Gratitude Monday: all the things

On this Gratitude Monday…do you even have to ask? 

But if you do, here we go:

I’m grateful that the people’s voices have been recorded and reported, and that Cadet Bonespurs and his kleptocratic, nihilistic administration are getting booted. In their place we have Joe Biden—not my first choice, but really looking like he’s the right person for the times—and Kamala Harris—who was my first choice, and now she’s got four years to learn this side of the government.

I’m grateful that Biden and Harris are already working on plans for dealing with the pandemic, both from a health and an economic perspective. We were never going to get anything out of Bonespurs.

I’m grateful for every person who voted—standing in lines for hours, masked and loaded with water and snacks. And for those who marked their ballots and sent them in via drop boxes and mail boxes in accordance with the law. You people are heroes, one and all.

I’m grateful for the judges who laughed in R lawyers’ faces when they tried to block the lawful operations of the elections.

I’m grateful for one of my colleagues in Vancouver, B.C., who offered to be our Emotional Support Canadian over the past week. I confess I was rather hoping for Paul Gross, but it’s so good to know that our neighbors to the North do not hold the past four years of monumentally bad behavior against us.

I’m grateful to my friend CN and thousands more like her, who phonebanked her heart out right up until Tuesday. This is not something I can do, but I’m deeply thankful for those who performed that critical outreach in a respectful way all through this cycle.

I’m grateful for folks on Twitter who have inspired and consoled their followers for months. I confess that I’m getting a kick out of all the gnashing of Repug teeth over the outcome, being unsurprised at their lawandorder resorting to mob action in ludicrous (though dangerous and scary) attempts to subvert the counting of ballots. It’s really sad how ignorant and selfish millions of my countryfolk are. But right now, I’m just laughing and laughing at the pundits telling 75+ million people that we should give 45 and his followers a few days to “absorb the reality”, and then he/they will concede.

As bloody if.

I’m grateful to world leaders whose congratulations to Biden and Harris started pouring in about 37 seconds after Pennsylvania was called. They clearly had these messages prepped for days, if not weeks, and there’s genuine pleasure behind them. Even Bibi—that’s gotta bite, no? What relief they must be feeling, even though they’ll never be able to fully trust us in the future, not after the past few years. They know how tenuous our grip on democracy and responsibility and accountability is.

I’m grateful for Pennsylvania and especially to Philadelphia, which has been a flippin’ (ha!) dance party since about Wednesday. God bless each and every one of you, your DJs, your masks, your signs and your moves. I had a few dances around my house with you.

I’m grateful for Philadelphia’s mayor, who said on camera that Bonespurs needs to pull up his big-boy pants and move on. He won’t, of course, but hearing about it will send him into a carpet-eating rage.

I’m grateful for the incredible ineptitude of Rudy Giuliani, all the way through the election, clean up to his news conference Saturday at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping Company in Philly—nestled among an adult book store and a crematorium. You just can’t make this shit up, folks; it takes Republicans to do that. (The presser was about the Klepto campaign’s intention to continue fighting vote counts; evidently Rudy Colludi found out that Pennsylvania had been called while he was spewing his rant. Again—can’t make it up.)

I’m grateful that we still have a shot at the Senate. God. Bless. Georgia. I’m disappointed that Collins, Ernst and Tillis have been re-elected, because they’re useless, disgusting excuses for humanoids; you don’t even have to imagine my feelings about Moscow Mitch and Lady G. But Georgia is a gift and I say we focus on that.

While I’m at it, God bless Stacey Abrams.

I’m grateful to the hundreds of people who punked the R’s “voter fraud reporting hotline”, calling up to laugh, mock and just take up their time. (Sorry for the interns and minimum-wage drones who had to take the calls or listen to the voicemails.)

I’m grateful for CNN contributor Van Jones, who summarized the meaning of this presidential election in less than two minutes. Character matters. Decency matters.

This election exposed a lot—we ripped up some floorboards and a bazillion nasty, scuttling and slithering things flowed up into the sunshine. The problems of systemic economic inequity, racism, hypocrisy, sexism and all the other things run so deep. And uprooting them will take so long. But at least we can see those creepy crawlies. They’ve come out and clicked their arthropod claws. We’ve got to fumigate before we can rebuild; disinfect the wound before we can heal; amend the soil before we can grow anything worthwhile in it.

I’m choosing to be grateful for this warning and for the opportunity to keep us moving forward.

That’s a lot of gratitude. And I didn’t think this would be a long post. Huh.