YOU'RE FIRED!
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Martin Luther King
"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." Immanuel Kant
"The mills of God grind slowly; yet they grind exceedingly small." Ancient Hellenistic philosopher, but more commonly associated with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Although we're not quite at the finish line, we can't delay the post mortem on the election any longer as we are already edging into the 2022 election cycle.
So which is it ? Or is it all of the above? This election leaves the questions unanswered.
Although the main objective has been accomplished, the down ballot results are disappointing. There is still a chance in Georgia to save the Senate, but the odds of winning the necessary two seats are not great. In the House, it looks like no more then a five seat majority.
What is the main takeaway? Essentially it is that the adherents of the Enlightenment voice of reason cannot comfortably rely on the "good sense" of the American electorate. We still don't know in which direction the country is going. And based on past history the options are several, some of which are most disturbing.
In terms of a normal presidential election, Biden's victory would seem substantial. However, when considered in the context of who his opponent was, it was a close-run thing. How could a viper like Trump get some 74 million votes; almost 47% of the total votes cast? In 2016, Trump could have been seen by some as an unknown quantity (not by any New Yorker who has been living with his antics for some 40 years; in 2016 Manhattan went for Clinton by 86% and in 2020 for Biden by 87%). Let's give him a chance - see what he can do. He's a successful businessman (actually he was a failed businessman). Maybe he can improve government. After four years, it's very clear what he can do, and that's to be a destructive corrupt incompetent mean spirited force. To quote Henry Adams, "I expected the worst, and it was worse than I expected." Trump was given his chance, and he totally blew it and imposed a lot of damage. And in doing so he had as a willing and enthusiastic accomplice the Republican Party. And yet Trump has been more than competitive in the 2020 election, and the Republicans have held off the Democrats in the Senate and strengthened their position in the House. So, what's wrong with this picture?
A significant portion of the American people are to blame. We are not what we think we are or claim to be. As recently stated by a NY Times book reviewer, "[T]oday's America is not at all what the founders hoped the nation would be, but represents instead what they feared it would become." The Republicans, starting with Reagan and now led by Trump, have achieved their objective of creating a cult, and have appealed to those only too happy to follow anyone who would cater to their most tribal passions. They need to satisfy a primitive sense of belonging to what they see as their kind of people, their clan. Their non-inclusive sense of community is limited to those they see around them, to those who look the same and respond to external stimuli in the same way as they do and have the same personal history.
Although exit polls can be unreliable, and it is difficult to separate out the specific determinants of an individual vote, if there is any single factor which will dictate a person's vote, it seems to be whiteness, the sense that this is a white Christian country. Purity is the password. And this outlook is only reinforced in rural surroundings with a sullen hatred of the national government and a strong evangelical fundamentalist base which has historically been motivated by anti-modernism and anti-secularism. Specific policy positions are not really important. Even issues like gun controls, abortion and homosexuality are relatively unimportant in and of themselves. It is the fact that "their people", who are represented by the Republican Party, oppose them that counts. It satisfies their sense of belonging. This is their community. The others, that is, the Democrats, are out to destroy their community. Thus, elective politics becomes an existential confrontation that calls for no holds barred opposition, including rejecting election results (in effect, blame it on the refs), buying into totally unsubstantiated absurd and bizarre conspiracy theories of fraud and even bordering on violence.
The latest attempt to overthrow the outcome of the election, that is, the petition by the State of Texas to the Supreme Court which was summarily declined, only emphasizes to a breathtaking extent the charlatanism (and for that matter the incompetence of the Republican legal elite) and the arrogance of the Republican Party. In short, the votes don't matter, only the power to dictate the results. (It's interesting to note that Biden won Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania by about three times as many votes as Trump won those states in 2016 which threw the election to him even though he lost the national popular vote by 2.8 million votes while Biden won nationally by 7 million votes. No one questioned the result in 2016.) For a Party that is constantly citing the Constitution it would appear that its members have never read it. Does the Republican Party leadership really believe that Trump won the election? Are they merely sore losers? It makes no difference. They have so cultivated and aroused their ignorant base with their deceitful claims that they cannot escape the embrace of the base for fear of being displaced by those with even more extreme views. They have sown the wind and are now reaping the whirlwind. Can there be a more blatant example of a total disregard for democratic principles, a republican form of government and more than 250 years of history? Should there be cries of treason? Maybe we should resurrect HUAC to investigate the Republican Party. If presented in a persuasive way I can think of a no more damaging attack on Perdue and Loeffler in Georgia.
By the way, I note that the chairman of the state Republican party of Texas is considering secession. By all means, let them go! Maybe we could work out a deal with Russia whereby we could deport to Russia all denizens of Texas who wish to go, and they could set up a semi-autonomous region in Russia with Trump as the local czar. They could call it "The Russian Banana Republic". Maybe we could throw in a Trump hotel in Moscow as further inducement.
Given such a situation, how do Democrats and other rational people move forward? (Here let me interject that, if you believe in such things, it is more likely that the final battle at Armageddon will not be between good and evil but between the rational and the irrational. That's what really separates us - the fault line that establishes the partisan schism in this country.)
Much has been written about reaching out to the white, rural, evangelical and non-college graduate sectors of the country which constitute the Republican base. There has been criticism of the so-called "elite", the urban, educated cosmopolitans who allegedly have only contempt for this base and don't respect them or try to meet their needs. They don't reach out to them and try to understand or talk to them. My question is, what do these people want ? What do they need? What are the programs or policies that they want - other than anti-abortion rules, unlimited guns and rejection of homosexuality and gay marriage? Does anyone think that if the Supreme Court was to overrule Roe v. Wade, overturn all gun control regulations, find bans on gay marriage constitutional and allow states to criminalize homosexual activity that these people would vote Democratic? They would only be happy if we could recreate life as it was in the first half of the 20th century, or even earlier, (the good old days when Blacks and women couldn't vote and fundamentalist religious leaders rejected evolution) or at least as they think it existed. The base does resent the "elite" who they denigrate as secular liberals and equate with the Democratic Party. Nothing will change that, because they see the elite as different from them, and they, the base, don't want to change. Their way is the right and only way. These "conservatives" (although not true conservatives in the Burkean sense) resent what they see as liberals' belief in a god of supervening justice with which only they are familiar and who through them guides the world in directions of which they approve. This competes with the god of the conservatives who created a fixed realm which is already laid out and doesn't need any human intervention to carry out. Such intervention merely interferes with their god's plans. These are people raised to believe that the truth is eternal and identity is fixed. Overall, a Manichean world view, laid on a base of supernatural eschatological mumbo jumbo.
If this is a correct analysis, there is no point in reaching out to such a Republican Party clan. They have their cult leader in Trump and will follow him anywhere, much like Jim Jones of the Jonestown massacre and David Koresh of the Branch Davidians, as long as he is willing to lead which, with his narcissism, he is likely to do even after leaving the Presidency.
The only way to deal with this conundrum is to win elections by (i) holding together the Democratic Party progressives and moderates, (ii) persuading independents and the unaffiliated to vote for Democratic candidates, and (iii) passing legislation which provides something tangible to everyone, regardless of color or identity, keeping in mind that politics and perfectionism do not easily mix. Democrats must stop seeking their own brand of purity and start with what is possible.
If by some stroke of good fortune the Democrats win both Senate seats in Georgia, this should be easier to accomplish, but it may require filibuster reform. Total elimination of the filibuster is probably not possible (even some Democrats would not support it), and may not even be desirable. Democratic Senators Merkley and Udall put together a reasonable and fair proposal to mitigate the abuse of the filibuster a few years ago (discussed in my blog of December 26, 2012) which the Democrats should revisit. But even if some filibuster reform can be implemented which allows Democrats to be more aggressive, moderation should be the guideline. Democrats should not force issues beyond what the general public, which includes swing voters, can tolerate at this time. Democrats should play the long game - looking to 2022 and 2024 and beyond. Even modest gains, and perhaps only modest gains, should be able to establish (re-establish?) the Democrats as the majority party in America and lead ultimately to a genuinely progressive polity.
If the Republicans retain control of the Senate, they can be expected to stonewall the Democrats at every step of the way, and the dysfunction, which will be to no one's benefit, will continue (this is also an argument which should be made in the Georgia run-offs). That should not stop the Democrats from pushing forward popular legislation even if defeat is a foregone conclusion. Force the Republicans to vote it down, and remind the voters of that in the next election.
