The Glass Half Empty

The Democrats now have a 51-49 majority in the Senate, result of the Georgia run-off election that Warnock won by around a 51-49 split. In Nevada, in Arizona, Mark Kelly won with a  51% majority, in Nevada, Catherine Masto won with a 48.9% majority (.9% more than her Republican opponent). Democrats lost some footing in the House, which now is Republican controlled by a 221 to 213 majority. We’re led by a President who won the popular vote some 81 million to 74 million.

 

Do you feel how close these statistics are? Almost literally the cup half empty or full. And when you consider that almost half of our population voted for a Presidential candidate who recently proposed we abolish the Constitution, dined with anti-Semites and white supremacists, told 20,000 fact-checked lies during his tenure, filled the Twitter waves with hate speech and called for the violent takeover of the Capitol Building, almost half of Georgia voted for a man whose campaign promises included deciding whether werewolves were more powerful than vampires, there are only three initials that properly describe this state of affairs (with no font large enough to contain the sentiment):

 

WTF??!!!!!!!

Who are these people?!! While basking in the relief of the glass half full, the glass half empty reminds us that almost 50% are our population is just fine with werewolves shredding the Constitution while vampires bite the necks of Jews and blacks. It just boggles the mind. Especially combined with the fact that virtually every kid I’ve ever taught— and that’s probably a few thousand counting guest teaching— from 5 to 15 years old— displays more intelligence, caring and good judgement than half the adult population of my home country. 

It all puts some bitter into the sweetness of the recent victories. But there, I’ve vented my astonishment and now turn back toward educating those kids, their teachers, myself, doing whatever I can to raise the bar of intelligence, caring and kindness and stretch those percentages further apart. 100% to 0% would be what the situation calls for, but I’m not quite that naïve. But at least can we aim for something close to 75% to 25%? Is that too much to ask?