Grover and the Guy

One of them blue states. Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Flashback: February 28, 1984.

I’d been married for just a month. BFF Brian and I were scoping out offbeat New Hampshire roadside attractions, and stumbled upon the Tilton Arch,

the grandiose mausoleum of a delusional developer who thought he could found a great city in the backwoods of the Granite State. It was snowing, and from the hill we could see the main street of the eponymous town, with people going in and out of the municipal building. It was the New Hampshire primary, and later we heard that Gary Hart had upset Walter Mondale, and turned that election on its ear. It was a weird feeling, to think we were witnessing history.

It was with that in mind, to witness history, that I got up early yesterday to take a one-day bike tour on Guy Fawkes Day.

Not being a Brit, I’d never heard of Mr. Fawkes, and was mystified by the explosive ending of Lennon’s Remember, from the first (and some say the best) of his post-Beatles albums https://youtu.be/KIn6kDnmSLs?si=gHp1ob57s4xtL26k, so I looked it up. “Remember remember the 5th of November,” went the chant, referring to the day in 1605 when Guy was discovered guarding a pile of gunpowder stashed under the Houses of Parliament. He and his Catholic cronies were arrested and tortured, and confessed to planning to blow up the Protestant King James I and his government. They all suffered grisly executions, but the Gunpowder Plot achieved mythic status over the centuries as a symbol of resistance, and Guy Fawkes Day celebrations endure with fireworks, burnings in effigy, and children running around begging for “a penny for the Guy”. Guy Fawkes masks remain as emblems of social protest, popularized by the 2005 movie V for Vendetta.

Anyway, it seemed portentious that this year’s elections fell on that day, a day that might have profound historical significance, a day that democracy might get blown up. I’d already voted, but decided I wanted to see as many polling places as possible. There are 28 such places in Chittenden County, and I could see 23 of them on an 88 mile e-bike ride. I started early, so I could catch the first one when the polls opened at 7 AM. Here’s my route

and photos of the 23.

OK, OK for you sticklers out there, the Burlington and South Burlington wards were numbered differently. There were a couple of Easter eggs: A 10 second clip on a cable access channel,

a chance encounter with Bernie Sanders as he came out from voting at Burlington’s Ward 7, surrounded by reporters,

We even had a “conversation”. I called out “Good luck Bernie” as he was walking away, and he waved back and said “Thank you”.

The last stop of course was my home polling place of Williston, where I’d already voted by mail. I chatted with my neighbor Nancy Milne, and realized belatedly that perhaps my time might’ve been better spent helping out at the polls.

Anyway, I got there just before the polls closed at 7 PM, then rushed home to watch the evenings’s grim events unfold on television. I don’t know what I was thinking. Perhaps by bearing witness, I could safeguard democracy? There was no doubt that Vermont was going for Harris, indeed it was the first state to do so. I’d spent the weekend knocking on doors in Greensboro, North Carolina; fat lot of good that did.

Some of the thousands 🙄 of you who follow this blog might remember my post from May 1, 2021, when I stopped by the statue of Grover Cleveland in Buffalo.

At the time, my comment was “Grover Cleveland …is (so far) is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms, he was our 22nd and 24th president. Jury is still out whether his feat will be matched in 2024 by our most recent NY president.” Well now the jury is in, we have a 45th and 47th, and it feels appropriate to compare them. We all know who 45/47 is but let’s look at 22/24.

Except for that one numerical quirk, most of us know nothing about Grover. He was one of that great unremarkable blur of presidents between Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, the captains of Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. Most of them have sunk into the obscurity they so richly deserved, although Grant, Garfield, and McKinley got a little traction, mostly due to scandals and getting assassinated. Grover stood out as the only Democratic president between the Civil War and World War I, a span of 52 years. He won the popular vote in his first reelection, but lost the electoral vote and left graciously, his wife telling the White House staff, “don’t change anything, we’ll be back.” Four years later he was, having won both popular and electoral votes that time. His second term was notable for the Panic of 1893 mentioned prominently in my blog posts about the Aspen area, and for having a large tumor on his palate removed in secret, on a boat cruise. Wikipedia states “Cleveland is praised for honesty, integrity, adherence to his morals, defying party boundaries, and effective leadership, and is typically ranked in the middle to upper tier of U.S. presidents.”

Ol’ 45/47, not so much. But we can’t deny that he won, and won decisively. The reasons why are the subject of much hand-ringing and recrimination, to which I have a little to add. The man’s slew of negatives are self-evident, I won’t enumerate them here. Over the decades, with the election of Nixon, Reagan, the Bushes, and Trump the first time, I mused about leaving the country. This defeat is the most unsettling of all, since many of the constitutional guard rails have disappeared. I was born in Germany, wouldn’t be too hard to get a passport. Canada and New Zealand also beckon.

But no. If I learned nothing else in my fractured but complete trip across the country, it’s that the vast majority of people are reasonable, decent, and well-meaning, even in the deep red states. Everybody knew who Trump was, all of his baggage, and the majority decided that on balance, he was the better choice. It’s tempting to dismiss them as ignorant, xenophobic, misogynistic, and racist, but that’s not what I saw on that trip. From my comfortable, elitely-educated, cloistered perch, who am I to be so judgmental? Isn’t that what we were accusing Trump of doing, vilifying the opposition as “the other”?

Folks have been quoting Ben Franklin recently: “A Republic, if you can keep it.” To which I might add: a planet, if you can keep it.

One can only hope.

Distance 88 miles. Time 12 hours with stops. Elevation gain 4,650 feet

©️ 2024 Scott Luria