Will There be Blood on the Streets on November 2nd!??
The end of democracy seems to be drawing frighteningly near, when mainstream papers like Philip Elliott’s Oct 8th article in Time Magazine says “This is when the finale of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight series becomes prophecy: streets packed with an uprising and violence.”
Calm down everyone. It’s going to be a Democratic landslide and here’s a why.
Voter demographics are shifting in favor of a landslide defeat of Trump and the Republican senate. They know this and they are panicking too.
- Fox News is not the future of America: My personal liberal panic is so activated by Fox News blaring in my father-in-law’s house, and it’s much-publicized popularity. But Fox targets a dying demographic — 65+ year old white, non-college educated men who long for their heyday in the 1960s to 1980s. They form Trump’s most reliable base. (Foxocracy: Inside the Network’s Playbook of Tribal Warfare by Tobin Smith).The resentment, rage and tribalism as well as the addictive nature of Fox news stories hurts their elderly audience in very real ways, leading to social isolation and physical inactivity (the average Fox viewer spends 6 hours a day watching TV).
Even if Fox does have the highest viewership of any prime time news network at about 4 million viewers, the total of CNN + MSNBC viewers is higher at about 4.8 million as of June 2020. (• US cable news network viewership 2020) And 4 million viewers is still a tiny fraction of America’s 255 million potential voters.
2. Voter demographics that favor Democrats are shifting rapidly. The percent of non-white voters is increasing and leans Democratic — The Changing Racial and Ethnic Composition of the U.S. Electorate Pew Research. The percent of young voters likely to vote is increasing and they lean Democratic too. The educational level of Americans is rising and they also lean strongly Democatic. Women turn out to vote at higher levels than men (63 to 59% of eligible voters in 2016) and women lean strongly democratic at all educational levels and across ethinc and racial lines. Men and women in the U.S. continue to differ in voter turnout rate, party identification Pew Research)
3. Democratic voters will turn out, they must. Turn out is traditionally thought to benefit Democrats and this election promises to have record turnout. The Democratic base is just as energized and on a far larger scale than the much vaunted Trump base. We obviously cannot make the smug complacency mistake of 2016 again. But now we have energized old ladies, grandmas in Wisconsin and teachers like me are saying stuff like “I’m ready to put my life on the line!” You should be afraid! And don’t forget the leaf-blower dads protecting their protesting kids in Portland. Everyday people talk politics in America now. Young voters and Black voters are more engaged than ever before. It’s a huge change promising a landslide of astonishing proportions. Perhaps this is the darkest hour just before dawn.
4. While Republicans tend to vote more in person on election day, the clumsy voter suppression tactics will likely hurt Republican voters at a higher level than Democrats: reducing polling places and vote-by-mail will particularly hurt their own, key demographics trying to cast a ballot — elderly, white, rural people
The only way Trump and the Republicans can win is if they suppress all demographics except for white men, particularly older, non-college educated white men. Or if they convincingly lie about the outcome of the election.
5. How likely is a convincing lie about the outcome of the election, given this administrations’ track record? It would have to be coordinated across the thousands of voting precincts across the country. Considering that our current national government cannot get an adequate supply line for PPE going, no. A piss-up in a brewery? Not that either.
6. Let’s say that it’s not a landslide and there is some doubt as to the results. Are we in danger of white supremacist cells rising up and causing the civil war they want? Judging by Michigan Governor Whitmer’s botched kidnapping attempt probably not. If you are thinking of kidnapping and murdering a public figure, it might be smart to not use words like “kidnapping” in texts and e mails, along with the name of the official you have it in for. Watch political thrillers, guys. Take notes. No, actually. Don’t.
In the Bay Area, we cannot find enough Republicans to talk with across the political divide at “Braver Angels”. They are too afraid of being trolled or abused by the rather nice, middle aged Democrats who come to the meetings. So it’s pretty unlikely they will brave the streets of San Francisco Bay Area overrun as it would be with pink-pussy-hatted women, BLM supporters and other outraged liberals in the event of an election debacle.
7. I seriously doubt if the right has the numbers, the organization and the needed support of the military, CIA, FBI and State Police they’d need for an actual coup. It’s not enough to have influence with city police — another alarming idea as the NYPD endorsed Trump, along with many other local police forces.
The State Police or State Troopers are under the direct control of Governors. They were tasked with kicking out the Federal forces from the streets of Portland and are a formidable force. They can and will step in if there is misbehavior amongst city police forces, at least in the 25 states with Democratic governors. 11 governors are up for election including 7 Republican governors. I wonder how that will go in the likely Republican rout?
Would the military be part of a Trump coup? Extremely unlikely: The Joint Chiefs of Staff have tacitly refused to meet with the president, saying they are under quarantine and have made little secret of their feelings about the President’s pronouncements about the military and fallen heros.
The Secret Service has been forced to send it’s members into danger as the infected President wanted a drive-around. Would they protect him as soon as he is no longer president? I’m surprised they have not yet turned on him and have no doubt his personal detail will be happy to march him out of the Whitehouse at 12.01pm on January 20th, 2021.
8. Facebook is getting a moral compass: That repository of so much damaging misinformation before the 2016 election, Facebook Moves to Stop Election Misinformation. Finally.
9. Trump, the great dictator? No. The much promoted book “On Tyranny” on Maddow’s MSNBC show does paint a dark picture, but there is a level of planning, patience, plotting, charisma and self-discipline that is entirely out of the wheelhouse of the President let alone his increasingly unqualified and sycophantic advisors and agency heads. Yes, enormous damage has been done and we need to pay attention and fix our system, but Putin and Hitler are and were far more dangerous. (There Will Be No Trump Coup by Ross Douthat, NY Times Oct.10th, 2020)
Feeling a little reassured and calmed down? There’s more.
We have a desperate man at the helm for only a few, painful weeks more. He will do crazy shit, shaving off voters with every new tweet and interview. It’s not a cause for panic, and it’s not the time to denigrate his erstwhile supporters. They too, were desperate when they voted for him in 2016, and they have got much less than nothing from him and his administration: as their COVID benefits are cut, as jobs continue to drain from rural areas and as their health care through the Affordable Care Act is being threatened by their elected representatives.
Trump was their champion to defend them against the snark of metropolitan liberals. Being patronized is enraging to anyone. Liberals have fanned grievance to a white hot activism that animates Trump’s base more than self-interest. It’s tribal, it’s us-against-them-ism that Trump deeply feels, understands and voices. Otherwise polite, kind and decent people in rural areas have felt compelled to hold their noses and vote for a man they would never invite to dinner. They hoped he would also defend them against a rising tide of different people, a disappearing way of life and ways of earning a living. As for keeping taxes down, if you don’t have a job and don’t get your COVID stimulus check, tax cuts are maybe not at the top of your list of must-haves for a presidential candidate. Pennsylvania is a vital swing state for Trump and yet, unemployment there has spiked to 14% under Trump. He leaves most of his 2016 supporters much worse off, all promises broken.
So. Going forward fellow liberals:
1. Stop panicking and losing sleep. We are statistically and demographically very unlikely to lose American democracy.
2. Plan how you’ll vote — Filling out my ballot this Sunday afternoon with internet at hand for crucial down-ballot decisions. Nag your friends about it persistently, and volunteer for effective, get-out-the-vote organizations. See Register Friends and Family to Vote | Progressively Speaking and Voting Isn’t Enough: How to Get Your Friends and Family to Take Action for research-based tips.
3. And finally, resist the ‘serves you right’ urge dressed up as satire and mockery. Not only cruel but it will hurt already hurting people and fan what we fear the most — hatred turning into violence. Start by signing the Braver Angels Hold America Together Letter.
Let us do the hard, brave thing: Love thine enemy. With actions, if not sentiment to start:
A first priority for a Democratic-controlled government should be to address the real grievances that landed Trump in the Whitehouse in the first place:
Jobs, opportunity and the dignity of a meaningful life, the real American dream.
Let’s prioritize green economy jobs in the heartland — solar panel manufacturing in particular.
Let’s fund ‘new deal’ type programs so that people who cannot find full time work can do something meaningful with their days: free higher education for anyone who wants it, making public art or performance for their communities, reading stories to children at the local school, fixing bikes to give to anyone who needs one, building trails, conservation work, peace corp work, military service, government funded apprenticeships and internships, hospital visitors for patients who have no family and on and on. All those non-essential but greater good activities that will make America into a kinder, gentler place and give skills for people to get back into the workforce (or take a break from it). We can afford this, maybe we can’t afford not to.
Yes, there is a huge need to roll back the attrition of vital agencies and infrastructure of our democratic society, and of the environmental damage done by the Trump administration. There is a huge need to put policies in place to limit presidential power and to ensure that we are never again in such a precarious place. The influence of money on our democracy has to be re examined as does the role of police.
At a deeper level, we have to shift the culture of our nation away from selfish individualism and toward innovative, imaginative and kind individualism and communalism, distinct from communism. We have to unite to turn back the tide quite literally — climate change is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced.
We inherit this nation together. It’s time for a great uprising of grace, wisdom and reconciliation.
Sue Boudreau M.Ed. is a science educator, writer, mother of an activist son, and a Teacher of the Year for a top performing district in California. She is a frequent contributor to the Progressively Speaking channel on Medium, runs The Take Action Science blog since 2007 and is a co-leader of a chapter of “Braver Angels” — an organization that seeks to reach across the divide even in these turbulent times.
