This month’s Presidential election did end the reign of Donald Trump, a megalomaniac framed in cartoon proportions. That was a good thing. However, it was no true victory for the Country. I was disappointed enough to walk about with a blue cloud over my head straight through and beyond the Saturday following the election when the AP called it for Biden. I probably didn’t feel much better than those crushed by Trump’s defeat.
This last year and last month particularly has been an education for us all on the limitations of our unique form of electoral democracy. Its obvious facility to support minority rule of government begs the question: what do we do now?
It is clear to me that Biden has decided to work from the same naïve playbook used by Obama, the… if we’re good, honest, and caring we can unite Americans of all political persuasions…and, as a result, will have his legs removed early in his administration (as Obama did after two years). It’s as if they both graduated from the Neville Chamberlain School of Political Persuasion.
Biden needs to work to lead the Democratic Party for the next generation of voters, not the current ones. He needs to lead a Party that seeks ways of obtaining the power necessary to support the diversity that is inherent in a democracy, and thus force Republicans to seek diversity themselves.
I have near zero confidence he has that ability, and the de facto proof is both the results of this past election and what has occurred since, not to mention his own rhetoric. The only thing he has going for him at this point is a bar that is exceedingly low.
In Ezra Klein’s seminal work Why We Are Polarized (Simon & Schuster 2020) he outlines a diagnosis of a divided America focusing most intently on how political identities have entrapped us on opposing sides at the sacrifice of all other human identities. Those human identities (family, philosophy, joys, aspirations, sports, neighborhood, faiths…you name it) for which we could bind ourselves to one another regardless of political party leanings. It took a Civil War in 1860 to correct that kind of identity exclusivity. No war necessary here, but it’s going to take a fight.
The un-democratic institutions of the Electoral College and the US Senate are two problems that inhibit majority rule democracy and promote minority rule authoritarianism. Klein, like others, promotes simple answers like the National Interstate Popular Vote Compact (Google it) and making DC and Puerto Rico states. And, of course, the big Kahuna: campaign finance reform. Great ideas but one is tenuous and the other two require that elusive power to accomplish.
I would suggest two efforts; concentrate power to your strength and work to elect responsible Republicans.
The Democrat Party strongholds have become those states with large, highly educated urban populations, with high minority representation. Biden won 11 of the top 15 most populated states. It is noteworthy that the 2nd and 3rd most populated states he lost; Texas and Florida, respectfully. North Carolina, rapidly expanding with a well educated population, is also an anomaly to the rule. All have significant minority population. The Democratic Party should put their highest concentration on those three states (plus their toe-hold on Georgia) to redirect the demographics.
Second, the Republican Party or conservatism is not intrinsically evil. They have only been tools by which individuals can manipulate government to primarily; support those with financial clout and to retain their own positions of power. The best example of this is their using non-political social issues to control Christian Conservatives in supporting them even as these evangelicals contradict their own values by doing so.
Without a 21st century Fairness Doctrine, like the one Reagan threw out in 1987, the cohesiveness of the extreme right, glued with all the tricks one associates with neo-fascist authoritarianism, will continue to dominate the Republican Party with likeminded extremist candidates.
We want good people in office regardless of Party, those where self-interest is subservient to the National interest (or at least equal to it). Democrats all over the Country should start to re-register as Republicans and, with enough numbers, begin to control the Republican nomination process. In states, like Virginia, where no party registration is required, plan on voting in the Republican Primaries for moderate candidates who are out of favor with the Trump controlled far right. Not something to hide, but to encourage moderate candidates. This should be a campaign on the part of the Democratic Party.
There will always be enough diversity to argue over issues, and a representative democracy has no guarantee of success during any election cycle. But a true democracy allows us to change course, and changing doesn’t appear to be happening on the near horizon.
