We Still Have Work to Do

We do not need to return to normal, we need progress.

With the election called for Biden/Harris, the horror of the last four years and the anxiety felt for many months is behind us. The prediction of a “red mirage” followed by a win for Biden/Harris did not stop the reality from feeling like a wild roller coaster in real time. Despite those predictions, leading up to the election, as it became increasingly clear that Trump would lose the popular vote, that there was going to be unprecedented turnout, and ultimately that he was likely to lose in the Electoral College as well, he and his campaign turned to claims that mail-in ballots were frequently fraudulent (except when it was his, his supporters, his family, and his administration voting by mail), voter suppression, voter intimidation, and, finally, claims that any counting beyond election night (again, except when it benefitted him) was illegal. The claims of mail-in votes being fraudulent is well documented as blatantly wrong. If you believe that mail-in voting leads to fraud you have drunk the punch. Likewise, the claims that elections must be decided on election night is preposterously false. Even in the event that the AP and networks make an election night call, the counting continues, and the totals are not verified for quite some time. Voter suppression and intimidation is sadly nothing new in our country, particularly for minority communities. Well, that is, once they were given the legal right to vote. The more troubling issue is that so many Americans give credence to these claims and these power addicted strategies that damage our democracy. This has been Trump’s modus operandi since he descended the Trump Tower escalator spewing racist sentiments to announce his candidacy.

The media has not responded well. Because of his disregard for the truth and his penchant for creating a fire hose of shit (scandals, lies, bigotry, incompetence, etc.), the bar for Trump has been set incredibly low. He struggles to stumble over it anyway. Furthermore, the media initially treated him as the sideshow, the tabloid and reality TV persona that he is. The media also treated him as the golden goose that garnered so much attention like people gawking at what is part tragic accident and part court jester. Others were drawn to his bigotry and cruelty and willingness to verbally spar for white grievances. His history was known. He was sued by the Nixon administration for racial discrimination all the way back in 1973 and his discrimination has been on public display since. Yet, instead of focus on this awful past, or his recurring failings as a businessman, or his penchant for cheating working class people out of the money he owes them, or the numerous claims against him for sexual assault and harassment, networks were grateful for the ratings boost. His inclusion in the election of 2016, benefitted the bottom line for media and journalism and the stations and outlets that he maligned the most gave him more attention than he warranted from the onset. Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio didn’t attract as many eyeballs. In our world of the 24 hour news cycle that makes everything into a huge story, but only for a short period of time, often regardless of the merits, the discreditable transgressions that Trump, and eventually his administration, continuously fired at the public as if coming from an automatic rifle were mere blips. These were acts that should have been scandals and would have brought down previous presidencies.

It was refreshing that Biden’s acceptance speech was so normal. The contrast to what we have endured these four years is stark. He called for unity and healing. He spoke of empathy and decency. He addressed supporters of Trump, saying he understood their disappointment and hoped that they could give each other a chance. He didn’t chant “lock him up.” He didn’t gloat about his win. He didn’t belittle anyone. He didn’t lie. He didn’t encourage conspiracy theories or pander to hate groups. He didn’t attack the free press, a institution protected in our Constitution. He didn’t contradict science. He called to unite all Americans, regardless of party affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and socio-economic standing.

All that being said, I think there are some vital take always here that we cannot miss because of Trump’s defeat. First of all, for many of us, it was not the landslide, the monumental repudiation, that we had hoped for. It has become clear that the election was not as close as it felt early, as the massive amounts of mail-in ballots continue to be tabulated, but it certainly wasn’t the knockout many desired. Obviously, this speaks to the divisiveness and partisan tribalism in our country. It also speaks to the things that have created this divisiveness. It has been building for a long time. Our system needs to be fixed in so many ways. One of the problems with our system is that it has increasingly fostered polarization. There is an excellent article about why the Black vote has become so much of a monolith despite differences of opinions, like any group, amongst Black Americans (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/magazine/black-vote.html). As James Baldwin said, “We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.” The Republican party, after the Civil Rights Movement, has increasingly had positions and policies rooted in racism. This began with their courting of the racist Southern Democrats, called Dixiecrats, who were unhappy with the direction the Democratic Party was going at the time. The use of voter suppression and voter intimidation deployed by the Trump campaign, has gone on for so long in our country, particularly against minority groups. When your party wants to make it harder to vote rather than to try to get everyone who is of age to vote, you are undermining democracy because you want to be in power. Then there is gerrymandering, the ridiculous drawing of districts that so often are used in states to give greater representation in government to a minority of the voters. Additionally, this manner of drawing districts to limit the representation of your opponent leads to polarization because your greatest risk of losing your office is in your party’s primary, not in the election against the other party. This forces candidates to extremes and results in less and less compromise and cooperation until it has become nearly non-existent. Furthermore, one of the greatest faults of the Electoral College, although certainly not the only fault, is that it does not make every person’s vote count. If you are a Democrat in Alabama, with winner-take-all the electors, your vote is meaningless. Likewise, the same holds true for a Republican in California. All of this has led to what we have had recently; the party that is favored by a minority of voters in the country have held control federally of the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative branches (for part of Trump’s term, they held the Senate but not the House). This does not seem to jibe with our stated ideals.

Maybe the biggest thing we must remember is that we have work to do. No politician is perfect. One candidate is a 77-year-old white man with a penchant for verbal gaffes. He fought for a disastrous crime bill in the 90s. He is a long-time politician who is too moderate for younger progressives and has a fondness for aviators. The incumbent is a 74-year-old white man with a penchant for racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, being anti-immigrant; capitalizing on and fomenting white grievance politics to increase his base with angry white men, racists, and white supremacists; with a staggering amount of credible rape and sexual harassment accusations; a tax avoider and cheat, who has paid more taxes in China than the US and owes reportedly over 400 million dollars; a serial business failure; used the presidency to make money for himself and his children; a cruel bully who has belittled veterans, POWs, people with disabilities, Latinx, Blacks, women, et al; has tried to take down many of our most important institutions including the media; separated asylum seeking parents from their children and put both in cages; played footsie with authoritarians; hired incompetents, fellow bigots, sycophants, and billionaires who used tax money for their pleasure; has been dangerously anti-science, including removing us from the Paris Agreement and rolling back regulations that were in place to combat climate change; exemplified all that a leader should not do in a crisis of historic proportions, resulting in a staggering amount of dead Americans since March; furthered the dramatically huge wealth gap; despite his populist messages, he has not helped the working human, and with the handling of the pandemic, has assured that the financial recession will be felt for years, at least outside of the richest Americans; sullied our reputation throughout the world to the point we are no longer seen as a global leader and moral gauge for all. There is so much more, but we will leave it at that. With these candidates, this election had historic turnout. The engagement level of Americans has been turned up since Trump has come on the political scene. The level of engagement from young people is inspiring. However, the continued uninformed and, worse, disinformed citizens within our electorate is troubling. The news plays a part in that with its 24-hour news cycle and pundits yelling at each other. Where is the nuanced conversation? Where are the days of Baldwin debating Buckley or Vidal and Buckley? Sadly, who would watch? Unfortunately, we have people who would rather stick with propaganda that affirms their beliefs than to go to NPR or PBS. In fact, we are so turned upside down that many label NPR and PBS as politically biased. The truth is there is ample great media and journalism for us to consume. Instead, a majority favor social media. Social media holds a huge responsibility for the misinformation/disinformation. Facebook stood idly by as their platform was used to foster something as grossly reprehensible as QAnon. YouTube has used algorithms that have led so many down rabbit holes of increasingly conspiratorial and dangerous nonsense. We have been pummeled with inanity of late night rage tweets and live tweeting Fox News from a president that could not find a better way to serve the country.

There is still so much work to be done to make this country a more equitable place. In every avenue of American life, things are so dramatically and increasingly disparate: wealth, income, employment, health care, mass incarceration, how people are policed, education, housing, and on and on. This was already the case; Trump has just exacerbated it. We do not need to return to normal, we need progress. Again, to quote Baldwin, “I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” We need to stay engaged. Hold our elected officials to account. Get the money out of politics (overturn Citizens United), so that the politicians answer to the people and not corporations. We need an economy that is more equitable and that isn’t creating a 1% that gets richer at alarming pace, while the middle class and working people continue to chase a mirage called the American Dream. To quote Martin Luther King Jr., “We…have socialism for the rich and rugged free-market capitalism for the poor.” We need to provide a quality of life and a real chance to improve your circumstances throughout that life. We need to improve on how we administer healthcare to all people. The pandemic has put so many of our issues under a microscope and it certainly did for health care. There is so much that needs attention, but the biggest thing seems to put the greater good before individual interests. We need a country that believes in science. We need empathy. We need to listen. We need activism and engagement. We would do well to remember, we are all Americans, none with more claim to their constitutional rights, to protection, to opportunity than any other.