So, what now? — a post election op-ed by pikachu, the kid.
So, Joe Biden is now the President-Elect and Kamala Harris is the Vice President-Elect.
The champagne has been popped, the confetti is flying and the entire world is watching us celebrate this wonderful confirmation of democracy.
Except it isn’t by all measures. The one thing we must take away from all this is that this is not the end, nor is this the beginning of the end. This is the start of something we could only describe as fuckshit.
Around the same time that the news broke out, Rudy Giuliani — the disgraced former mayor of New York City and the personal legal counsel to the President lashed out and presented legal challenges on behalf of the re-election campaign against the very results that Biden won by slim margins.
The fact that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won by such slim margins is troubling. Forget about the “silent majority”, it is a yin-yang of chaotic evil and lawful neutral, where almost half of this nation is able to reason something to vote for someone that has put this country through moral and physical hell.
But now we can still celebrate right?
Sure, but understand this. Throughout the election cycle, we have been constantly reminded that the Democratic Party — like the GOP — is systematically broken at its core.
Andrew Yang has said it and so has Bernie Sanders and I am not afraid to say it either.
The working class is not to be treated like pawns.
Certainly we need to address critical issues such as systematic racism, but it starts at the core: people having jobs and a guaranteed income. Yang has said this before, and it is actually academically backed up: a 2013 Princeton study states that someone “preoccupied with money problems exhibited a drop in cognitive function similar to a 13-point dip in IQ, or the loss of an entire night’s sleep.”
The Black community and the Black Lives Matter movement stem from roots longer than the deaths of George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor and many more countless lives. There is a deeper, unfounded reason why people are led to kill with prejudice.
The Latino community is not a monolith and certainly cannot be pandered to by playing Despacito from your phone speakers. They face economic issues that are only amplified because of the injustices added on.
Asian Americans aren’t a monolith either, but we are not just composed of Boba Liberals and Conservatives. We faced discrimination and abuse long before the pandemic because of our place in the economy.
Trump supporters and people that those in the major cities dismiss as “hicks” or “flyover country” are also people of the working class. Racial injustice does not occur until something gives racists a reason to hate, and most of the time that reason stems from a mindset of scarcity — that these “other people” are taking what’s rightfully theirs.
If this is the supposed “greatest country in the fucking world,” then why does everyone think it is a zero-sum game?
We need to promote the idea of abundance rather than scarcity.
At this point, if you think I am a socialist, then understand this scenario: would you rather die hungry in a violent stampede, or die in peace at the end of your natural life surrounded by those you love?
I thought so. We need to get past the fact that your job is what gives you value as a human being. Money makes the world go round, but money cannot buy you love and it is the root of all evil. Believe me, I have seen happier people that are poor than ones with garages full of Lamborghinis and closets full of Birkin bags.
Loans are good until you have to pay them off, College is good until you see a construction worker making more than you and art is nice until someone tells you to get a real job, but we are supposed to think that the only problem is people calling me a ching-chong coronavirus Chinaman? These are the real problems and they stem from the fact that people idolize vanity over true meaning.
Don’t hate the game, hate the system that you are playing it on. Put down the controller for once and ask your politicians, tell them everything within the system that affects you. If they don’t make that change, hold them accountable from the president and all the way down to your local congressperson.
Congratulations Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we hope you don’t fuck this up.
