Today everyone is falling into their proper categories. Here are three common ones (I'm in the second):
1. People who are empowered and joyful that the Democrats took the House.
2. People who are somewhat relieved that the Democrats took the House but are constrained by a sober reflection: The basic uncertainties about humanity's current direction remain uncertain, and would have remained uncertain even if the Democrats had also taken the Senate. People in this category tend to see our elections as correctives for mistakes that came out of previous elections, but not necessarily as correctives for anything else.
3. People who accept Trump's tropes and believe they are in a spiritual war against evil. They will rejoice in the saving of the Senate and vilify the new House.
No one has been vanquished; the battle lines are sharpened. There will be much noise ahead.
The word democracy was coined by the ancient Greeks to denote rule by slave-owning wealthy males. In our culture, democracy means rule by politicians and consultants, who pick the terms and definitions for the rest of us. Trump usurps the consultant role and uses his own terms and definitions. With the terms provided, our democracy can connect us to immediate matters like taxes and social policy and give us some impact. Unless it produces the proper terms, however, our democracy will give us no impact on matters like war and peace, or rewriting our genetic code, or replacing human judgement with machine intelligence. Those questions, unless terms are provided, will be addressed behind closed doors as if there were no such thing as an election.
It's almost as if we are expected to project our lives onto a video game called Democracy, where everyone is battling about economics, ethnicity, gender, religion morality and the future, fielding candidates and holding elections. It can be an exciting game, but when you look up from the screen, you encounter your life. Your actual life. The video game is not real.
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