WELL IT COULD HAVE BEEN A WHOLE LOT WORSE (From MarianneWilliamson.Substack.com) I wouldn’t go so far as to sing “Happy Days are Here Again,” but things look a hell of a lot better than they did last week. I’m someone who was seriously concerned about the possibility of a Bloody Tuesday on Election Day, literally as well as figuratively. In the end, our midterms displayed something we hadn’t seen in American politics for far too long: normalcy, intelligence, and some level of dignity. It was neither the Democrats nor the Republicans who spoke loudest on Tuesday; it was the voice of the American people that came through loud and clear, with a message that said, “Okay, enough with the crazy; let’s get back to who we are.” Our situation continues to be precarious, however. Undemocratic, authoritarian forces remain like a shadowy threat hanging over our democracy, sparked perhaps by Donald Trump but no longer needing him to persevere. If anything, they are becoming more sophisticated without him, less crude and more acceptable to the wine as well as the beer crowd. The ultra right will simply look for ways to regroup. No one should presume that their failure to produce a red wave will send such forces back to sea. Authoritarianism is like a a germ that reflects the culture in which it grows. It’s an opportunistic phenomenon that occurs when democracy fails to deliver. The United States was headed in a wrong direction even before Trump appeared, and his ascension to the presidency was a symptom, not a cause, of our government’s reckless behavior. While Trump’s recklessness is wild and overt, the system that produced him was just as reckless, just quieter and covert. Trump simply took advantage of a vacuum, a hole where government dedicated to serving its people used to be. His presidential win reflected the volcanic rage of millions of voters who knew the system was rigged against them in a way they felt few in Washington understood or cared about. (To read the rest of the article please visit the Linktree or MarianneWilliamson.Substack.com)