The contested election of 2020 between Biden and Trump  has reached the boiling point.  And it couldn’t come at a worse time. People are already feeling that they’ve lost control  during this Covid-19  pandemic.  And now, all of a sudden, many fear that their vote has been compromised by a rigged election.   It’s like being caught in a tornado following a hurricane.  That helpless feeling that our lives are veering out of control.  Warning! Voter rage is dangerous.

Most people can’t remember another supposedly rigged  election, but I do. The Kennedy-Nixon election in 1960 was so close that it only took the votes in the states of Illinois  and Texas to throw it to Kennedy.  Historians believe that John’s wealthy father,  Joe Kennedy,  had the money and political power to somehow rig the votes.  I was living in Chicago at that time, in a northern suburb that was strongly Republican.  People were furious, but they didn’t contest the election.  I’m not sure why.  They say Nixon thought about it, but in the end, he decided to concede.  He was young enough to know he could run again. And he did.

Kennedy’s election was fraught with controversy, and it didn’t get any better after the Bay of Pigs fiasco when 98 Cuban American’s lost their lives. But  John redeemed himself with the triumph of the Cuban Missile crisis.  For awhile, the Kennedy era was like Camelot.  These young beautiful people were America’s version of  royalty. And then it all went South.   Kennedy’s assassination was soon followed by the killing of his brother, Bobby.  Vice President  Lyndon Johnson, who  many  thought had helped rigged the election in Texas,  then took over. But that didn’t end well, either.  The Vietnam War caused him to resign from politics, and not run for re-election.

So that’s why this contested election has me worried.  Whether it’s Biden or Trump, the winner won’t  have won in a landslide,  like other popular presidents such as Ronald Reagan and Lyndon Johnson.   Voter rage will always be simmering beneath  the surface of the political landscape.  It won’t take much to make it erupt into something very ominous.  In contrast to Kennedy and Nixon, we now have two old men with nothing to lose but the election. Warning! Voter rage is dangerous.