Who hasn’t been up late in the night, reaching out for the phone to check the poll results just one last time before you go to sleep...?
And then just when you’re about to drift off to sleep, the great imponderable of this election floats into view: how is this race even close?
John Stoehr takes this question on at the Editorial Board. His answer is sobering and reassuring at the same time. Full article (www.editorialboard.com/...)
The idea usually comes from liberals and Democrats, who believe that Donald Trump is such a uniquely dangerous threat to democracy, liberty and the rule of law that it boggles the mind to see him running dead-even with Kamala Harris.
The foremost problem is that liberals and Democrats … presume that all Americans, by dint of being American, believe in democracy.
When liberals talk about democracy, Stoehr says, they imagine a universal democracy available to all citizens and fundamental rights that extends to all humans. Democracy for all is the ideal.
Not so for those staring back at us from the other side of those polling numbers:
This is their politics. They look at other human beings, but do not see other human beings. They see something less than human, animals perhaps, or vermin, that deserve not respect as much as annihilation. Cheating is acceptable. Violence is, too. Anything’s permissible when you are convinced that your enemy’s victory threatens your very existence.
Their idea of democracy extends only to a fraction of population, the shrinking fraction that they inhabit.
This is not to say that they do not believe in democracy. They do, but it’s an exclusive kind, one just for them – a democracy for white people. This is not to say that they don’t believe in equality. They do, but it’s an exclusive kind – an equality between men. Women have their place in society, but it’s always subordinate to a man’s place.
All of this has been on full display in this election, never more so than this past week. Stoehr doesn’t use these words, but their underlying belief system is rooted in white supremacy.
Stoehr ends with a positive take: it’s easier to fight when everyone can see exactly what is at stake and knows what they are up against.
If the race is indeed close, liberals and Democrats would benefit from reassessing their assumptions and realizing that they may be taking for granted past victories over the question of whether democracy should remain the exclusive kind or be expanded to be universal. To say the race shouldn’t be this close may sound savvy and sophisticated, but what it actually does is overlook the necessity of political combat.
No one in power ever gave freedom.
We have the numbers. We have the resources. We have the enthusiasm. We are ready and we are fighting.
When we fight, we win!