I’m really sick of all the analysis of the 2020 Election that tries to portray it as some sort of reaffirmation of Donald Trump and Trumpism.
Let’s Start With the Basics
Joe Biden just broke a historic record by tallying up more than 80 Million votes — over 7 Million more than Donald Trump, and more than 11 Million more than Barack Obama in 2008. He ran better against an incumbent President than any candidate since FDR in 1932.
This is not to say, necessarily, that Biden was a better campaigner than Obama. That’s kind of the point. The point is that the movement behind this campaign — a movement to transform America for the better, which is often aligned with (but is never synonymous with) the Democratic Party — has been growing at an average rate of nearly 1 Million voters per year over this last decade. There is no reason to believe that in the 2020s, that rate of growth will slow.
Let’s Talk About the Fundamentals
We keep hearing about the demographic and generational changes that will transform America, and we keep being told that these demographic changes are somehow failing to materialize.
Explain to me, then, why the GOP won all five Southwestern States (Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado) in 2004 whereas the Democratic Party won four out of five in 2020.
Explain to me why the “Solid South” (170 Electoral Votes by my tally, including Missouri, West Virginia and Florida) now includes four states — Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida — that are either Blue or Purple (accounting for 38% of the region’s total Electoral Votes), and looks like it will soon have another Purple State, Texas, accounting for another 22% of the region’s Electoral Votes (60% in total). The Solid South is no more.
Let’s Talk About These Supposed Barriers to Democracy
We’re told that the U.S. Senate is an insurmountable obstacle to true democracy; that it will forever entrench the power of low-population, rural Red States. Consider then that in the year 2000, 29 States ended up Red and 21 ended up Blue (an inherent advantage of 58-42 in the Senate, roughly translated). In 2020, the split was 50-50. This map from Wikipedia also shows the split today as roughly 50-50, and trending in the same direction. This map from Axios shows how more and more Red States could turn Purple, and more and more Purple States turn Blue, in the years ahead, meaning that the U.S. Senate will not be a GOP bulwark for very long.
We’re told that the Electoral College gives a roughly 3-percentage point advantage to the Republican candidate, because the current swing states are slightly more conservative than America as a whole. But consider that the GOP has won the popular vote in only one of the last eight elections; it has come within 3 points of the popular vote in only half of those eight elections; and this is a party that: (a) relies overwhelmingly on voters of one race, when the country is becoming increasingly multicultural; (b) relies overwhelmingly on voters of one religion, when the country is becoming increasingly multi-faith and secular; and (c) relies overwhelming on voters from older generations, while younger generations increasingly tilt the other way.
The fundamental fact of the matter is that the more Red States turn Purple (as Nevada, Arizona, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia have done), and the more Purple States turn Blue (as New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Virginia, New Hampshire and Maine have done), the more power progressive politics will have in the U.S. Senate.
And the more Presidential and U.S. Senate elections are won by centrists and progressives (as opposed to right-wing radicals), the more the U.S. Supreme Court will inevitably tilt towards progress as well.
These supposed barriers to democracy are all wafer-thin. Removing the filibuster requires 51 votes in the U.S. Senate. Inviting Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia to become U.S. States requires 51 votes in the U.S. Senate. Answering Republican court-packing in 2016 (blocking Merrick Garland) and 2020 (confirming Amy Coney Barrett) by increasing the size of the Supreme Court to 13 Justices requires 51 votes in the U.S. Senate.
Let’s Talk About the Policies Americans Actually Support
Florida, which voted narrowly for Donald Trump, raised its minimum wage in the same year to $15.
Montana, Arizona and South Dakota — supposedly deeply conservative Red States — legalized recreational marijuana.
Nationwide, two-thirds of Americans support legalizing recreational marijuana. Two-thirds of Americans support keeping same-sex marriage legal. Two-thirds of Americans support raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour. And this is all before the demographic and generational change that will occur over the next 5 years, the next 10 years, the next 15 years, the next 25 years.
So someone, please, explain to me again how it is progressives who need to look in the mirror and reflect on our policies and our beliefs? How the Democratic Party needs to conduct a post-mortem and figure out what it did wrong? Complacency should be shunned in the next cycle, and the cycle after that, as much as ever. But I would not ever trade my position with that of the other side. Our beliefs represent the future of this great country. They represent the dawn. And 2018 and 2020 are only the latest elections to confirm this fundamental fact.