Louisiana Voice

At the risk of appearing a bit smug or of giving the appearance of gloating, a few observations appear to be in order following the outcome of Tuesday’s presidential election.

Back when I was coaching (and I use that term quite loosely) sandlot baseball, I steadfastly refused to engage in trash-talking with opposing teams. I always felt it wise to let my team’s performance, good or bad, speak for itself. If we won, great. If we lost, hats off to the other team. I simply had no desire to have to eat my own words.

That’s also why I refrained from making brash predictions about the election. Yes, I criticized Donald Trump because I just didn’t like the man. I didn’t like him as a person and I didn’t like him as a leader. I disagreed with his politics of division, hate and ridicule and I would have been bitterly disappointed if Trump had won. But I never once came out and boasted that Biden was going to win because the truth is, I didn’t know.

I would have loved to have seen Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and especially Louisiana’s own Clay Higgins take a fall. Higgins is easily the biggest embarrassment this state has ever been asked to endure – with John Kennedy a close second. Yet, he breezed to reelection despite being a brain-dead moron. But in the end, he was the choice of the voters in his district and I can only assume they’re happy with the outcome, as happy as they can be with someone who, like Trump, loves to shoot off his mouth while actually accomplishing nothing.

I saw the daily polls that suggested Trump’s approval rating was steady among his base. I also saw the polls that predicted a blue wave that never really materialized.

I also read on a regular basis the comments to this blog which ridiculed Biden and from one reader in particular, who constantly compared the large turnouts at Trump rallies to the much smaller crowds coming out to see and hear Biden. I read that same person’s constant and unquestioned parroting of all the false conspiracy claims being put forth by Trump. Can you say “fake news”?

But in the final analysis, attendance at rallies doesn’t necessarily reflect the reality of voter turnout, does it? To paraphrase the title of an old Nancy Sinatra song, How Does That (4.2 million vote majority in the popular vote) Grab You, Darling? How Does That Mess Your Mind? And to further paraphrase our own James Carville, “It’s the votes, stupid.”

Then there was the reader (on the post above this one) who seems to think that I apparently have no right to criticize Trump because she “likes” him and will never “support” me. Well, I never asked her to support me, but I do defend her right to like Trump and to voice her opinion so long as she doesn’t try to silence my voice. That’s called freedom of speech.

And how does that reader feel who predicted a 48-state landslide by Trump feel today? I haven’t heard from him in a while, so I guess we’ll never know.

Or the one who called me an idiot for no other reason than because I have consistently called for fairness for all, equality in the treatment of citizens under the laws of our nation, compassion for those who are less fortunate and common decency that we deserve from our country’s highest office. Those are not the qualities of idiocy, my friend. I like to think of them as the qualities of being an American.

Those are the kinds of boasts that have a way of coming back to ring pretty hollow after the dust settles – kind of like those cock-sure defense attorneys who invariably and boldly profess their clients’ innocence, only to quietly negotiate plea-bargains down the road.

Likewise, Trump’s bombast about lawsuits, challenges and calls to supporters to “stand back and stand by,” not only render him unfit to hold any elective office, but also serve as a wake-up call to a country that has gone from world leader to international laughingstock.

Bigotry wrapped in a flag is not patriotism. Or as one of my classmates from Ruston High School tags onto each of emails, this quote from Theodore Roosevelt: “Patriotism means to stand with the country. It does not mean to stand with the President.”

Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Devin Nunes, Steve Scalise, Clay Higgins, John Kennedy and a few others should give some serious thought about that Teddy Roosevelt quote.

Until you do, you’re just a pack of political hacks, opportunists with no substance, no moral base, no ethos and worst of all, no soul.