Kent Kanouse/Flickr

The Case for Optimism

In the midst of crisis

Alex Ostroff
Aug 28, 2017 · 14 min read

In Ta Nehisi-Coates’ incredible interview and subsequent article featuring our now former president, he frequently made the case that Barack Obama is fundamentally an optimist, and that it was his optimism that allowed him to briefly bridge the racial divides that have run through this country since before its founding. Even at the end of his presidency, in an era of widespread cynicism and distrust, Obama still hoped for change we could believe in. But every passing year it became harder and harder to believe along with him.

I used to think of myself primarily as an optimist when it came to politics, but in the wake of Trump’s win I’ve largely suppressed those instincts. I no longer imagine ideal outcomes, or predict events based on how people might act at their best.

In fact, I’ve started to expect the worst at every turn. For many, the election was a total refutation of our intuitions, of our faith in prognosticators and experts, of our entire outlook for the future of the country. It overwhelms us with a feeling that “anything can happen now,” in the sense that no future is too grim or dystopian to consider seriously. We’ve seen what we’re capable of, and it’s terrifying.

Some might respond to this change of heart by saying — “Good. You didn’t know how bad things were. How evil our country is and always will be. How horribly we’re screwed. Now you do.”

Maybe.

The thing is, I don’t think all the optimistic thoughts I have are wrong. I think some are very correct, despite my own resistance to accepting them. And I think it’s worth considering a few.

Donald Trump is Terrible at Being President

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

This one might seem obvious, but it helps to consider an alternate world where Trump is good at being president. And I don’t even mean good by my standards, or yours. I mean the standards of his base, of Republicans, of moderates, and of the vast media ecosystem that starts to salivate the moment a politician says, “Hey, let’s do a war!”

Imagine a world where Donald Trump has a normal adult attention span, understands long term strategic planning, cares about ideals beyond his own brand — you know, normal human being stuff. Imagine the world where that Trump has just won, and decides he is going to run the country as best he can according to what he laid out in his campaign.

What might he have done? Well, he could have given up Twitter, for one. He could have started with an infrastructure bill, which would have been a tough issue for Democrats to run away from. (Just ask Bernie.) He could have hired people who worked well together, and inspired them to do their jobs dutifully, with a sense of pride and unity. He could have distanced himself from his businesses and properties, and kept his kids out of politics. He could have golfed less.

For a while it seemed that to criticize Trump for the same things we harped on during the campaign was to ignore the lesson we had learned in November — that none of it mattered to enough people to make a difference. But as has become clear in the ongoing debate over Trump’s tenure so far, his cohort’s entire narrative has always, and will always, be defined by opposition. And without an opponent, Team Trump has been lost at sea. All of the criticisms that dogged him during the election — his sexism, his racism, his short attention span, his dog-eat-dog management style, his lack of policy knowledge — they were always countered with a “whatabout.” Usually directed at Hillary, or Obama.

Without a clear enemy (and Obama and Hillary have been careful not to give him one), Trump’s messages are far less effective. This is why the “deep state” narrative became so enticing to the Hannitys of the world — it lets them pretend to still be anti-establishment, even as their party controls every branch of government. Going against the grain is Trump’s only mode, and the media machine that created him works similarly. Since the election, Fox News has regularly lost to MSNBC in the ratings for the first time in years. Breitbart has also seen falling numbers this year. And both have lost advertisers and critical personalities.

And I haven’t even mentioned the Russia scandal.

The rolling Russia revelations this year have been difficult to keep track of, and early on it was hard to escape the sense that the scandal couldn’t possibly be as huge as some feared, or have the serious consequences we hoped for.

But if on the day of Trump’s inauguration I had floated the following hypothetical situations at you, what do you think you’d have said? If I’d suggested that Jeff Sessions would have to recuse himself from the investigation, because of improper contacts with Russians that he “forgot” to mention during his confirmation hearings? Or that James Comey would be fired for his persistence in that investigation, and Trump would admit that was the reason for firing him? If I’d suggested we would have a special prosecutor with a team of top mafia and white-collar crime lawyers combing through Trump’s finances within his administration’s first six months? If I had described an email exchange where Trump’s son literally wrote “I love it” in response to an offer for dirt on Hillary, as part of “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump?”

You’d have said I was living in the Democrat’s fantasy world, where the Russia scandal is real and Trump did stupid, guilty things. You’d have said I was being too optimistic.

It’s beyond clear now that Trump’s Russia situation is going more terribly for him than any Democrat could have possibly dreamed. Meanwhile many of his most high-profile initiatives have fallen apart spectacularly, while his administration stumbles through crisis after crisis of his own making. Am I willing to bet that Trump won’t finish his term, for some reason or another? Honestly sure — I’d take that bet, at this point. The odds aren’t bad. He won’t “pivot” or “recover” because he isn’t capable. If you think we’ve hit the nadir of this presidency, you are continuing to overestimate the monstrous buffoons running the circus.

The Left is Not More Divided than the Right

Since January, my Twitter feed has become a perpetual battle between Center Left and Far Left🌹, a never ending debate over who is more to blame for the country’s problems. It can be discouraging and exhausting, reading snarky take after snarky take, each accusing the other side of hurting our cause more.

But is the schism really as bad as it seems on the internet? Hard to say, definitively, but there are some reasons why I remain skeptical it will end up hurting the Democrats more than it helps them grow.

For one thing, from a purely ideological perspective, the left agrees on far more than the right does. The majority of the left’s disagreements come down to degree and execution — how high should the minimum wage be, how much should the government support our health care, how quickly can we implement the changes we want to see. But the current Republican party houses factions that hold completely irreconcilable policy differences.

A perfect case study of this fact is the recent battle over healthcare. The GOP wrote their bill in secret, and lied throughout the process about what the consequences of its passing would be. They were forced to lie and obfuscate because they had spent years attacking Obamacare on whatever grounds they could, including in ways that completely betrayed the party’s true intentions with regards to healthcare. They fixated on too-high premiums and insufficient coverage, and yet their policy goals were eventually revealed to be a giant tax cut for the rich, at the expense of the poor, sick, and elderly. Trump promised “great healthcare for everyone,” but his party remains suicidally committed to supply side economics, even as they have mostly eliminated “trickle-down” from their TV vocabulary. They used vague terms like “freedom” and “choice” to euphemize what their bill was actually doing. This wasn’t a difference of how much to cut Obamacare by, or how soon to do it, their party was incapable of agreeing on even the basic question of what needs to be fixed in America’s healthcare system.

Putting aside the divisions among Republicans though, I still see reason to hope for those worried about the leftist / liberal divide.

What animates that worry, exactly? What do we fear might happen? It varies depending on the side in question. Leftists would likely say their fears are that the liberal Democratic establishment is continuing its stranglehold on the party, engaging in dirty tricks to get their guy in as DNC chair, continuing to attend glitzy fundraisers with anyone who might throw them a check, while still managing to lose out to the RNC in small-dollar donations.

Meanwhile, the liberal establishment Democrats are worried that too much negativity and intra-party fighting will hurt the party and reward Trump. They fear the far left’s litmus tests are destined to handicap the party’s ability to field the best possible candidates for any given situation.

I’d argue all of these fears are overblown. They’re fueled by an internet economy that rewards outrage, and by our modern-day ability to cobble together our own worst impression of the opposition by selecting the Tweets and articles from the other side’s worst actors. Some of the most heated arguments I’ve seen on the left this year arose from Bad Tweets. In the grand scheme of things, it looks petty and small.

Is the Democratic establishment resistant to giving up its control? Of course. Is it the same old story of the liberal establishment seeking to triangulate and moderate in order to win back voters lost to Republicans? Not quite. The progressive wing of the party is more powerful now than at any other point in my lifetime. Prospective presidential candidates are running to the left, and all signs point to a large 2020 candidate field that fights over who can be the most authentically progressive. Hillary’s rhetoric tacked to center to try to convince suburban Republicans not to vote for Trump, but her actual platform had already been pushed dramatically left by Bernie’s success. Cory Booker, often lambasted by the left for his ties to Wall Street and Big Pharma money, has come out with a nationwide marijuana legalization bill. Kamala Harris, another potential frontrunner in 2020 who has come under fire from progressives, has expressed support for single-payer, the $15 minimum wage and for making college free for low and middle income families.

I’m not saying the Democrats are all flawless here, or that they’re fully embracing Bernie’s democratic socialism, but the movement in the party is very clearly to the left. The standard criticisms I see from leftists still seem to reflect an impression that the party is poised to totally betray its left flank in the upcoming 2018 and 2020 elections. There are plenty of individual voices and events that can support that idea, but Neera Tanden and Joy Reid are not steering the Democrats into the future, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are. (And no, it doesn’t matter that Bernie is an Independent. That’s cosmetic. He was a serious contender for the party’s nomination. That’s reality.)

As for establishment fears of a fractured party that loses elections due to low turnout and third party spoilers…it’s an even bigger fantasy that has little evidence to support it. Bernie fought hard for Hillary during the general election (something that could not be said for Trump’s opponents in his own party), and his tenacity during the primary was his right as a candidate. Go ahead and try to find a single prominent Bernie surrogate who sincerely advocated against voting for Clinton in the general. It’s far more difficult than you might expect (as I discovered while writing this piece). The only reason liberals constantly point to the Susan Sarandon clip where she seems ambivalent about a vote for Hillary is because there aren’t any other high profile examples like it.

And Jill Stein, as easy as it is to want to blame her, did not cost the Democrats the election. Absent a third party option, there is very little reason to think that her voters would have gone out to vote at all. As far as her effect as a vote suppressor goes, it seems unlikely she ever had a national platform large enough to do serious damage to turnout.

In fact, something I’ve noticed since the election is that the only people still talking about Jill Stein are centrist liberals. Similarly, the only people still talking about Hillary Clinton are leftists. And Republicans, looking to instigate, talk about both. Neither Hillary nor Jill will shape the future of the Democratic Party, except as examples of what not to do.

When there’s an army of angry, snarky, anonymous commenters waiting to berate us all for every opinion we venture online, it’s easy for everyone to feel persecuted, for everyone to feel like the underdog. Both Jonathan Chait and Glenn Greenwald get an onslaught of terrible Twitter aggression thrown their way any time they say anything at all, and I imagine it’s hard not to be constantly on the defensive as a result. Internet anger makes us all feel perpetually under attack, and encourages us to be more suspicious and hostile towards each other than is actually warranted.

But when the rubber hits the road, and elections are on the line, and the stakes are higher than retweets and likes, both sides care more about tangible outcomes than about internecine fighting. I believe those shared goals will win out in the coming years.

The Kids are All Left

The incomparable Chelsea Manning

When I try to point out to folks that the numbers of young people who are overwhelmingly more liberal than previous generations is cause for celebration, Trump or no Trump, I am often greeted by some version of this quote:

That picture is from Google Images, and it’s not the only one like it:

It’s a popular quote, but like most Churchill quotes, he never actually said it. Earliest known instances of the quote date back as far as 1875.

And yet — bizarrely — this quote has become a pretty substantial pillar for anyone seeking to downplay the dire situation the Republican brand is facing in the coming decades. It’s a squishy sort of theory that fits with our most basic ideas about partisanship and age in modern America. The young are the most liberal generation now, just as they were when our parents were young in the 60’s. Liberals are more emotional, empathetic — hence “heart.” Conservatives are more analytical, statistical — hence “brain.” In reality those are patently incorrect word associations, especially these days, but as with most cultural prejudices, an intellectual understanding of their wrongness doesn’t stop us from making the assumptions.

A very simple way to debunk the faux-Churchill quote is by looking at how Republicans have done with young voters over the last few decades. Kristen Soltis Andersen, a Republican pollster who has been sounding the alarm on the party’s issues courting millennials, lays out these details fairly convincingly:

So rather than there being some grand trend showing age affecting partisanship across the country, we see much more that it’s the social and political movements these generations were forged in that sets their politics — often for life.

And as I detailed a year and a half ago when it first became clear that Bernie had captured the hearts and minds of young Americans — we are a generation perfectly poised to be exceedingly liberal, and to care deeply about social justice. Our adolescence was marked by crisis after crisis, each powerfully informing our ideas about American politics. The excesses of war, greed, ignorance, and bigotry have been laid bare in the last 20 years, and this last year only cemented in our minds the notion that the people in charge are woefully incapable of righting our country’s wrongs, let alone forging a promising path forward.

The GOP was once highly aware of this looming disaster for the party. After their loss in 2012, they repeatedly articulated a desire to attract younger voters, more diverse voters. The response from their base, a base they had riled up with racist dog-whistles and unhinged propaganda for years, was to revolt. They pulled to the right, and lifted Donald J. Trump to the highest office in the land. They doubled down on racism, on idiocracy, and I promise we won’t be forgetting or forgiving them any time soon.

Beyond simple intuition, the data shows that the GOP is in serious longterm trouble, no matter their political power at the moment. The sub-headline from a recent Pew Research study, where the same respondents were repeatedly polled over a 14 month period (December 2015 to March 2017), tells the story: during this stretch, “nearly a quarter of young Republicans left the GOP.” In a time of incredible political “stickiness,” that is a staggering number of defections over a relatively short period of time.

The Republican Party has control of all three branches of government, and state governments across the map. But their brand is in serious trouble, and Donald Trump is far from the hip new face they needed to reverse the destiny of demography.

Cynicism does not Equal Prescience

2016 taught us that yes, anything can happen in American politics. It will be necessary to keep that in mind every day that we move forward under this hellish administration. Because of what happened last year, we are mostly only capable of imagining the ways that limitless possibility could lead to further catastrophe and chaos, further violence and oppression. But the primary reason we’re closing off our imagination to the positive potential is to protect ourselves — from partisan bias, from disappointment, from being wrong.

Yes, gerrymandering and voter suppression are clear and present problems for the Democrats. Yes, the Democratic Party on the whole is in bad shape, especially relative to where we once imagined we’d be. But to resign ourselves —the American Left — to continued defeats and erosions of civil rights is to limit ourselves, to curb our potential. We have to go into 2018 with the hope that the country can come back from this, that the left can come back from this. The same way our disastrous defeat in 2004 gave way to the incredible wins of 2008, the tragedy of 2016 must inspire us to accomplish things we have yet to even imagine possible.

We’ve learned that anything can happen in American politics. Let’s not squander that gift.

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Alex Ostroff

Written by

Brown University Class of 2014, AB in Computer Science. Passionate about people, politics, art, storytelling, and technology.

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