Today is election day, and when the podcast drops tomorrow, we will likely have the winner of this presidential election. I don’t know, but if it feels like you have been suspended in time waiting for today to come, I understand. Personally, the last two weeks have felt like a slow-motion movie. Suspense is intense. Anxiety is real. And uncertainty about a future unknown is present everywhere.
Today, the ball drops so to speak. We will know in the next few hours who has prevailed in this unfathomably bizarre election. You all know the stakes couldn’t be higher. You all have worked hard to reset this country on the path we were on until 2020. Yet, who amongst us could have foretold all the twists and turns and sheer reversals of fortune that have marked this unique moment in American history.
I write suspense novels, and I could not have scripted this. I always wondered what Eisenhower was thinking and feeling as the D-Day invasion commenced. He had made the decision that would determine whether Man could live free, or whether Man would be controlled by authoritarian tyrants, and he had given the order. The men were ready. The citizens waited, praying. And he gave the order. No one knew the outcome for sure. Each person prayed the Almighty would touch us with a saving grace, and that our lives could go on. All he could do was wait and watch. The fate of the world hinged at that moment on the young men who went by air and sea to invade Normandy. It rested with “the people.”
Today is one such day. You have decided. You have “given the order” with your vote. And now we wait and pray that the outcome is what we desire. So, take a moment. Take a deep breath. For we do not in fact know what lies ahead in the next few days, weeks, and months. This month’s webcast at https://theclearviewwithleekessler has prepared you for that unknown and offered some guidance on what to watch out for, and how to conduct yourself.
I want to reiterate that message and expand upon it a bit. As I said in the webcast, you can expect the Democrats to contest every Senate seat they lose, every Congressional seat they lose. They will attempt to prevent the Congress from being seated on Jan. 3, 2025, and Lord only knows what they may dream up for Jan. 6, 2025. Constitutional scholars, be standing by! We are going to need you I fear.
Yet, one story calms me—a story from my teen-age years. It is a distinctly American story, and it offers hope for us today I believe. That is the story of Sunday, March 7, 1965, and the Bridge at Selma. Officially known as the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, our American history changed that day. We did not know it initially. Perhaps the participants didn’t even know it, but standing on faith, and on what was right, they persevered.
Before I tell you what happened that day and how it relates to us today—literally today—let me first say that I have an abiding faith in the goodness of my fellow countrymen. We are not perfect. But there is a basic goodness in the American people; a basic sense of fairness—even if we are sometimes tardy in delivering it.
I am standing on that today. Those two traits by the way have been identified by our real enemies I write about in my prophetic fiction as two American strengths they intend to turn into weaknesses. They know how to punch our psychological buttons, and in that we can be manipulated.
In 1964 The Civil Rights Act was passed. However, individual states in the south and individual governors were not in compliance when it came to the voting rights of African-Americans. Martin Luther King and various coalitions were organizing protest marches to ensure that Voting Rights were there, and not to be interfered with.
Though King was away on March 7, John Lewis and about 600 protestors began a march from Selma to Montgomery. At the beginning of the march, however, they had to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Governor Wallace had ordered that they were not to be allowed to cross, and that they had to disperse. Apparently forgetting that our Constitution allows for peaceable assembly, and for your right to petition your government, he ordered the State Troopers, local Sheriffs, and their deputized citizen-posse’s to stop the marchers.
So as the marchers approached the Bridge, on the other side men waited with clubs, whips, horseback riders and tear gas. John Lewis and Hosea Williams had a choice to make. Not knowing the outcome, they proceeded. First, they attempted to talk with the Sheriff in charge. He refused. Deciding not to turn around, they chose to march forward—straight into the punishing clubs, tear gas, and whips. And straight into history!
Fifty or so were hospitalized. Lewis’s skull was cracked, but the Press—which had some semblance of understanding of its role under the First Amendment at that time—covered the bloody march and the brutal injuries. None of the protestors were armed. None fought. They simply kept marching into the attack. And cameras were filming. By that night the major news agencies showed the peaceful protestors, and the brutality of the forces attacking them. The American people watched, for the first time seeing the reality of the situation in the South. Within 48 hours there were protest marches in over 80 cities.
Revulsed by what they saw, and wanting to fix this, the American citizens from all walks of life, all races, all religions put pressure on their Congress and, shortly after, the Voting Rights Act was created and passed.
Remember today that you are “we the people” and we have a responsibility to ensure the Constitution is followed, that the Rule of Law is adhered to, and that the Great Experiment continues. We have our own Bridge to cross right now.
So, no matter what happens in the next few hours and days, stay calm. Hold the line. But do not take the bait. Do not allow yourself to be provoked into violence. That is what the other side wants, for you to degenerate into violence and justify their intended brutal actions.
Will we all come through this unscathed, you ask? I don’t know. There is no guarantee of that. There is a price to be paid for freedom. And it may be painful for some. Know this: there are millions of eyes watching, all over the world, just as millions watched the Selma Bridge. And even if today’s Press is corrupt, the people will see all of this through other Media. And their innate sense of goodness and fairness will be stimulated. Just as it was in 1965.
We are a good people. We will get this right. And by the way, Governor George Wallace, in his later years reversed his position on the whole Civil Rights issue, went to a black church and asked for forgiveness. He was forgiven, and I believe attended that church until his passing.
People can change. Hold the line. Study the Bridge at Selma. Study Ghandhi and how his approach eventually broke apart the entire British Empire.
Make America Great Again. It is in our hands.
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