November, 2020
Washington, Lincoln, Berlin – The 2020 U.S. election, now winding up, will go down in history as one of democracy's greatest triumphs. Pundits claiming it was somehow a calamity are wrong.
Look at the popular vote: the spread between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is four million and counting. Importantly, that's not just Democratic votes; it includes votes from Republicans who split their tickets. Republican candidates ran ahead of Trump in many races. The incumbent, democratic norm-breaking president is being ousted on a bipartisan basis. From Maine through Nebraska to California, Trump underperformed. This gives nascent hope to Never Trump Republicans and those who want to return the party more to its founding principles.
I'm also looking at what this election might do to shake up the Democratic Party, which badly needs to reconsider its election strategies. The party may now be forced into an overdue understanding of various constituencies whose voices it has badly neglected — Hispanics and rural Americans are two obvious examples. The Democratic Party must also clean its house of advisers who are so out of touch with America that they failed, while winning the presidency, to take the Senate and almost lost the House (not to mention their 2016 election fiasco and the Senate losses in 2018).
But back to the historic nature of this election. It's a huge victory for democracy, even comparable to the fall of the Berlin Wall, to D-Day, and to the Battle of Midway.* Let there be no mistake about the 2020 election: democracy in the U.S. faced a hugely difficult challenge, not unlike great struggles of the last century.
How can 2020 compare to those events? Consider these very real threats:
First, a large segment of the U.S. dangerously developed a taste for un-presidential behavior in its leader, fed by news media the likes of which have not been seen since the heyday of Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the propagandist of Germany's Third Reich. The more Trump broke norms, even of truth and decency, the more his base adherents cheered. Second, opposition party Democrats played into media hands by failing to develop their own disciplined messaging, allowing Democrats to be successfully, however wrongly, characterized as opponents of law and order, as socialists, and as totalitarians themselves who would end free speech. Third, voter suppression techniques were widely applied by Republican Party operatives as never before, in an attempt to intimidate, discourage, and disqualify Democratic voters, all during an ongoing pandemic.
What did this victory prevent? Another four years of increasingly autocratic rule, in my view, would have shredded our hard-earned international alliances, especially NATO; destroyed the best of our Civil Service; made the judicial branch subservient to the executive branch; squandered another four years in the race for climate change solutions; and undermined the integrity of future elections.
No Kaiser, Emperor, Czar, or Comrade-Chairman ever posed a greater threat to our democracy than did the situation into which our country blundered with the election of 2016. The disastrous fallout from that election has proved to be second only to the danger once presented by Der Führer, in my assessment.
Let us build on this incredible 2020 election to end a shameful chapter of American history. There is much to build on. However, it does not serve us well to demonize those who did not contribute to the victory. I understand Trump voters; many are not independent actors so much as media-addicted collections of vulnerable humans overwhelmed by messages of fear and division, and they reacted accordingly. It's time to reach out to them with a more hopeful and understanding approach, which action should also be a tonic for those on the winning side as well.
Look at the popular vote; look at the bipartisan nature of the Trump repudiation; look at the obvious yearning among voters for a return to decency and democratic values. This was a truly great election.
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* Midway was a narrow escape from an Asian, fascist-aligned, totalitarian power. The 1942 battle, like the 2020 election, could easily have gone the other way. We lost the carrier USS Yorktown, but the Japanese lost four carriers. The victory only stopped the enemy's advance; it did not end the war, which would go on for three more years. But it was an incredible victory nonetheless, and gave democracy hope.
* D-Day was another difficult victory for democratic governments. General Eisenhower was so uncertain of the outcome that he had a speech ready to admit failure. But the 1944 amphibious landing at Normandy was ultimately a success and led to an end of the war a year later, over European fascism.
* The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 represented a rollback of communist totalitarianism and a resounding victory for democratic governments. It was brought about by resolute democracies, to be sure, but also by internal weaknesses in authoritarianism, which failed to take into account democratic impulses in oppressed populations.
