Will There Be Joy in Mudville?

Ernest Lawrence Thayer wrote the now classic poem Casey at the Bat.  Casey was to be the salvation of the Mudville 9 baseball team and win the game with a much-expected home run.  As he swaggers to the plate the crowd is sure he will slam the ball into the stands and win the game.  But then, he strikes out and so -'there is no joy in Mudville--mighty Casey has struck out!'  

And let us hope that the 'Casey' of the Republican Party has the same fate.

 

In the words of writer Martin Gardner, "Casey is stripped of his style, his scorn, his haughty grandeur — how will he face his dejected fans? Who can ever convince them again that heroes exist? Casey is 'the incomparable symbol of the great and glorious poop-out,' and Gardner says, 'he is that and more: the figure who teaches us how misguided it is to pin all our hopes on one person we believe to be better than everyone else. In doing so, we will surely (re)discover the eternal principle of human fallibility."

 

We assuredly do not need to wait until the election is over to know that our Casey (Trump) is the metaphor for the epitome of human fallibility.  He has already convinced at least 65% of America that he qualifies for that distinction.  And now in his runnup to the 'plate' he swaggers and boasts again that 'only he' can make America great again.  Pshaw!

And as he swaggers, he has already internalized that he is losing!  Why else would he constantly say that he can only lose if the election is rigged.  Is he that sure that he is going to win?  I really don't think so. 

  

At every appearance he does all he can to convince his base and everyone else that mail-in voting is fraudulent.  He has absolutely no evidence to support that claim, but clearly that does not stop him.  He is saying it over and over....and of course there are those who only watch Fox News who believe him without hesitation.  The only way he believes he can win is to sew fear and doubt about the integrity of the election, and so he does that at all times.  Not only is he doing it in words, he does it in practice with his new Postmaster General who has done everything he can to hobble and kneecap the mechanism of the United States Postal Service.  The more he can disparage and damage the Postal Service, the more doubt he can sew, the more he can degrade public trust in the validity of our election.

Additionally he constantly says that mail-in voting is fraudulent while absentee balloting is not.  The problem is that there is no real difference, and of course he is unable to provide any evidence for his claims.  But of course that is his modus operandi....accuse but never provide proof.  His proof is that "many people have said...blah, blah, blah".  Those 'many people' can never be produced as evidence because they don't exist.

 

And then, philosophically, there is the whole question of whether an election can actually be won by a majority of votes.  Witness 2016 where Trump lost by over 3,000,000 votes and yet, miracle of miracles he still 'won' the election.  We potentially face that result again.  What does that say about our electoral process and the fairness of the whole scheme.  While all of us constantly raise the mantra of 'one man, one vote', does it really matter?  Apparently not, since we have had at least two of the last four elections decided in favor of the minority winner.  Is that what America is supposed to be?  I wonder......

 

For all of our professed self-righteousness about the sanctity of our electoral process, we continue to accept the patently unfair result of a person who gets less votes than his opponent winning the office.  That is.....well....stupid.  We are stupid.  We accept that result.  We accept the corruption of gerrymandering, voter suppression, illegal campaign contributions, lying by candidates about their opponents and themselves.  We are complicitly corrupt in the end.

 

I am interested, in a detached kind of way, to see what the result of this campaign season is going to be.  We know that Trump will lie and conduct the most degenerate kind of campaign.  He will claim a rigged election unless he wins and then we will have to go through hell before a resolution is actualized.  Given our level of exhaustion already, should we even care?

 

I guess I will give this election one last shot at saving our nation.  I will do my best to get everyone to vote, even though I truly fear it may not help in the end.  There is wickedness in the land of Mudville, and even though Casey may strike out, the Mudville 9 may win anyway.  It will then be time to give up baseball.