my view on these important issues, not in a dispassionate way, but in a manner as realistic as possible from one American man's armchair perspective.

Below is a comic piece from the political cartoonist for the Washington Post, Tom Toles.  He summarizes beautifully many of these essential challenges facing America.  They are American, but many in varying degrees are also global in implication.  America is fortunately or unfortunately still a powerful force in the world.  It is also a force that has diminished in positive influence due to very problematic leadership.

What we see above is really the worst potential we have.  Because we must deal with issues domestic, issues always buried in our society and whitewashed in our texts, as they have emerged the way we deal with them is very important in a time of such pivotal possibility.  The domestic details I would share more with other Americans, for we have just seen the rapacious and hypocritical imbalance of our judicial system.  That may in the coming couple of weeks determine a key part of our future if they basically undercut our Constitutional system of checks and balances further than they have already been undercut.  The worst will be a continuation of this Presidency, for President Trump is mentally ill and has a rabid following.  He will seek revenge, for he has already said that the only way he can lose this election is if it is rigged.  If decided in the courts and the vote is not viewed as valid, there will be battles in the streets, for the other issues shown above will all be exacerbated.  He governs in denial of science, health care needs, institutional racism, economic inequality and the evidence of science.  He is a weak autocrat seeking more power to become a stronger autocrat.

Below, I present a counter force that will not be in any news that my readers overseas will see.  It is the force of health and healing that is springing up in my town, the town that Shackman Chuck grew up in. I am including many more pictures than usual, because for those interested, they show what can be done in an urban environment to make it as green as possible without the more glamorous, but essential, elements that move us to carbon neutrality.

These pictures are at our county facilities headquarters and this is surrounding the parking lot of the Maintenance and Operations Center.  Yes, you read that right, the parking lot around M&O.  First, note the way in which it is done.  Everything you read here has a real world example of it in operation right beside the sign.

This is an area, as all that they have, populate by native plants.

There are pathways through the plant areas with the information displays I have photographed.

And now I leave you to read as you wish the different urban environment advances they demonstrate.  I have made no effort to sort them in numerical order, for each is individual.

Besides the vote that Americans are taking, some at great cost of standing in line, defying the dangers of Covid-19 for as long as 11 hours.  As is the case in America, the vote is how we have always decided the pathways to our future.  The vote is threatened in two ways: 1) Disinformation and propaganda (lies) that are verified and continuous and 2) Actual disruption of the vote legitimacy by stacking the Supreme Court and undercutting the actual vote counting legitimacy.  It is quite possible that many very legitimate votes will not be counted in some states.  Indeed, it is probable.

The best chance for our contribution to the world in five years will be the election of Joe Biden and then Joe Biden listening to progressives and youth in his party and taking us forward with political skill, not shoving it down peoples' throats, but healing the divisions and listening to all sides.  At best, he will have us back in better balance as he hands the reins to the next generation, a generation with an eye on solution to all of the evils represented in the Toles cartoon.

If Trump manages to hold onto power, there will be furthering of the dysfunction in our society, further division as he faces what will probably be a Democratic Senate and House, backed by a tilted Court.  He is petty and vengeful and would use his power to veto anything that the Senate might pass and that could lead to people feeling that we are stuck and return Senate power to Republicans in the mid-term elections.  That would lead to ugly isolationism beyond what we have even seen so far.  It would lead to much partnering with other world autocrats and, quite probably miscalculation leading to unrest and war, some of it even having nuclear components.  World efforts to correct our path would be eviscerated in so many ways as this administration refused climate agreements and health overtures.  Trump knows nothing of statecraft, he knows only what a deranged ambition for power and the perverse ideas he has of personal respect.  He views so much of humanity as his enemies and he is determined to dominate and destroy all of them!

So, that is the best and worst, but what do I think will probably happen?  A mix of the two.  I think Biden will win (although I am really nervous about it), but it will come with a struggle and many will not support him.  He will also have fierce loyalists.  I think there will be battles in the streets and I think they will be intense and ugly.

I think Trump will continue talking about how the election was stolen from him and he will not fade into the shadows.  He will probably find himself pardoned of all Federal crimes, allowing Mike Pence to become President before the inauguration if necessary, but there will still be a good chance that New York courts will catch up to him.  He will be banking upon appeals to the Supreme Court if that happens, I suppose, for he has viewed the law as simply a system to be gamed.  We shall see.

If we weather the initial storms and if Biden has a Congress backing him, he will move us forward and hopefully engage the right people to make progress.  It will not be all  progress under any circumstance, but hopefully it builds a base that health and growth can continue growing from.  It may also take an expansion of a Supreme Court badly skewed, but that is a dangerous spiral in and of itself.  It may not be avoidable, though.  This is a time that will demand bold solutions, for we are out of time on many issues and our social infrastructure is fractured so many others.  We can't return to what was.

I think in five years, we will have a better chance, but I think we will still be in the midst of peril.  I also think that localities will never trust the Federal leadership in the same way again.  That may not be all bad, but trust and partnership will need to be painfully rebuilt.  A lot of people will have to be meaningfully represented at the table and there is no way around the fact that we have a tremendous amount of work to do!

Wish us, as we who value our friends across the oceans wish to you, success in fostering love, health and peace!  Cheers!  Namaste!  Prost! Salud! Slainte!

Please check out my other blog mates' takes on the same topic brought to us by yours truly at their blogs: 

Maria

Padmum
Raju
Ramana
Sanjana
Shackman

Srinivas