Victory, Justice, and Satisfaction

 The anxiety I described feeling right now, when I step back at examine it, strikes me as much like the tension I experience while watching an action movie for the first time. 

We know the hero will win. That's the way movies are. We know he will defeat the bad guy in the end. But the first time we watch the movie, we don't know how this will play out. We don't know the details of the story. We don't know what tricks the bad guy will pull, and what twists lie ahead that will seem to be obstacles for the hero, but which he will overcome. So we experience the story as if we don't already know the ending, even though we do.

The second time we watch the movie we know what all those twists will be in the plot. So we don't feel the tension anymore. The tension melts away. We can enjoy the story for the sake of the story. It's hard to remember feeling tense, as we once did while watching it the first time. 

Yes, I feel as if I know the ending to this extended election drama. I also feel as if I'm watching a very well-crafted story with twists I cannot anticipate, with plenty of red herrings and misdirections, but with a narrative that will make perfect sense in the end. We want to scream at Donald Trump, "look out for that guy behind you." But he already knows.

Life isn't a move, and there is no guarantee we get the big reveal of the villain's treachery after all this, the kind that justifies the hero in the mind's of those who doubted him. This is the kind of satisfaction that not only has the hero won, but it feels like justice has been done. At this point, the Trump supporters want more than victory in the election. They are craving justice too, after years of waiting for it, for various things. There is an almost universal sense among our side that without justice being done for this crime, America will never be the same.

It is perhaps this uncertainty, over whether justice will be done, that is at the root of much of the anxiety at the moment, even among people who are sure Trump will win in the end---because he is a guy who wins. Maybe we will just win. Maybe it will just be victory. I certainly don't see anyone else but Donald Trump taking the oath of office as President of the United States on January 20, 2021. Somehow I feel we will get justice too, in some measure that will revive the country, because the country needs it.