Disconcerting States #2
Installment Two — Day 1, USA: November 4, 2024.
By John Dean
I am now on United Airlines flight 914, Paris France to Washington DC, economy class, seat 33C, off to the Promised Land. Yes, with the tasty rubber of airline chicken or soggy paper pizza delight for lunch. While on the bus out of Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport I saw headlined on the city’s kiosk’s displayed magazines: “The American election! Who will lead the world’s economy tomorrow?” — with face to face fleshy silhouettes of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Or another stormy headline “America: the Battle Begins” with the White House under siege. Another: “But how do the US elections work?”. Good question. Does it work? And can either candidate win without the Electoral votes from Pennsylvania? And what is Pennsylvania but Philadelphia at one end, Pittsburgh at the other end, and Alabama in between?
Here, now, later, in-country and Stateside — my local TV station tells me that even the pollsters don’t trust the polls. Pollsters agree their “conclusions” are off by at least 3%, but likely more. There is no crystal ball. Perhaps there’s only that great messy medieval metal ball flail of history mowing down everything in its path. Then we figure out what happened afterwards.
The US Presidential election stews the brew here. Now the acid test approaches. Tomorrow is “E” day, not “D” day — the Election when the great fleet of votes land on the targeted assault beach of National Leadership. To witness a turning point land of cultural, social, political, personal change for better or worse.
Strange, atypical, singular. What’s the right word for what feels like this utterly un-right, off-balance phenomenon of the 2024 twenty-first century unprecedented US Presidential election? Better if this election was held on Halloween? The stark contrasts of the beast sticking out like some kind of zebra porcupine chimera.
Consider some of the realities and principles at play….
There’s the principles of today’s Democratic Party versus today’s Republican Party. A policy and spirit of inclusiveness versus exclusiveness, of empathy versus entertainment. “All men are created equal” said the nation’s sacred, secular text the Declaration of Independence. But equal who, how, and where?
Donald Trump versus Kamala Harris. This is a seriously fantastic battle of the sexes. It’s like an old T Rex versus a dolphin. C’mon, are American women equal to men? Specially when it comes to the nation’s highest position of leadership, at rest and leading from that oaken Resolute desk in the White House’s Oval Room?
Religious issues. From the nation’s Evangelicals, one is called the Savior, the other is called the Antichrist. Where does this religious extremism go? The downfall of spiritual discordance here is overwhelming. Makes me think I could put a rain of exclamation points over these paragraphs like flood waters rushing through Valencia.
Immigrant issues. But aren’t each of them of fresh immigrant stock? What’s the battle? This is a nation — the nation — of immigrants. He is third generation German on his dad’s side, second generation Scottish on his mom’s. She is second generation Indian from her mother’s Brahmin caste side, and second generation from her father’s Jamaican side. Say the word: minority. There is no returning.
Their respective audiences are also two versions of one thing, US populism. One is right-wing populism and the other is left-wing populism. The exclusive, America-for-Americans credo and Reagan’s Make America Great Again slogan versus the inclusive principle that America is one out of many. It’s a tense play of ideas and key words with a deep logos: of sectarianism and plutocracy versus pluralism and multiculturalism.
Is the American dream about money, I got mine, how much do you make?, whites only, screw you Jack — or is it about “a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement,” as James Truslow Adams wrote in his seminal 1931 book The Epic of America? Or “I have a dream!” as another man once said on the well-worn marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC?. A lot is on the line here.
Americans now commonly complain about the lack of an equitable, balanced America. Okay, but how to balance the scales? Where’s the center? What a stretch from one side to the other. The nation seems to scream for bipartisanship. There’s a call. But where’s the answer? Nobody seems to be able to get it. Yet.
A house divided against itself cannot stand. Can the US government endure half exclusive, half inclusive? The US Union won’t dissolve tomorrow November 5, 2024. How can the United States of America continue to thrive and exist with these internal pressures? It profoundly tested at this moment. That is…the end, a beginning, a return, or a strange new branch in the road of this Great Experiment of American democracy?
More tomorrow, November 5th, 2024, USA Election Day.