APOCALYPSE DEFERRED

The midterm elections brought us back from the brink and have given us space to revitalize our democracy.

Never have I been so glad to have been so wrong. I am not an alarmist nor certainly a Pollyanna. I'm admittedly an intellectual rigorist who strives to proportionalize my beliefs and conclusions to the facts. In this regard, I believed that the midterm elections just past would mark the inflection point, precipitating the beginning of the end of American democracy. Nothing lasts forever, and there can be no guarantees that the American experiment will endure. I looked in vain for any empirical evidence providing hope and found none. Yet, the worst did not happen, and America has gained time and space to set the ship of state aright.

The first lesson is that polls are generally a poor predictor of our electoral future. They entice with the allure of science gussied up with the cache of sophisticated analytics. But they badly misled us six years ago in predicting a sizable victory of Clinton over Trump. I should have learned my lesson, but I conclude that wishful thinking overrode their fallibility. They failed us again. The pundits told us, reinforced by incessant media pronouncements, that in midterm elections the electorate will favor candidates opposed to the party affiliation of the occupant of the White House. But they were wrong.

What is more true is that no one can predict the future. I recall that virtually no pundit nor learned expert predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union even five years before it occurred. As a humanist, I believe that the future is an open future. If I were a Christian evangelical or an orthodox Jew, I would believe in a closed future: that the end of history is foreordained. But this is not my faith. My faith in an open future itself should provide a source of hope. The prevailing reality is that political winds can rapidly reverse their course and change direction, often driven by dynamics that are veiled. But this time I was not sufficiently mindful of my own fundamental convictions.

Again, I am glad I am wrong. There was no “red tsunami.” Democrats won the Senate, and, despite assurances to the contrary, almost took the House of Representatives. Arguably, the most important victories were not realized by the winners of the federal offices, but, at the humdrum level of state officialdom. Democracy's weakest joints are in the hands of state administrators who oversee the transformation of popular votes into the candidate's electoral votes. It is here that the greatest mischief can be done and legal strictures are least binding. The New York Times had reported that almost 300 candidates at all levels were election deniers, adhering to the preposterous “big lie” that Trump had won the 2020 election and Biden had lost. Clinging to this absurdity has fortuitously fractured the Republican Party, dividing it between Trump loyalists and those Republicans, however reprobate, self-serving, craven, and hollow their politics, who still choose to adhere to the reality-based world. It is astounding that our politics has come to this point. But given current realities, we need to be grateful for small things. All the election deniers in the most important swing states lost their elections .such as Blake Masters, Mehmet Oz, Adam Laxalt, Doug Mastriano, Tudor Dixon, and others. Moreover, there was little election denying this time around. It is in these losses that reality is redeemed, and the march toward autocracy has been pulled back – at least for the moment.

Despite predictions, when entering the polls a surprising number of Americans were obviously infused with a dose of reality. They realized that democracy was at stake and mattered more than the pain engendered by the cost of gasoline. They so concluded despite the endless messages about Biden's low ratings, the alleged extremism of the Democrats, the high level of inflation, rising crime, and unmanageable borders, all ginned up to the point of hysteria by Republicans who offer absolutely no positive solution, unless one concludes destroying social security and Medicare to be such.

I conclude that the Dobbs decision, rescinding the constitutional right to an abortion, that had stood for 50 years, and the chaos which has followed, was also a major deciding factor. It is an ominous irony that while the American populace is slowly becoming more progressive, the judiciary is moving further to the right. It is creating a schism, and how it will play out in the future is, again, unpredictable. We need a judiciary that is more reflective of the American people and their constitutional rights. Moreover, the younger generations tend to be more progressive and less enchanted with reactionary social issues than older Americans and they came out to vote in larger numbers than usual.

What lies ahead? Again, it can only be suppositious. I believe that with this election Trump has been marginalized. The Republican Party will search out new leadership. But this alone does not suggest that we are beyond the dangers we have, at the moment, kept at bay. Trump has declared his candidacy for 2024, and as such he remains prominently positioned to wreak chaos. But even if Ron DiSantis emerges as the head of the party, we can by no means rest easy. DiSantis himself has been an election denier and perpetrator of destructive political theater. He has more than one foot in Trump's camp and will summon it to augment his power. Some speculate that his presidency would be even more dangerous than Trump's in that DiSantis is a more deeply grounded political operative and is more politically savvy.

But beyond the internecine power struggles that will define the Republican Party for the foreseeable future, the relative marginalization of Trump does not eradicate the tectonic forces that gave rise to Trump and have poisoned the political landscape with their nihilism and irrationality.

With or without Trump, American society on the ground remains dangerously divided and tribalized. As long as it remains such, democracy is thinned out and autocratic alternatives darken our political skies.

This puts renewed pressure on the leaders of the Democratic Party to reassure Americans that democracy is worth preserving. The appeal to authoritarianism is easy to proclaim. To sustain democracy is much more complex and its emotional appeal more rarefied.

I remain of the conviction that the surest road to maintaining belief in our system of government is to prove through successful programs that government can make the lives of citizens more secure, more prosperous, and, therefore, more hopeful.

I am not an economic determinist, but I do believe in the foundational role of economics to shape the values of men and women. In short, we need radical economic restructuring. Economic classes are viciously divided and the frenetic power of our market-driven system, which places astronomical wealth in the hands of ruling elites who shape the values of society as a whole, is simply incompatible with a democratic form of government. Stagnant wages and the reality that upward mobility has stalled destroy belief in the future and hope along with it. It is my contention that such hopelessness is a main driver that turns people inward, drives hard divisions centered on political positions, and creates the conditions that generate the irrationality that has come to characterize our society.

And then there is the hatred and hate-driven violence, which again has been manifest in the recent, horrific, murders at a club frequented by members of the LGBTQ community. Bigotry seems to be aflame in American society and xenophobic, racist, and anti-Semitic violence is reaching a feverish pitch.

Here the marginalization of Donald Trump may make a difference. The causes are deeper than the instigation and scapegoating of one man. America has gone through such paroxysms of violence before, targeting Blacks and immigrants most of all. American demographics are changing. For many Whites America no longer feels like their country. However beleaguered they might be, White Americans could still exercise the dubious privilege of looking down on others with darker skin and garner the sense of superiority that they belonged here while others didn't. As such the extremism we endure may be the final desperate reaction of a shrinking cohort that recognizes that it is losing the culture wars, and over time, through demographic change and the emergence of younger, more progressive generations, the numbers will shrink below the threshold of significant political efficacy.

The last election has bought time for those Americans who value the importance of democracy and the essential place of democracy in sustaining fundamental freedom. What's required now is democracy's revitalization. Democracy is as democracy does, and the time has never been greater for renewed activism on the ground to ensure democracy's endurance. We need to work to promote democratic values in all tiers of society – in our communities and neighborhoods, at the level of state government, and in the promotion of humane policies and leadership at the national level. America is an aspirational nation ever striving for perfection. Such is the American faith, and it needs to be actualized now more than ever.