A Ticket to Ride...Election Closure

A Ticket to Ride….
Election Closure

“…She said that living with me is bringing her down, for she would never be free when I was around…She’s got a ticket to ride…” The Beatles

November 5th dawned dull, gray and dreary on the Georgia coast, and for some still in the fetal position, it augured insight on the “next four years.” But not today, which dawned glorious, sunny, in the 70’s with a promise just as big.

The election was over, votes counted, and a new face emerged victorious. A different face, perhaps, but then they are all different. And after two long years, closure is needed.

Last night Carolyn, Julie, Will, Thomas and I chose the Brunswick Carnival for rides, food and childhood laughs. We walked through the menagerie of lights, sounds, crowds, games and rides. We had tickets to ride, and ride we did: The Yoyo, the Inverter, Bumper cars, Circus Train, Power Surge, Haunted Mansion, and best of all, the Mega-Drop… Oh, yeah, a 150 foot vertical drop, a heart-stopper! Thrills overcame political disgust, and if the faces there were representative, nobody cared who won or lost. It was all a long way off!

Somehow we managed to keep the corn dogs, hot dogs, cotton candy and funnel cakes within us instead upon us. Somewhere during the death-defying excitement, it occurred to me that a Carnival is the perfect metaphor for a political election (Ok, Ok, you have yours, I have mine).

There we all were, Americana egalitarianism living it up:
“…ain’t that America for you and me, ain’t that America, something to see, ain’t that America, land of the free…” J. Mellencamp
We were all getting along, smiling, laughing, screaming, having a good time and forgetting politics.

But that was yesterday. Today we are all as segregated in our individualism as we were united in our enthusiasm last night. That’s not a bad thing. While we can unite in some things, we can disagree in others. It’s a healthy balance.

Voter approval of 51.6% does not a mandate make. And this election, though “historic” by the peculiarities of this nation, will ultimately be judged not by color, or rhetoric, or enthusiasm, but by a cohesive governing policy of inclusiveness for 300 million plus citizens. When future academics or aliens exhume and dissect the trash heaps of has-been republics, what will they find of us? Our “moments” will be assigned their own specificity gravity as history deems merited.

The body politick, like the body physical, is not only part unity by nature, but also part divisive by design. Nature has declared it bloody, tooth and nail. The “middle” is its balance, and hence its health. Seismic events shift the balance, but not permanently. We have been taught that “united we stand, divided we fall,” a partial truth…but it is balanced by another truth, “divided we stand, united we fall.” Balance should always have a seat at our republic’s table.

The process of governing will soon begin, and the victors and the vanquished will regroup…the victors in entrenched protection, and the vanquished, re-arming for the next attack. The middle--that small sand spit that divides--is the hallowed battleground. So,

Let those who now gloat remember the tune,
And those who now groan, the pain will end soon
But neither should stay in the condition they’ve found
For what goes around, soon comes back ‘round!

The Carnival---and could we say politics as well?-- is about rides that swing up and down, around and around-- railroads in circles, trains going nowhere, lights that dazzle, fake facades, cheap trinkets for the masses. The illusion…it’s magical at night, but in the light of day just another field full of steel hulks and trailers, waiting for the nighttime illusion and the crowds. And both will come!

Yes, it’s a new day in America, whatever that means…and we have a ticket to ride! “Buy the ticket, take the ride!” HST, R.I.P.

Bud
November 6, 2008