Election | Author Sean T. Smith

All we seem to do is fight! The insults, the hate, the verbal assaults! Grrr!

As of this writing, the votes are still being counted in the 2020 Presidential election, and the lawsuits are starting. The internet is rife with mean-spirited memes and declarations of woe from both sides. Joe Biden needs only 6 more Electoral Collage votes to clinch the election, and people are going insane.

Both sides are in a state of shock. Liberals are appalled that Donald Trump got 3 million more votes this year than he did in 2016, after 233,000 COVID deaths and a nonstop string of tone-deaf gaffes and blunders too long to go into. Conservatives believe that the country is taking a turn to communism, and that Biden and the dreadful Kamala Harris will be coming for their guns and bibles and first-born children.

There is no middle ground.

Both sides view your choice of candidate as a kind of litmus test. Most of my liberal friends (and I am liberal, duh!) have been purging their social media of Trump supporters. They say things like “if you’re a Trump supporter, unfriend me now.” Many liberals believe that if someone voted for Trump, the only possible explanation is that they are some combination of racist, ignorant or cruel.

A political choice becomes a moral test. Friendships and families are ripped apart because of it. How are people okay with this?

Trump supporters view liberals as the enemy of democracy and capitalism. They are fearful that a Biden presidency means stripping away civil liberty, increased taxes. They view liberals as unpatriotic, Godless, arrogant, and immoral.

Surging Tribalism

The entire “us versus them” mentality that has gripped the nation is inherently unhealthy. If it continues to this degree, there’s no way it can end well for the country.

Biden ran a campaign based around unifying the country, and ran only 10% attack ads. Trump was all about attacking, sowing doubt about the electoral process from the time he got elected in 2016, spreading conspiracy theories that his followers devoured like ice cream on a hot summer day.

The fact is, even if Biden is sworn in, he faces an uphill battle, likely an impossible one, to unify the country. His pleas for unity fell upon deaf ears for half of the country.

COVID-19 could have been a unifying event for the country; we have lost more Americans to the virus than we did in the first two World Wars. Usually wars have a way of unifying the country. Not so with COVID, which has been so politicized that it only served to divide us further even as it continues to kill and spread.

Irreconcilable Differences

We are split as a country along various lines. The rural versus urban divide is likely the most obvious. The underlying racial, economic, and religious divides are obvious. Regionally, we have enormous divisions between the north, south, Midwest, and west coast.

A bit of historic perspective…

We have always been divided, despite our name. Leading up to the Revolution, 1/3 of the population supported the Crown. Following the Revolution, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists fought bitterly for the soul of the country at its inception. Before the Civil War, the north and south were economic rivals and ultimately went to war at a cost of over 600,000 American lives.

The Industrial Revolution brought a seismic shift from an agrarian economy to huge growth in our cities. The surge of immigrants and refugees helped to boost our economy and the idea that we were a “melting pot” took root. The Great Depression and World War Two unified us for a brief time, until the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War clarified our differences yet again. But the differences were always there.

Guns and Lawyers

I predict that the United States will cease to exist as we know it within fifty years. It will disassemble into four to six separate nations, mostly without bloodshed, in the way of a somewhat amicable divorce. Everybody is going to hurt, but if we cannot fix what’s broken, then it will be for the best.

Intolerance seems to be the norm, and a lack of communication, understanding, and forgiveness is on the rise. All we do these days is scream at each other, shifting the blame, and no one is happy.

I hope I’m wrong.

Donald Trump saying “YOUR FIRED”
NBC Upfront for 2005-2006 Fall Line up, at Radio City Music Hall, New Tork City. May 16, 2005.
John Spellman / Retna Ltd.

When Trump threw his toupee into the ring back in June, I dismissed him, like most Americans did, as a pretender grandstanding to satisfy his ego. The latest polls have him more than ten points ahead of the closest Republican contender, and giving Hillary Clinton a serious run for her money in the national general election. How is this possible?

Trump the “straight shooter”

Trump seems to have no filter, and this resonates with Americans sick of politicians speaking from both sides of their mouths. Folks are willing to overlook his faux pas and blunt insults because it appears to be honest, and that’s preferable to business as usual from the beltway. I totally get being disgusted with lying, cheating politicians.

What I don’t understand is how Trump supporters can’t see his bullshit for what it is. He is one of the greatest salesmen in the world, and perhaps that’s why when he makes things up, people swallow the hook. He’s lied about his own draft record, claiming he had a high draft number, when actually he had multiple student deferments, and recently insulted John McCain for being a POW. He lied about his net worth, claiming that it exceeded TEN BILLION DOLLARS (caps from The Donald) when his net worth is actually 2.9 billion, according to a recent Bloomberg investigation.

He has called global warming a hoax, insulted Mexican immigrants, though he is sure that “some of them are good people,” and laughed off sexual assaults within the U.S. military. He claims that he invented his campaign slogan, when he adopted Regan’s.

Trump the tough guy

Trump presents himself as a tough guy. He’s going to take America back from China. He’s going to stand up to Putin, and challenge him to a knife fight in front of the White House, one shirtless ego against another. He’s going to go to war with Iran, because, well, Iran. He will put boots on the ground to stop ISIS, and the tide of radical Islam will flee before his mighty shadow.

Right.

He says these things, and people believe him because he seems to believe it himself, transmuting his own cognitive dissonance to the rest of a nation hungry to believe.

And that is deadly, end-of-the-world stuff. Saying a thing is true doesn’t make it so. We need a president who is level-headed and has a firm grasp upon geopolitics. Someone who speaks softly, and carries a big stick. Trump is the opposite. He shouts, rather than speaks, drowning out anyone who dares to contradict him.

Smashing the field

He has gutted his fellow Republican contenders, relishing in the insults and meanness, pandering to the cameras. The other politicians don’t seem to know how to fight Trump, and they’re getting kicked in the head while he gloats over them like the puffed up school yard bully that he is. The scary thing is that people like this.

Anyone who consistently refers to themselves in the third person is unfit to lead a nation.

Muddy and Vague

His platform on a wide range of important issues, from immigration to the economy is vague. He makes great claims without the means to back them up, which is typical of politicians, but particularly ironic coming from a man running as an anti-politician.

The 2016 election

Don’t underestimate Trump. He might win. What seems more likely, though, is that he will deliver the election to Hillary. That’s probably why Bill Clinton called the Donald on the phone, encouraging him to run.

Trump’s negative ratings among voters remain high. He’s not polling well among women, and has all but lost the crucial Latino vote. In the vital swing states of Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, he trails both Clinton in a match up. Since 1960, the road to the Oval Office goes through these states.

Republicans have good reason to worry. So does the rest of the world.