The About page for this blog says its topics might include “just about anything other than politics or religion”, and I have been pretty successful in keeping religion out of my blog and my life — less so politics. I’m pretty sure this post is the most blatant breaking of my own rule yet, but during a week when the internet is awash in political posts, perhaps no one will even notice.

Around Independence Day this year, I revisited the document at the heart of the holiday and was struck by a sentence containing the words “character” and “tyrant”. So much so that I soon made it part of my Facebook cover photo which is shown here.

Last Sunday, I replaced my Facebook profile picture with the one at left which I had used previously on the anniversary of the pictured assault on our capitol. I had wanted to do that sooner but was traveling and chose to keep an “on the road” picture in place until I was home. My intention was to replace both pictures on the day after the election. The cover photo would go back to the picture of the 1923 version of the Pledge of Allegiance in the Indiana War Memorial Shrine Room that the Declaration of Independence quote replaced, and the profile picture would become one of my previously used “at home” pictures. That has not happened because the day after the election did not feel like the “return to normalcy” I had expected and hoped for. My plans for replacing them are uncertain.

When I changed my profile picture a week ago, I included this text: “There are many reasons to vote against Donald Trump but for me, his actions of January 6, 2021, and the intentions they revealed are, by themselves, more than enough.”

I don’t participate in political discussions in real life much more than I do online but in the few I have had during the last year or so, I have noted my feeling that the disregard for the rule of law and the workings of U.S. democracy Donald Trump showed that day made virtually every other consideration in the presidential election insignificant.

One commenter on the profile picture told me that I was the one being “gaslighted” and that Pelosi was to blame. Another claimed that the assault was planned by “the Dems”. The comments came from good people who I assume really believe what they say. Why is their view so different from mine? Why is my view of Donald Trump so different from that of the majority of voters in Tuesday’s election? I don’t know the full answer to that but do believe that what Heather Cox Richardson referred to as “the flood of disinformation that has plagued the U.S. for years now” is a big part of it. I do on occasion respond to someone sharing disinformation online by pointing to a source that refutes it. Common reactions are “I don’t trust that source” or “It doesn’t matter if that evidence is fake because I know something is going on”.

Incidentally, Richardson is someone I follow and respect. If you don’t follow her yourself and have room for one more analysis of the election, I suggest her Letters from an American of November 6.

With Trump’s clear victory on Tuesday, I confess to briefly questioning my view of the man but it was over in a flash. All it took was remembering how many members of his first administration, including a chief of staff and his own vice president, also consider him unfit for office.

This post’s title comes from President Joe Biden’s speech on November 7. I listened to it live and was struck by the phrase “Setbacks are unavoidable but giving up is unforgivable.” Others were too as it seems to be quoted in the bulk of reports on the speech. In the speech, Biden, mentions some of his successes such as infrastructure investment and the seemingly unappreciated “soft landing” from high inflation. Understandably, he did not mention failures. The biggest, in my opinion, was the failure to quickly and aggressively prosecute Donald Trump for his words and actions related to that 2021 attack on the capitol. I agree, Joe, that we probably can’t avoid all setbacks. But I do think we could have avoided this one.