Act Like An Adult
By: Eric J Scholl
Tags: Leadership, Election 2020, Donald Trump, Politics, Joe Biden

Election night; a week ago now

Act Like An Adult

And back away from me…

Who am I? I’m no one. Just a citizen who gives a damn. And since no one who’s anyone among your cronies seems willing to let you know this, I’m going to have to.

I never once argued that you were not legitimately the President of the United States for the last 4 years. And shame on the Senate Majority Leader for suggesting that I and many others who didn’t, did. And 4 years ago to the day, President Obama met with you in the Oval Office to talk about transition of power, so don’t give me any of this “we’re only doing what Democrats did with us”.

Regardless, you didn’t win 4 more years in office.

And you didn’t just lose in 1 or 2 states, you lost in a lot of them. By a little in some, by a lot in others. Even if a couple of states had gone the other way; still wouldn’t have been enough. Some places you were ahead at first, and then your lead slipped away. Other places you were behind from the get-go and it stayed that way. In all cases the reason is called counting votes.

Election map at time of publication of this column (Source: Fox News)

For election fraud to be this broad, and this varied, and this imaginative, as you contend, you’d have to believe huge swaths of Americans in many, many states are inherently dishonest. This may be easy for you to believe, since you are. It’s not for me.

You made it to the Super Bowl of politics. Twice. You won one, and you lost one. Not bad. You don’t get to say you won the one you lost just because you won the one you won. Each game ends when time’s up, and everybody looks up at the scoreboard. You don’t get to keep playing until you’re winning. Or perhaps more aptly in this case, run home with the ball and refuse to let go of it because your time just ran out and you’re not man enough to face the results.

If you want to exhaust yourself, and try to exhaust me too, do it by all means. We both know that’s what you do. Just stop shredding Democracy in the process.

Here’s another thing no one’s telling you: you know why Republicans did pretty well in the election, but you didn’t? Keeping a lot of their vulnerable seats in the Senate; narrowing Democrats’ margin in the House? Because a lot of what you said to voters across the land sunk in: a lot of the divisive fear-mongering about socialists and people from inner cities coming to get them. You know, that stuff…

So it’s not your ideas voters rejected. It’s you. And the daily multiple doses of crazy you require us all to endure.

You can spend the next 4 years doing rallies if you want, where people will adore you and you can criticize the hell out of the new president without actually having to do a thing yourself. Sounds about perfect.

And make lots of money selling merch; most all made in China, but for some reason nobody ever came to care about that, nor did you make any attempt to change that. Just like you gave corporations multi-trillion dollar tax breaks because you said that’d compel them to bring jobs back to America, but they never did, and you never took any further action to make it so.

Heck, You can even run again if you want in 2024. I don’t like the idea. But if enough Americans miss you that much by then, and think you are indeed what a true leader looks like, and not the polar opposite, and that rule breaking is always a show of strength and never a virulent corrosion of civil society... Then go nuts.

I can actually understand, I think, why some of the people who vote for you, vote for you. Because some of them are people I love and respect, for other reasons. But for the life of me, I can’t understand why people in your party seem to live in such terror of you.

You may think you’re fearsome. You’re just tiresome. GO AWAY.

I’ve avoided all caps until now. And I’m not gloating. Not at all. I want this place, this fine country, to work for everybody.