A baseball analogy: Tie ballgame; bottom of the ninth; home team’s first batter is up to the plate. Ace relief pitcher walks the leadoff hitter on four pitches; runner on first with no outs. Next batter hits a ground ball to the second baseman, who muffs the pickup and both runners are safe. What was a likely double play now results in runners on first and second with no outs. Next batter up strikes out. Instead of the inning being over with the execution of a routine double play, we now have runners on first and second with one out. On the next pitch, both runners steal; so there are runners on second and third with one out and the sacrifice fly is in play. Out of desperation and in an attempt to set up a winning scenario, the next batter is intentionally walked to load the bases and set up a potential game-ending double play. The following batter hits a deep fly ball to center field, allowing the runner on third to tag up and score easily, winning the game for the home team. But hang on a minute…the visitors claim that the runner on third left early and want the play reviewed. The review shows that the runner leaving third base and the fielder catching the ball were essentially simultaneous. Did the runner leave early and therefore be declared out, thus leaving the game tied and going to extra innings…or…did the runner simply display incredible anticipation and make a great play scoring from third? The review is completed and the run is allowed. Game over.
The visitors can complain about the sacrifice play all they want, but they clearly put themselves in a position to lose the game. Remember what set up that play. (1) The leadoff batter was walked; putting the winning run on base with no outs. (2) The second baseman muffed the potential double-play ball allowing the runners to advance and thus keeping the inning alive. (3) Both base runners steal successfully (a gutsy call), placing the sacrifice fly in play. (4) The visiting manager makes a risky decision, albeit odds on, to walk a batter and load up the bases. Who knows what that batter might have done if they had been pitched to? (5) Having been outplayed, making strategic errors, and gambling on a long-shot, the visiting team loses on a sacrifice fly where the base runner may have left the base prematurely.
Now consider the question: Who is to blame for this loss? Even if the base runner on third left a split second too early, who put him there in the first place? This is one of those instances where you suck it up, understand that you might have lost on an improper call, and really have no one to blame but yourself for losing the game. This is where the Trump campaign stands today.
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It literally sickens me to imagine four years of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, AOC, Barack and Michelle, Ben Rhodes, Jen Psaki, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and the lengthy cast of nauseating characters that will soon be adorning the mainstream media for the foreseeable future. That is not even mentioning the lineup of television wannabe journalists who will be drooling in anticipation of sticking it to Trump. I will not be watching much news for some time.
It is even more depressing to consider what these repugnant people will do to our nation’s government and well-being. But at the end of the day, the one inescapable conclusion that any objective person must come back to is this: All Donald Trump had to do was behave as somewhat less of a jerk in order to be re-elected. He chose not to accept that premise and never gave an inch. He never even attempted to grasp that he represented a cause and a hope that were far greater and more important than himself. In Donald Trump’s world, there is no greater concern than himself.
The Republicans knew for years in advance the tricks that would be played by the Democrats to try and win the 2020 presidential election. All the special mail-in provisions that were incorporated under the auspices of the pandemic were done in a very public fashion. If you want a fair game, you must level the field before the first pitch occurs. Tricks were undoubtedly played; but those tricks did not decide the game. The fact that there was cheating makes it much more difficult to accept the outcome; but it does not necessarily alter the outcome.
Donald Trump and the Republicans put themselves in a position to lose the game on a controversial play that might very well have been incorrectly called. But they have no one but themselves to blame for allowing the game to hinge upon that one, controversial call. There were multiple opportunities for Trump to win; but they were squandered. It serves absolutely no useful purpose to continue replaying the runner leaving third base too early. The game is over. The score is in the books. It is time to dwell on the good things that happened in the season just concluded and look ahead to the next season. The regret of what could have been will live on; intensely at first, but less so over time. Like the loss of a loved one, it will never fully disappear. You simply learn to live with it.
It is nothing short of tragic that many, if not most, of our American voters can be so effectively manipulated by our national political parties and the mainstream media. Most of us do not realize it is happening. It is equally dismaying that we have leaders in these entities that are plenty willing to take full advantage of that voter weakness in an effort to advance their own personal agendas. It is entirely frustrating that our national parties would put up for us a binary choice for President consisting of an arrogant egotist and a senile, unprincipled senior citizen. It is ominous that the wages of an election have such long-term and significant impacts and that these consequences are wholly unappreciated by the majority of our citizens; especially when we consider that all of those repercussions were laid out prior to the election.
We can only conclude that the election is over. We must accept that the voters have spoken. We must assume that the winning candidates were the right candidates because they received the most votes. We must look to the future with optimism and stalwart faith that our Constitution and the government it engendered is sufficiently durable to remain intact regardless of the political storms it will inevitably face. And the most difficult part of all…we must come to terms and accept the fact that when laws, policies, regulations, executive orders, federal programs, and official American positions that we disagree with are implemented over the next few years, it is because we put ourselves in a position for that to happen. We get the government we deserve.
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