Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow Creeps (Take II): Election Day 2020 Slides Sideways

<"Fade To Black...And Then Gray":

The Reckoner>

<i.>

And so, it ends. Election Day 2020 has come, and gone. America's slide into fascism, greased along the skids of remorseless minority rule, will wait another four years, if you're an optimist. The "free fall to hell," as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told the New York Times this weekend, is off the table, at least for now. "We paused this precipitous descent. And the question is if and how we will build ourselves back up."

Judging by the latest results, there's plenty of rebuilding ahead. Democratic nominee and President-elect Joe Biden shattered all records, in garnering 75.4 million votes (50.7%) -- the highest popular vote total for any candidate -- while Vice President Kamala Harris made history as the first female and woman of color to occupy the second slot. Yet Donald Trump continued his penchant for defying political gravity, by earning 70.9 million votes (47.7%), even as he refuses to add "ex-President" to his job description.

What's more, 26% of Trump's overall vote came from nonwhites, the best such showing by any Republican nominee since 1960. Trump further defied gravity with strong turnouts among Latinos, as the punditocracy has endlessly noted, and notably improved his share among African-American women (from four to eight percent), African-American men (13 to 18%), and gays and lesbians (14 to 28%).

I can attest to the last statistic, at least anecdotally. There's a guy in my building whom I've seen wearing a T-shirt that reads, "Gays For Trump." This, despite a newly hardened conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, that seems poised to snatch away the right to marry granted in its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision. What can I say? Disconnect is one mighty, mean motherfucker, apparently.

Most disturbing of all is seeing Trump racking up some of his biggest percentages in states hardest hit by the COVID-19 wrecking, ranging from lows 48.8% (Wisconsin), to highs of 62.7% (Arkansas), 63.7% (Idaho), and 65% (North Dakota). Either people's affinity for misery is wider than anyone cares to admit, or the mental gravitational pull of Trump's alternate universe -- one that requires no masks, no social distancing, no tough decision-making -- is too strong to resist. I'm plumping for the latter.

None of these results feel good to anyone who really cares about democracy. My feeling is that Biden won because of his promise to better handle the pandemic that Trump and his cronies have botched so grievously, and so catastrophically. Yet, despite the pandemic, and the predictable social unrest it unleashed -- the cratering economy, protests of police brutality, and skyrocketing COVID-19 death toll -- "Almost half of the country looked at the way Donald Trump has functioned as president since 2017 and said, definitively, that they wanted four more years of it," as Klein notes.

How else to explain an outcome that ground on, grimly and tortuously, right into the weekend? Yes, the Democrats finally speared their white whale, but it took an enormous, concerted effort to make sure the harpoon finally hit its mark. Even then, it might not have landed, without the final four states that pushed Biden over the top (Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and of course, Pennsylvania).

In the final analysis, an authoritarian wannabe almost returned to power once more, bolstered by his capture of the Republican Party machinery, and its cultish following. As Ian Bassin, co-founder of the nonpartisan legal group Protect Democracy notes: "If that doesn't tell you that something is completely rotten in the foundations of our democracy, I don't know what would."

Honestly, I don't want to hear that cliche, "This is not who we are." The cold, hard fact is, this is who a whole hell lot of us are, at least for the immediate future. 

<"Going..."

The Reckoner>

<ii.>

Democracy shouldn't be synonymous with sclerosis, yet it's equally clear that 240-some years on, the American experiment is suffering some serious hardening of its arteries. Start with the notorious Electoral College, and all the insufferable ambiguities that go with it. As many Election Night commentators noted, if the popular vote determined the outcome, Biden could have gone home to Delaware, and started working up his transition plan, right then.

Instead, the nation hung on tenterhooks, as vote counts slowly ticked in, first from Wisconsin...now from Michigan...and finally, from Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Once again, as it did in 2000, and 2016, a handful of states determined an outcome that hinged on voters' preferences in those some handful of states. "That's the system," we hear its defenders say. "That's the problem," respond the critics, who then struggle to gain any traction to change it.

The nearest success came in 1969, when U.S. Senator Birch Bayh co-sponsored an amendment to replace the Electoral College with a French-style, two-round system that would require the winner to earn at least 40% of the popular vote. If that didn't happen in round one, the nation's top jobs would go to the presidential and vice presidential candidates receiving the largest number of votes.

The House of Representatives passed the Bayh-Celler amendment, as it was known, by a 339-70 vote in September 1969. Even President Richard Nixon got behind it, having barely warded off a strong challenge from Democrat Hubert Humphrey, and George Wallace's insurgent third party campaign. (Presumably, Tricky Dick whipped out his slid rule and figured he'd have fared better under Bayh-Celler in the 1968 race, the closest and mostly hotly contested, up to that time. Otherwise, I doubt that he would have endorsed it.)

All systems seemed go until Bayh's fellow Senators soon schooled him in how things really work around here, as the tired old phrase goes. The Bayh-Celler amendment advanced 11-6 out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, only to die after a handful of Southern "boll weevil" and small state Senators filibustered it to death. Two attempts at breaking the stalemate failed, prompting Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield to abandon Bayh-Celler for good.

Bayh tried once more, in 1977, but his second attempt met the same fate as its predecessor. There's something poetic and ironic about a small in-group using an obscure legislative tactic to ensure the survival of an institution that increasingly favors minority rule. In that respect, Bayh's comments from Every Vote Equal (2013) seem especially prescient:

"Today more than ever, the Electoral College system is a disservice to the voters. With the number of battleground states steadily shrinking, we see candidates and their campaigns focused on fewer and fewer states. While running for the nation’s highest office, candidates in 2004 completely ignored three-quarters of the states, including California, Texas, and New York, our three most populous states. Why should our national leaders be elected by only reaching out to 1/4 of our states? It seems inherently illogical, and it is."

I wonder how Bayh, who only died just last year, might feel about the spectacle of Trump, the Orange Menace, preparing to blitz the nation with more of his signature Nuremberg-style rallies, even as he refuses to concede, and gropes for straws to overturn a narrow result that hurt his party this time. In that respect, these additional comments from Bayh feel right on point:

"The election of President of the United States should not be a contest between red states and blue states. The President should be chosen by a majority of our citizens, wherever they may live. Direct popular election would substitute clarity for confusion, decisiveness for danger, and popular choice for political chance."

<"Still Going..."

The Reckoner>

<iii.>

Of course, the current artificial political game of Cowboys and Indians seems fated to continue, too, because the oft-ballyhooed "blue wave" ended up as a blue ripple. Nowhere did this seem clearer than the U.S. Senate, where Democrats only picked up two seats (Arizona, Colorado) -- and those against two  incumbents (Martha McSally, Cory Gardner, respectively) who'd never led a poll, and had been essentially written off by the fall.

Otherwise, voters allowed some of Trump's biggest enablers (Susan Collins, Joni Ernst, Lindsay Graham, Thom Tillis) to escape unscathed. It's a particularly depressing outcome when you ponder the darkness of a shape shifter like Ernst, who rode to fame among the GOP Class of 2014 with a TV ad boasting of how she'd make Washington's pork barrel merchants "squeal," like the hogs she couldn't wait to castrate on her farm.

A bit rich, isn't it, coming from someone who fumbled a debate question about the cost of soybeans. Yet there Phony Joni sits, basking in the last laugh, for six more years, at least. In a truly just world, she'd find herself chained to a chair, with every British anarcho-punk animal rights broadside blasting into her tone deaf ears: "Just think how the animals feel! Just think how the animals feel!" 

The long arc bends toward justice...my ass. 

Outcomes in the House of Representatives proved equally dim, with Democrats bracing for a net loss of seven to 11 seats. They'll still hold a majority, though one leaving far less room for error. Nevertheless, the withered mummies and zombies who pass for senior Democratic leadership these days are already out in force, as they moan and maunder, peep and mutter: "Bad progressives...You cost us our seats...Bad lefties...you cost us our seats...Democratic socialists, darken this crypt no longer....you cost us our seats..." 

However, a quick check of the old box score shows, without exception, all the losers fell into the so-called "Blue Dog" category of Democrats -- you know, the kinder, gentler Republicans who pride themselves on smoking the occasional joint, even as they wink at the exploitation of the poorer classes they hope to con into voting for them, so they can forget their inconvenient excuse for another two years. 

In contrast, the progressive class -- led by its marquee attraction, Ocasio-Cortez, along with her familiar Squadmates, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley, and newer faces, like Jamaal Bowman -- all cruised to re-election. Any of the mummies care to explain that? 

I'm not expecting it, simply because the neoliberal crowd and its cronies never cop to their mistakes. It's easier to "shuck and duck," as I call it, and pass the buck somewhere else. I think Ocasio-Cortez has the most relevant answer, as her New York Times interview suggests:

"We need to do a lot of anti-racist, deep canvassing in this country. Because if we keep losing white shares and just allowing Facebook to radicalize more and more elements of white voters and the white electorate, there’s no amount of people of color and young people that you can turn out to offset that.

"But the problem is that right now, I think a lot of Dem strategy is to avoid actually working through this. Just trying to avoid poking the bear. That’s their argument with defunding police, right? To not agitate racial resentment. I don’t think that is sustainable."

Not to worry, though. Illinois Congressman Cheri Bustos, the architect of the failed House strategy -- or, roughly translated, "Vote for us, because we're not Trump, but forget about anything meaningful happening to improve your life" -- barely hung on against a Republican who received no major financial help. 

Yet Bustos is reportedly under consideration for a Cabinet post! What's that saying? Failure falls upwards. If you've got a better example, I'd love to hear it.

<"...Gone!"

The Reckoner>

<iv.>

Amid the gray puffs of gloom, some bright spots made themselves felt, which the mainstream media missed in its haste to bury the Democratic progressives. As Bernie Sanders noted in his weekly email, progressive ballot measures passed in several states, including proposals to increase taxes on those making $250,000 or more to fund public schools (Arizona), provide 12 weeks of paid family leave (Colorado), and raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026 (Florida). 

None are California-style liberal havens, by any stretch of the imagination, yet the success of these campaigns belies the Blue Dog narrative that throwing genuinely different ideas into the mix is an automatic deal breaker. People on the ground know better what's working for them, and what's not, than the donor classes and the talking heads who loudly declaim otherwise. How else did emerge Trump in the first place? Work it out, folks. It's not complicated.

Other bright spots included Adrian Tam, who beat an established incumbent, and a leader of the Proud Boys far right hate group, to become Hawaii's only openly gay state lawmaker. I'd also nominate Cori Bush, a single mother and ordained minister who became an organizer after the 2014 unrest of Ferguson, Missouri, and also raised two children as a homeless single mother. If that's not the definition of a hero, what is? 

What's more, Bush's victory ended the Clay family's 52-year dominance of her St. Louis area district. She did so, while supporting all the key Democratic progressive positions, including the $15 an hour minimum wage, Medicare for all, free college, and cancellation of student debt. Again, Missouri is hardly a liberal place, even if Bush will represent a district that Democrats have dominated since 1909, except for 17 months. She knocked off longtime incumbent Lacy Clay on her second try -- no small feat, since rematches typically favor the officeholder. If that's not a giant killer, what is?

The problem, though, is that Cori Bush isn't the type of candidate that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Senate counterpart, Chuck Schumer, seem to want. We covered this in our October 2019 post, "The Windowless Basement Hustle," referring to Schumer's brusque dismissal of a would-be Senate candidate, who proposed holding "100 town halls in 100 days," and go from there. "Wrong answer. We want you to spend the next 16 months in a windowless basement raising money," Schumer allegedly responded, in part. 

As we saw last week, that "windowless basement" strategy led to a lot of money getting flushed down the drain, or $626 million in 14 races, including $90 million alone for Amy McGrath's vanity campaign against the GOP Senate Majority Leader, Mitch The Mummy (McConnell, that is). 

This, despite McGrath barely surviving a primary against her progressive rival, Charles Booker; this, despite her burning up $8 million in a previously unsuccessful Congressional race; this, despite fumbling basic questions, like whether she'd have confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh (first she said no, then "probably," then no yet again). It's not surprising that McConnell rarely leaves the Senate floor these days without a crooked Joker-style grin. Why shouldn't he, with opponents so lacking in street smarts?

I'd also question why Democrats went all in with $70 million for Sarah Gideon in Maine, and $90 million for Jamie Harrison in South Carolina, who wound up losing to incumbents Susan Collins and Lindsay Graham by nine and 10 points, respectively. Both ran reasonably adept campaigns, particularly Harrison, yet in the grand scheme of things, a loss is still a loss, no matter how inspired you allegedly made people feel.

The runaway spending spree also backfired spectacularly in one other way: it allowed Republican reptiles like Graham and McConnell to shroud themselves in the mantle of democracy, even though it's hard to imagine two people who have done more to undermine it. 

Seeing gushers of money flowing from shadowy donors fighting over territory like a Louis Vuitton handbag isn't energizing; to many people, it's a numbing and depressing reminder of everything they detest about the system in the first place. Note to Chuck and Nancy: the Constitution starts with, "We the people." Not, "We, the people, in a windowless basement." There's a slight difference that you're not appreciating. 

With so much money flowing here, there and everywhere, you'd think the challengers and their campaigns would also have spread it further down the ballot, where it might have actually done more good. Amid all the national hoopla, it's easy to forget that tons of local and state candidates run with a fraction of the attention, money and organization that flows to a Gideon, or a Harrison. That's where tomorrow's national political stars typically start, yet nobody thinks that far ahead. 

As long as the Democratic leadership remains wedded to this peculiar model of cyber-corporate campaigning, with its cookie cutter messaging and tepid armada of hand-picked candidates, it can hardly expect stellar results. In contrast, the Republicans responded more nimbly to events, and made better overall strategic decisions, such as where to host Trump's rallies, or send his surrogates to attack rivals. Having less cash forces you to think more creatively. It feels downright weird to view the Republicans as the party of punk rock improvisation, but that's what last week seems to bear out.

Most relevantly of all, Democratic candidates need to up their game dramatically in the 2022 midterms, and 2024 Presidential race, if they ever hope to get out of the penalty box, and get a shot at finally passing some of those cherished priorities, like the Green New Deal, for instance, or Medicare For All. 

As we saw last week, merely telling voters, "We're not Trump," wasn't enough. What will the Blue Dogs and the donor classes who so eagerly subsidize them do when Trump inevitably departs from the scene, without the accompanying fear of his shadow, and the license to print money that it offers? It's a question well worth considering, before the failure to provide a decent answer dogs us forever.

Honestly, we can, and must, do better than trotting out the standard bromides and platitudes that the donor class feeds its hand-picked heroes ("We feel your pain, we have a plan, we'll get it right next time"), as Ocasio-Cortez told the New York Times: "This isn't even just about winning an argument. It's that if they keep going after the wrong thing, I mean, they're just setting up their own obsolescence."

I couldn't have said it better myself. Or, as Jimi Hendrix told his questioners, when they asked why he chose to play "The Star-Spangled Banner" as he did, with an array of feedback, and high decibel string bending: "We play it the way the air is in America today. The air is slightly static, see?" 

And therein lies the problem. See, I just can't shake the buzzing of all that static out of my eardrums, and neither should anyone else who cares about what's happening to our nation. Because the biggest fights lie ahead of us. -- The Reckoner

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The Squawker>

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