Thank You, Vice President Harris

You stand before a full auditorium. Over the past few months, you were involved in a contest, visiting multiple cities and states within a week while your personal life was put on hold. Every insult that your opponents could think of was hurled at you and your team hurled every know insult at your opponent.

You breath in and out. The roughly 500 people before you are divided. A little less than half support you. Slightly more than half support your opponent.

The contest is over. It’s time to announce the winner.

You name your opponent. The auditorium bursts into cheers. The audience, normally following rules of parliamentary decorum, stands and drowns out your own thoughts.

You bang a gavel to resume order.

Then, you announce yourself as the loser. Perhaps the fact that it’s in third person softens the blow. Perhaps not.

The contest is certified. But your fun isn’t over. You have to answer questions from the press about your experience.

Many of you probably figured out “the contest” is the Presidential election. Kamala Harris, on the fourth anniversary of January 6th, 2021, had the privilege of certifying her own loss. She joins the club of Richard Nixon, Al Gore and Mike Pence (Pence, while not the presidential nominee, was on the ticket as the vice-president).

Where else in society does the loser certify the winner? Can you imagine announcing to an entire company and its shareholders that someone else got the job you desperately wanted?

Whatever your feelings about Kamala Harris, she did her patriotic duty by pushing her ego aside and fulfilling her Constitutional role. I’m not so sure others would have done the same, if the positions were reversed.

As 2025 begins, I ask you to have faith in our democracy. It may not deserve it. Hell knows I am frustrated with it a great deal of the time. But ask yourself, what system is strong enough to allow a political loser to certify the winner? What individuals are strong enough to proclaim that they failed in the pursuit of their highest goal?

I can’t imagine this scenario taking places in most societies of the ancient or medieval worlds. Based on my understanding of those periods, elections that might have existed were more limited than ours. More typically, power was awarded based on military conquest.

Imagine Julius Caesar certifying Pompey the Great’s victory in the Roman Senate, Elizabeth I certifying Bloody Mary’s in Parliament or King George III certifying Washington’s at the White House. It would never happen.

The list goes on and on- in the past, power was a “game of thrones” that involved consider spilling of blood.

My point isn’t to besmirch those who came before us. They functioned within the system they had. Instead, I much prefer the system we have, precisely because of what happened on January 10th, 2025.

A few years ago, we flirted with returning to our past. The instability and chaos of 2020 spilled on January 6th. We became dangerously close to not recognizing the transfer of power.

For now, we have.

Let’s hope we stay that way, in 2025 and beyond.