MILWAUKEE — Let’s stipulate — anyone who claims to know where the presidential race is heading is merely guessing. The whiplash the American electorate has experienced in this campaign is unprecedented, unless you devour too many conspiracy-driven political novels and dive down too many Reddit rabbit holes.
In just the last six weeks, we’ve gone from the conviction of Donald Trump on charges in New York to the debate debacle for Joe Biden that raised serious questions about his ability to serve another four years and now to an assassination attempt on Trump.
Any one of these developments would be classified as unprecedented. Put them together and it’s creating a stew that could turn quite toxic if we aren’t careful.
For months, one of the nagging questions I’ve had about this election is: How does the country handle the day after? Will the losing side accept defeat under the norms that have mostly held the country in place since at least the 1880 elections? More importantly, will the losing side accept the idea of not just losing but of accepting the fact that the winning side gets to govern legitimately?
Well, we are getting an early test. So far, it seems as if a decent number of elected leaders on both sides of the aisle are trying to channel the country’s better angels. Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to name two, have modeled good above-partisanship leadership. And both the former president and the current president have struck the right tones and notes of unity that we would all hope and expect of commanders in chief.
But let’s not pretend theirs are the only voices populating the conversation right now.
And thanks to the algorithmic cesspool of misinformation that big tech platforms created to profit from our information ecosystem, there are plenty of comments that can easily be categorized as divisive and designed to incite more violence, not less. Sadly, a handful of elected politicians have contributed to and amplified this conversation, which can easily be misconstrued by a mentally disturbed individual.
The online political debate has turned almost purely into an exercise in whataboutism. The hard partisans want to believe they are righteous while pointing to the other side as the ones fomenting a violent atmosphere. Many hard partisans refuse to accept that their rhetoric has contributed to the dark atmospherics of today’s politics, noticing only the ugly rhetoric of their political foes.
The fact is that we’ve all let political rhetoric get overheated in a fragmented information ecosystem in which the algorithms reward outrage and rhetoric that dehumanizes those we disagree with.
This current standoff between Trump and Biden is indicative of the divide. The two didn’t even shake hands before their debate. It’s a small gesture but one neither could muster. My fear is that neither campaign thought shaking hands was good base politics.
If they truly care about bringing the country together, they could agree to a joint political ad to run for the duration of the campaign — the two sitting next to each other, urging their supporters to disagree without being disagreeable. It’s a gesture the country desperately needs right now. Perhaps this is unlikely, though it’s not without recent precedent, as the contenders in Utah’s 2020 governor’s race showed with their joint ad preaching civility. But I’d rather be hopeful right now than cynical. I do fear neither campaign would agree to such a thing, sadly, for fear of how it plays politically. But again, here’s hoping.
But that’s the point. These two once and future presidents both need to chide themselves and their bases about the Armageddon-like rhetoric many use too regularly.
Is this a likely development in this campaign? Probably not, but it’s something the country badly needs, and it would behoove both nominees to consider it, because they both would like to have legitimacy as president if elected.
Ultimately, if we want a better and calmer politics, we the American electorate must demand it. We have to not fall into partisan traps and assume the worst of folks we disagree with politically.
It’s not healthy if the entire country treats this presidential election as our last if their side loses. I know I don’t believe that; I have a lot more faith in our democracy at the local and grassroots levels. But the number of so-called responsible elected officials who have claimed the democracy will end if their side loses is a really big part of the problem.
The whole reason humanity invented politics was to come up with a better way to settle disputes without violence. The second we introduce violence into the equation, that’s when we truly begin to lose the democracy.
We are now less than two years away from America’s 250th birthday. The next few weeks will test both parties and both nominees to see whether either or both can rise to the occasion so that whoever ends up presiding over that birthday can prove that we can keep this unique experience in self-governance alive and well.
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