I Want the Egg
Make My Face Suffer

ELIZABETH GEORGE
Oct 21, 2026

I want to end up with egg on my face, which I swear to eat, which I will do. But you must do something as well: Please prove me wrong on November 3rd. Never before have I wanted more to be wrong. But I’ve believed for months now that Chicken Little had the right idea.

I’ve been listening to the predictions of the pundits, and I’ve been reading far too many columns and essays crowing about the vast Blue Wave that’s hurtling toward us. Unfortunately, if the vast Blue Wave even exists, right now it seems be a tsunami bearing down on a population too busy partying and congratulating itself to bother reading weather reports or to acknowledge the sirens going off, warning citizens to seek higher ground.

I’m reminded of 2015 and 2016. Then, every evening, I watched Anderson Cooper on CNN. Daily, he offered 20 minutes of free airtime to Donald Trump’s latest outrageous statement or the latest ugly revelation about him. All the while Anderson apparently assumed that the American electorate would be far too savvy to vote for a twice-divorced nincompoop of a man, a failure at every business he tried. At no point did Anderson seem to realize that Trump’s ambition-of-that-moment was to keep himself in the 24 hour news cycle. We all saw how he did this: shrugging off the revelation of his penchant for grabbing women by their genitals, encouraging his followers to beat up journalists at his rallies, ridiculing the disabled, labeling Hispanic immigrants as criminals and rapists and “the worst of the worst”. Here was a candidate for President who would not divulge whether he ever paid a dime in income taxes, whose wife had immigrated to the US on a “genius” VISA, and whose “doctor” supplied him with a note stating that he was the “healthiest” person ever to run for President (no details included). As revelation after revelation saw the light of day, so out of touch with the real America was Anderson Cooper that he seemed to believe that he was providing nightly entertainment for the intelligentsia who would read Trump like a billboard. Or perhaps Anderson believed he was doing some kind of public service by demonstrating Trump’s complete lack of character, utter lack of experience, and fully-blown contempt for other people. After all, every news organization was doing much the same, save Fox “News” where someone along the line decided that Donald Trump was the perfect cup of tea for their viewers to swill down.

We all know better by now, don’t we? We all now see him as he actually is: a lifelong grifter whose genius was his knowledge of what would appeal to the lowest common denominator among an American public living in a country with a history of racism, xenophobia, and misogyny, a people for whom anything that was not white, heterosexual, “Christian”, and male was something to be both feared and loathed. For true believers in white Christian male supremacy, everyone who wasn’t a member of their rarified group was inherently unworthy. This premise led directly to the public individual who was promoting all of it: Donald Trump, the man who reveled in exposing the underbelly of America.

You witnessed this as did I. All of it led us to where we are today as citizens of the United States: a country that has become a pariah in the eyes of the Western World. And there is nothing enviable in being an international pariah. Nothing that is good for the country and for its citizens can come out of it in the long run.

From what I’ve read on Substack, listened to on Podcasts, watched on television, and read in newspapers, salvation is imminent. Big Change is on its way. It will be Sing Hallelujah Change. And I have an extremely uneasy feeling that a hell of a lot of these individuals already have their champagne on ice. We’re hearing from pollsters all over the country, we’re feasting our eyes on the lines for early voting, we’re applauding those who are marching in orderly formations heading in the direction of their gerrymandered polling places, and we’re told to be of good cheer because what’s coming is the End of the GOP, the Straitening of Donald Trump, the Impeachment of everyone from I-Want-Real-Men-Surrounding-Me Pete Hegseth to that Keeper-of-Our-Nation’s Health and Swimmer-in-Contaminated-Waters Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. We hear the joyous news that the Supreme Court will enlarged! That health care will be fully restored! That Mike Johnson will be kicked to the curb! That Days of Glory will begin!

Obviously, I’m extrapolating with that last bit. But anyone who’s been alive and paying attention over the last eleven years should be able to see that the shore upon which this blue tsunami is going to crash is decorated with pitfalls the size of Sherman tanks. The biggest of those is money. Once the Supreme Court decided that corporations are people, the door to greasing palms (pardon that dreadful mixed metaphor) in the form of “campaign donations” was opened. This allowed anyone of significant means (e.g. the CEOs or owners of huge corporate entities) to buy everything from blind eyes when it counted, to influence over executive orders and legislation, to a seat at the Presidential table at the state dinner of his choice. As things turned out, what was also bought was the Presidency itself.

But you know all this, don’t you? You know that, as of this writing, Elon Musk has poured more than $400 million into candidates’ treasure chests as well as into Republican-aligned interests. Through META, Mark Zuckerberg has committed $70 million to “midterm investment”. Superpacs have also raised millions, especially PAC MAGA Inc., which has been taking in money from cryptocurrency businesses and from contributors such as Gemini Trust Company and Energy Transfer. We can all see this. We can all learn about it easily enough unless we’re so self-involved that, as long as our immediate needs are met, nothing else particularly matters.

So given all this available information, I confess to being gobsmacked, and I ask why in God’s name would anyone believe or even dare to hope, let alone declare that there’s going to be a blue tsunami.

I can’t go there. It could be because I believe—and I do—that expressing confidence can jinx a happy outcome. But I also believe that money does more than talk. It buys. It influences. It persuades credulous individuals that GOP candidates have their interests and their well-being at heart, even when the history of governance by the GOP proves this to be factually wrong.

So my biggest fear is that a tsunami-size blue wave is a bona fide pipe-dream. Please prove me wrong. Show me that I was a headless Chicken Little. Allow me to awaken on November 4th with egg on my face. I will, as I’ve already indicated, happily eat it all.

I filled out my ballot this morning. I will drive it personally to an official collection site tomorrow. No matter when or how you do it, vote.

© 2026 Elizabeth George
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104