After Election 2020, this column characterized both of our most recent presidential elections as “acts of desperation”. In Election 2016, many Republicans and right-leaning independents, desperate to prevent another four to eight years of progressive governance, held their noses, kicked over the card table and voted for Donald Trump.
Four years later, Democrats and left-leaning independents, desperate to prevent Bernie Sanders from becoming their nominee, and even more desperate to prevent four more years of Donald Trump, elected Joe Biden. He was billed as a unifier, a moderate Democrat who could heal the nation and return us to normalcy.
But what we got instead was an administration captured by the progressive left, and the result has been a backlash that has resurrected Trump, like the mythical phoenix bird, to the pinnacle of power in the Republican Party.
Last February, this column argued that Trump was entirely unsuited to serve another term as president. It also suggested that, for the good of the country, Biden should not run for reelection and that a Democratic candidate more like the late Hubert Humphrey (1911-1978) should be the nominee of the party.
In the intervening months, Trump has secured the nomination and entirely captured the Republican Party. His vice presidential pick, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, who had once been a scathing critic of former President Trump, experienced a conversion and became a supporter. So have a lot of former critics, many of whom ran against Trump in the Republican primaries. Trump has not changed since the days that they were all so critical of him, but clearly they have.
Meanwhile, Biden has decided not to run for reelection and has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the nomination. Remarkably, in just a matter of days, the top echelons of the Democratic Party coalesced around Harris, and a lot of pent-up fundraising went through the roof. And, as was the Republican convention, the Democratic convention will be a coronation instead of a contest.
But Kamala Harris is not a unifying moderate. She is a progressive from California, rising to public office in a one-party state, and who is likely to fire up the political right as intensely as ever. Her naming of the folksy but liberal/progressive Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate only solidifies that assessment. As a result, 2024 will be our third consecutive election of desperation with both sides predicting Armageddon if the other side wins. The American people are now condemned to yet another acrimonious election season, and in the end, regardless of which candidate is elected, half of the country will not be supportive of the newly elected president.
My memory may be hopelessly clouded and wistful, but I recall a time when a majority of our population tended to rally around newly elected presidents and hoped they did well, even if they voted for the other person. The key word in that previous sentence is “for.” That’s what we used to do — we voted for somebody.
Today, we vote against somebody, and that’s largely because of something called opposition research. Most of us, for example, can remember when the confirmation hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh featured Democrats going all the way back to his high school yearbook trying to dig up dirt. Mitt Romney was accused of bullying in high school. The politics of personal destruction remains the rule of the day.
When were the last informed and civilized presidential debates where the focal points were domestic policy, foreign policy and coherent philosophies of governing? It was during the Obama-Romney debates. We haven’t had one since and are not likely to have any this time around. Instead, both sides will claim that the other is a threat to all that Americans hold dear, and those who regularly watch certain programs on Fox News, MSNBC and other politicized outlets will have their favorite bomb throwers and their usual echo-chamber panelists assure us that this is the most important election in American history.
In response, perhaps the best we can do is to avoid becoming hyperbolic bomb throwers ourselves, especially after the election results are known and the new president, vice president and members of Congress are sworn in. We should, of course, never shrink from our duty to support or oppose things that are reflective of our personal beliefs and values, but we should do so in civil and constructive ways that focus on policy differences as opposed to ugly vitriol. If we continue to reach for the torches and pitchforks, then getting people of competence, character and honor to run for high public office will become increasingly difficult. And we will have ceded the field to opportunists and charlatans. Some would say we already have.
Joseph Filko has taught economics and American government, and lives in Williamsburg. He can be reached at jfilko1944@gmail.com.
