Toward Election Day – November 3rd

I notice that I have not been writing about the coming election or COVID-19 or racial injustice recently or the environmental crisis. This is only partly intentional. I remain convinced that this coming election is hugely important for the future of our country. In order to move toward meaningful action on the pandemic, institutional racism and environmental destruction, we must elect a new President and flip the Senate on November 4^th.

The plurality of Americans seem to feel this way as Biden is ahead in almost all of the polls. This is not cause to relax whatever efforts we have been making to support Biden and Democratic candidates in general. Many of us still vividly remember our shock and pain when Clinton, who most polls predicted would win the election, was defeated by Trump four years ago. We must do what we can to lend our voice, our time and our money to support Biden and Democratic Senatorial candidates.

Please make a plan to vote. My wife has already voted by mail. I have decided to vote (carefully) in person to be part of the votes that are registered right away. Trump has been utterly transparent in acknowledging that he will do everything in his power to stay in office, regardless of the outcome of the election. I have seen no evidence that he actually has the capacity to admit defeat about anything, let alone being voted out of the White House.

Trump will do his best (worst) to confuse, obfuscate and throw things into chaos after the election. A landslide victory for Biden that is evident the night of the election is the best defense against Trump’s coming machinations. But due to the record number of mail in ballots, much will be unknown even on November 5^th. The nightmare scenarios of Trump trying to steal the election are terrifying and utterly unprecedented in my memory of our Democracy. His incessant cries to ‘lock up’ his political opponents and calling for ‘something to happen’ to Adam Schiff for his role in the impeachment proceedings are right from the strong man dictator/mafia boss playbook.

While American politics at the national level have always involved people (mostly men) with huge egos and an outrageous need for power, there have always been limits—checks and balances to hold the institutions of democracy together through the predations of the worst impulses of human green, anger and ignorance. This is where I fault the Republican Senators (and House members) who have ignored Trump’s lying and law-breaking and have refused to speak up and take principled stands against this President’s predations.

Though as I write this I think again about my black and brown brothers and sisters. To say that our democracy has been working well is to ignore the treatment of people of color and the indigenous peoples of this country. Our precious democracy did not grant them the personhood and the respect to be included in the bubble of representation, respect and support that I want to associate with democratic principles.

But there have been strides forward and as much as Trump has activated and inflamed the festering grievances of some white people who feel their assumed supremacy threatened, he has also activated women and men of all colors toward a level of activism and change that are also unparalleled in my lifetime.

As much as I want Trump out of the White House, these terrible years of his Presidency have been the context for the arising of the ‘Me Too’ movement and Black Lives Matter. Women have entered politics and been elected to office in unprecedented numbers at the local, state and national level. And a generation of young people have led the country in demanding recognition of and an end to police violence against blacks and to institutional racism.

Things are not all bad. The seeds of change have been planted. Our job is to make our voices heard and be part of the larger move to create a civil society that supports and protects the rights and opportunities of all, not just a select few.

Political commentator Robert Hubbell recommends a long view of our current situation.   I conclude my thoughts today with an extended quote from his October 16 newsletter:

Whatever happens—win or lose—the earth will continue to spin, and the sun will rise on November 4, 2020. While we may not gain clarity on the day after the election, life will go on. I suggest that everyone make plans now for the day after, for the week after, and for the year after the election. Keep those plans. We must expand our field of vision and extend our time horizon beyond November 3^rd, both because that is necessary to defeat Trumpism and because the struggle against Trumpism must not consume our lives. We are engaged in a generational fight, but we must also attend to the important work of raising future generations to carry on after us. November 3^rd will be a momentous day in a decades-long fight. But it will be only one momentous day among many. Plan your life for the long-term. Live your life in hope and expectation, not fear and despair.