looking back: the politics of election

 

Wendynicolenn Duong

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America and Democracy--Election Day

This election has shown me the part of America I do not wish to see, where choices and lack of choices become intertwined for many "little people" who want to think for themselves...So after this election, i may become truly borderless...The dream of Eleanor Roosevelt about Universal Human Rights becomes the dream for all those homeless, stateless, and borderless individuals. So being "borderless" means a lot to me. I will vote, has I have voted the last time, for the choice that may not necessarily represent my notion of idolized statesman[woman]ship, but instead, the choice that I believe will push the direction of social changes -- toward my vision of the America I would like to see when it's time for me to close my eyes in the final moment of my "Robert Frost" journey...(The road not taken, and I have promises to keep, and miles to go before i sleep...)

I notice also that billionaire businessmen have not traditionally gone all the way to become the people's choice for the country (remember Ross Perot???). Nor have true public advocates (remember Ralph Nader???). Yet diversity and gender have changed the faces of America...Let's see, the morning after...

As a "little woman" evacuated by America, I decided right at the beginning of my "little career" in America, that I will also pursue the "borderless" "public interest", but I do not want a public life...I don't want politics of any style, although I am always motivated by polity (and I don't mean Plato). I want my work to be known, but I don't want myself to be known. I wonder out there in the voting public, there are people who feel like me. In American politics, are we seekers of ideals or idols? Do we vote for stars, do we vote for adversarial process experts, or do we vote for public servants who give us a chance at truths (knowing that even truths are relative so diversity should be the pusher and the landscape for the delivery and discovery of all such truths)? The campaign trail, the debates, the dirt and the glory, etc. etc. etc. -- (̣same as the gist of my law profession (and that of the young Mrs. Clinton) --due process and freedom of speech and cross examination and impeachment and all that good stuff) -- all about fighting, merciless character assassination, competing, smearing, name calling, all types of adversarial combats that supposedly get us to all such truths. It's as though to get at beauty and purity (truths), one must encounter so much trash, so much mud, so much ugliness, like the princess who must kiss so many frogs in order to find prince charming. Yet, the frog kissing process is...bipolar!

Is free and full access to truths in such "bipolar" manner the essence of democracy? We might have all become the exhausted, dazed, confused kissing princess, so...? (I let you, those nameless and faceless, but identifiable at the poll, those who may think like me, fill out the rest).

At the end, should we review candidates, or should we begin to review the process of democracy itself?

so much for my rambling....

artwork: on the occasion of the US 2016 presidential election day, i give you my L'Art Brut three versions of a woman's face, a la Picasso style...

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