Day Three of Post-Election America

Regardless of the election's outcome, 2020 will be a watershed year in American history. Social scientists are trying to understand what is happening to the nation and its people by looking at the past. Sometimes we have found the clues in the immediate past like in 1968, and at other points we go back further to the 18th and 19th centuries. Times have changed but not always in the ways that we think.  

In my mind it feels like we are not looking at the right clues. We should not concentrate on the 1960s, but rather the 1950s. Our textbooks consider this period one of transition and development, while in reality it is equally a period of fear and chaos. The desire to replicate the 1950s in 2020 is peculiar. Maybe for older Americans Pre-COVID 2020 offers similarities. For example, the economy was humming along and the stock market was soaring. Many Americans could feel like they were living in a second golden age.

The 1950s was an era of a booming economy. An infrastructure was built around suburbia with massive highway construction and commuter railroads. Men dressed in suits went off to work and women stayed home raising children. It was the era of the G.I. Bill and social mobility. It is equally the era of the challenge of communism/socialism versus democracy and capitalism. In school students study this period through the Rosenbergs, McCartyism, the Red Scare, the origins of the Cold War, and the Korean War. It is also a period of two presidential elections (Eisenhower-Stevenson) that determined the direction of the nation.

It is also a textbook avoided period of racial violence and racial oppression. Emmet Till, for example, was murdered in 1955. Till, a teenager, was lynched for allegedly speaking to a white woman. American periodicals covered this atrocity and shared it with a shocked nation. In a brief trial, the accused were acquitted by an all-white jury. Weeks later, for payment, they told a detailed story of Till's murder to a popular magazine. Two men killed a child to "protect white womanhood," but largely due to their fears miscegenation. A horrified public vowed that this wouldn't happen again. After all, this is America! Yet decades later, many Americans believe that lynchings in some form still occur. Treyvon Martin, Ahmaud Abery, and others are dead solely because they were black. A spirit of vigilantism encouraged some Americans to hunt them down and kill them in the guise of "protecting a community". 

Despite the growth and cultivation of white allies, America's power structure continues "protecting communities" by killing African Americans. The victims' ages and genders have little role in these actions. Tamir Rice is dead because he was black, Breonna Taylor is dead because she was black, and George Floyd is dead because he was black. What were their crimes, and what were the crimes of the hundreds of other dead black souls? And the outrage that has followed has never been quelled. This president, unlike Presidents Reagan, Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton, Bush or Obama, never spoke out about race or racism. Instead, he acted like George Wallace and Richard Nixon, directly and indirectly supporting segregation and law enforcement as means of keeping African Americans in a second class citizenship. The only thing he did not say is "segregation, now and forever!"

Mainstream media and liberal white Americans have placed too much emphasis of Joe Biden's pledge to restore America. People of color internalized the concept, but did they support the quest? Maybe most Americans were confused about Team Biden's vision. If this was an election for the soul of the nation, Team Biden did not get the decisive victory that his supporters hoped for. Republicans suggested that Biden's America was a radical society with high taxes, socialism and communism. He was accused of being against God, and we were told that under a Biden administration there wouldn't be marriages, funerals, Thanksgiving or Christmas. President Trump created an environment of fear and chaos to maintain a mythical status quo.

About 3.5 million votes currently separate contrasting visions. Americans should have never been confronted with an election that pitted good against evil. It made the two political parties polar opposites and suggests that compromise is unachievable. It produced a massive turnout, but is this a sign of a working democracy? Modern American democracy in action simply translates into more people voting than in 2016.

The contrasts of good versus evil did bring more people to the polls. However, were they enlightened citizens, voting for the common good?  Or were they voting to protect a particular way of life? Again President Trump compared himself to Richard Nixon and George Wallace with claims of representing a "silent majority". And his supporters responded, as people who hadn't voted in 2016 came out to vote for President Trump. Yet, what image of America were these people desiring?

I contend that the desire to return to the 1950s is the strongest element in the Trump campaign. While Trump is frequently compared to Nixon or Wallace, he is a symbolic Eisenhower. Take away the bombastic showman and Trump is like the portrayal of Ike as a man who spends more time playing golf and casually watching the nation run itself. Americans who love the 1950s liked that Eisenhower did not contend with a growing call for Civil Rights. Eisenhower, unlike an Obama, did not show empathy for people of color. He did not shed public tears over Emmet Till or abusive police beating black protestors. Indirectly, Eisenhower was a supporter of school choice. He did not want to enforce Brown v. Board of Education nor did he publicly denounce the closing of Virginia's public schools or discourage the founding of white academies to avoid integration.

Nearly half of the electorate is supporting Trump's image of the 1950s which informs us about racism, classism, sexism, and economic chauvinism. The other half of the electorate is also looking at another mythical period, the better half of the 1960s or even the 1990s where America was moving past racism, sexism and bigotry and witnessing economic growth. What these myths reveal is that we live in a country filled with hatred and fears. Both those voting Republican and Democrat are in alternate universes. All Americans are in denial of reality and the challenges of modernity.

To better understand our current politics, I would recast Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden as modern day Adlai Stevensons. (No, they don't actually share his political ideologies! They are symbolic Stevensons!) They are the off-shoots of a popular administration that saved the American Dream. In that regard, they are depicted as heroes that should be rewarded for decades of public service. Like Stevenson, they were products of the New Deal, and they wanted to expand its promises. Unfortunately, ideology doesn't always translate to like-ability or relevance. Like Stevenson, they failed to make to make connections with the common man. While they, unlike Stevenson, would win the popular vote, their "egghead" personalities and politics revealed the divides in American society. Clinton and Biden believe they spoke the truth. Often that truth was hard to accept or unwanted.

Donald Trump, like Eisenhower, campaigned as a political outsider. Unlike Ike, Trump avoided the language of the elites (although on paper he is one of them). President Trump has twice run against the New Deal without a ideological plan of his own. Unlike Eisenhower, Trump rules and acts on instincts. His dysfunctional behavior and quirks seem to be appealing to a certain class of people. And, his appeal to money have rallied wealthy detractors to become donors and promote his limited political schemes. In the process of claiming to be a Washington outsider, even while seeking a second term, his aura has transformed the party of Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan into a cult of personality. Trump's America is the vision of the rich and poor living in parallel universes where neither is outwardly offended by the other.

Win or lose, President Trump has reshaped America. He has built his own version of the Eisenhower era myth. Racial minorities, the LGBT community, and non-Christians may look at this period as one of outward hatred and chaos, liberal whites might see it as a lost opportunity, but others will see it as a triumph of white conservative values. President Trump did not receive the political support garnered by Eisenhower, but he was able to rally a cohort of like minded people. They attended his rallies, denounced his enemies and encouraged their imprisonment as if they were traitors. They denounced affirmative action, denied systemic racism, cheered for false claims of great economies for all and defied science in fighting a virus and climate based natural disasters. They believed the president's lies and endorsed his conspiracy theories. They retweeted his tweets. Ultimately, they denounced the press and called it "fake news". The president created another reality, a counter reality. President Trump made people believe that America was always great and could be great again. Trump supporters found peace and comfort in this construction. Regardless of what other Americans thought or experienced, Trump's allies believed this was America! They ignored the discontent of the other half of the nation. They rejected the calls for socioeconomic and structural change. They have been willing to fight to maintain their status quo.

Once again the polls were wrong. No series of polls can dissect the complexities of a divided nation. This isn't the most contested election in American history, but many Americans will spin it into legend. Three days after the election, the nation is filled with uncertainty and fear. Americans are impatiently waiting for an official announcement of who will be the next president. President Trump trails in the popular vote. He is virtually in the same place where he was in 2016. Before, however, he won in the Electoral College. He called his victory a "landslide" and a "mandate". Now, Joe Biden could be on the verge of an Electoral College landslide. He will also call his victory a "mandate." 

"Mandates" based on ideological foundations are not well received in our contemporary society. Trump ran in 2016 to "Make America Great Again", and in 2020 the slogan was "Keeping America Great". Biden ran a "Battle for the Soul of the Nation." There is a lot of healing that must take place before "America can be America again". It may not happen, but if it does it will take years or decades. But, before I get ahead of myself, votes are still outstanding and things will be contested. The election continues and the virtual civil war remains in effect.

Police are on alert in many city streets, and storefronts are boarded up fearing looting. A nation is on edge. Rather than calling for calm, President Trump is declaring victory and is asserting that the Democrats are cheating. There is no proof for his claims, and it is not clear if he loses that he will concede. He will probably fight to the last minute (January 20th). His fans wouldn't have it any way.

For a critical mass, Donald Trump has ensured, that long after he is gone whether in 2020 or 2024, many Americans will wish for a return to the Trumpian era. After all, these were the good ole days!