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1979

Abstract

rump encouraged wearing of masks that everyone would. Of course not. There are too many out there that aren’t going to listen to reason no matter who is telling them, even if it is the President of the United States.</p><h2 id="b923">Mitch McConnell</h2><p id="454e">The Republican from Kentucky has served in the senate since 1985 and became majority leader in 2014. You might remember that McConnell would not grant a hearing for Obama Supreme Court nominee Merritt Garland during Obama’s last year in the White House, but rushed a confirmation for Amy Coney Barrett just a few weeks ago. Fewer bills have made it to the President’s desk this past Congress than in the last two years of Obama. In fact, only <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acts_of_the_116th_United_States_Congress">193 bills have passed in the 116th Congress</a> which began on January 3, 2019. The 1<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acts_of_the_115th_United_States_Congress">15th Congress passed 442 bills and 6 treaties</a> during Trump’s first two years in office. In Obama’s last two years, <a href="https://www.quorum.us/data-driven-insights/114th-congressional-productivity-numbers-2016/">only 332 bills made it to his desk</a>.</p><p id="6c53">Expect McConnell to continue to be an obstructionist leader in the Senate.</p><h2 id="a532">73,000,000</h2><p id="05b9">Twenty-two percent of the adult population of the US voted for Trump. 47% of those who voted went for the incumbent. Many of these voters are very upset (similar to what Clinton supporters felt in 2016). While there was a lot of handwringing in 2016 and hopes that maybe the electors would still vote Clinton into office, for all intents and purposes it was generally accepted that Trump would be the next president.</p><p id="40f1">Not so with this election. Now we see news reports of Trump supporters, including militias, that do not see the election as legitimate even though the <a href="https://www.cisa.g

Options

ov/news/2020/11/12/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-election">US Government has said that it was a secure and safe </a>election.</p><p id="ee4a">Fortunately there has been no violence, but does anyone honestly expect that it's going to be a chum-ba-ya moment for the masses that voted Trump?</p><h2 id="bdd9">The Media</h2><p id="2daa">This could be the toughest part of reconciliation between the left and right. We now have a generation that has been brought up watching far right Fox News or far left MSNBC. When you add in the other bad actors that are gaining audience, such as OANN, Breitbart and Newsmax on the right, and The Palmer Report on the left, the chance of getting legitimate and unbiased information to the masses becomes more difficult every day. And let's face it, Americans are lazy. We just won’t take the time or effort to research if what we hear is true or biased or just plain false.</p><h2 id="bc02">Where do we go from here?</h2><p id="7f2e">I wish I knew the answer. I personally have lost a lot of relationships in the past year because of politics and I know it's going to be difficult if not impossible to establish a dialogue with many of these people.</p><p id="47b9">The partisanship that I see has been brewing for years and really ramped up during the Obama presidency when I saw racism start to rear up its ugly head again. The Trump years gave racism a somewhat legitimate outlet and too many people took advantage of that. I always thought that racism would be dead and gone by now as those who espoused those thoughts in the 1960s would be dead and long gone by now.</p><p id="2cfa">I think we all realize that we as individuals are not going to be able to change others' minds. We all have to do our due diligence to speak truth and not conspiracy theories.</p><p id="f609">We have to lead by a new example that is in direct opposition to what we’ve seen for the last 4 years.</p></article></body>

Don’t Put On Those Rose Colored Glasses

Just because Biden won doesn’t mean it’s going to get better soon

In January, 2021, Joseph R. Biden, Jr. will become the 46th President of the United States of America. He will have a Democrat-majority House and, barring a miracle in Georgia, a Republican-led Senate.

On the surface, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to govern, but it’s what’s below the surface that should worry all of us.

Let's talk about Covid-19

If there is one event that demonstrates how fractured our country is, it would be the reaction to the pandemic. This virus has definitely shown the world who we are now.

Start with masks. Go anywhere today from the grocery store to the park and you will see two specific groups: those that wear masks and those that don’t. In most cases, one can easily determine who they voted for in the recent election. Those who are mask-less are determined to remain that way, no matter what any government official decrees, whether they be Republican or Democrat. Had President Trump embraced masking up during the early days of the pandemic, chances are that we would be in a much better position today. But he didn’t and we see the results when a governing body says to wear a mask (remember Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the threats to her life in Michigan?)

Now I’m not naive enough to think that had Trump encouraged wearing of masks that everyone would. Of course not. There are too many out there that aren’t going to listen to reason no matter who is telling them, even if it is the President of the United States.

Mitch McConnell

The Republican from Kentucky has served in the senate since 1985 and became majority leader in 2014. You might remember that McConnell would not grant a hearing for Obama Supreme Court nominee Merritt Garland during Obama’s last year in the White House, but rushed a confirmation for Amy Coney Barrett just a few weeks ago. Fewer bills have made it to the President’s desk this past Congress than in the last two years of Obama. In fact, only 193 bills have passed in the 116th Congress which began on January 3, 2019. The 115th Congress passed 442 bills and 6 treaties during Trump’s first two years in office. In Obama’s last two years, only 332 bills made it to his desk.

Expect McConnell to continue to be an obstructionist leader in the Senate.

73,000,000

Twenty-two percent of the adult population of the US voted for Trump. 47% of those who voted went for the incumbent. Many of these voters are very upset (similar to what Clinton supporters felt in 2016). While there was a lot of handwringing in 2016 and hopes that maybe the electors would still vote Clinton into office, for all intents and purposes it was generally accepted that Trump would be the next president.

Not so with this election. Now we see news reports of Trump supporters, including militias, that do not see the election as legitimate even though the US Government has said that it was a secure and safe election.

Fortunately there has been no violence, but does anyone honestly expect that it's going to be a chum-ba-ya moment for the masses that voted Trump?

The Media

This could be the toughest part of reconciliation between the left and right. We now have a generation that has been brought up watching far right Fox News or far left MSNBC. When you add in the other bad actors that are gaining audience, such as OANN, Breitbart and Newsmax on the right, and The Palmer Report on the left, the chance of getting legitimate and unbiased information to the masses becomes more difficult every day. And let's face it, Americans are lazy. We just won’t take the time or effort to research if what we hear is true or biased or just plain false.

Where do we go from here?

I wish I knew the answer. I personally have lost a lot of relationships in the past year because of politics and I know it's going to be difficult if not impossible to establish a dialogue with many of these people.

The partisanship that I see has been brewing for years and really ramped up during the Obama presidency when I saw racism start to rear up its ugly head again. The Trump years gave racism a somewhat legitimate outlet and too many people took advantage of that. I always thought that racism would be dead and gone by now as those who espoused those thoughts in the 1960s would be dead and long gone by now.

I think we all realize that we as individuals are not going to be able to change others' minds. We all have to do our due diligence to speak truth and not conspiracy theories.

We have to lead by a new example that is in direct opposition to what we’ve seen for the last 4 years.