by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator
The Electoral College, an arcane political device that some of the founding fathers managed to embed in the US Constitution, meets today - in the various states - to officially "elect" the next President of the United States based on which candidate won each of the states. When all of the electors have cast their votes, and if each of those electors are "faithful" to the actual vote totals of their various states, Joe Biden will be officially elected as our 46th President by a vote of 306 to 232 electoral votes.
Those votes will then be transmitted to the President of the Senate (the Vice President of the United States) and the National Archivist by December 23. On January 6th Congress will meet and officially tally the votes and will declare Joe Biden the winner.
Or at least that is how it would work in normal times. This year the country is saddled with a President who decisively lost his bid for re-election yet refuses to admit defeat - and he is being propped up in his bid to illegally maintain his office by other officeholders of his same political party. The losing side has been to court, repeatedly, and failed to present a winning argument or even much in the way of "evidence" other than just their unhappiness over the way some states allowed too many of their qualified citizens to vote.
But Joe Biden won the electoral college vote - or he will officially win it today just as Donald Trump won it four years ago. Significantly, Trump lost the popular vote four years ago by over three million votes - and this year he lost the popular vote by over eight million votes - yet he yammers on about how the election was "stolen" from him in a few swing states - with absolutely no evidence to back up his claim.
People voted - and clearly millions more cast their votes for Joe Biden than others did for Donald Trump.
Democracy happened!
Today's poetry selection is "Holding Lady Liberty's Hand" by Paul Lee, a tribute to American democracy.
Holding Lady Liberty's Hand
by Paul Lee
You would think that holding Lady Liberty’s hand
Would be like holding a hand of stone.
A hand warmed only by the tears from her motherly eyes.
When I asked to hold Lady Liberty’s hand
She said in a soft voice that only thought could hear:
Tell me that these are times for love.
When I asked to hold your hand you said:
No. These are not times for love or for babies.
These are times when tides and tears overflow.
Then I said: there were better times when
We had jfk and rfk and mlk.
Before they were struck down, they taught us
To dream big and dream of babies.
Lady Liberty danced with our past heros, who built
Our foundation with stone and words. Now, she is a widow
And she dreams with us, her children,
As we repair those stones and remember those words.
She no longer waits for a hero. But she waits for us
To learn from the past and make the future
In our own image
With our dreams and with our votes.
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