5 November 2020
Go South, Old Man
By J R Thomas
Donald did, but Joe didn’t. Those big traditional rallies in what we used to call the Deep South have been President Trump’s natural campaign forte this time, stirring up responsive and emotional crowds, the cheering, the whooping, the banner and flag waving, even a bit of presidential dancing. Those of us with long memories recall when it was the Democrat candidates that ran huge rallies and then swept the southern states, whipping up a storm that might carry them to the White House. Nobody ever wondered why, for instance, Richard Milhouse Nixon was not dancing on a platform in Alabama.
Yet it was in the time of President Nixon that the South began the forty year march that took it from being safe Democrat country to increasingly reliable Republican territory. When the history of the Democrat Party in the C21st comes to be written, wise historians will spend some time pondering over why the blue party lost its grip on what should be one of its core constituencies. This is not the time or the place, but the increasingly middle class nature of the Democrat party, that drift away from its traditional working class roots to a sort of intellectual semi socialism (more than semi from the sage of Vermont, Bernie Sanders) shows as much in the south as it does in the rustbelt to the north – and has lost the Dems a lot of votes. And of course many other factors have not helped – the migration south of the old and moderately rich seeking warmer retirement homes away from hostile decaying northern cities, and the taking for granted of the black and Hispanic vote to cite but two.
The latter will certainly repay early research, and the day after election day is maybe not the day to try to do it, but what seems to be a factor in the surprising strength of Trump support seems to be the way in which the President has pulled in a much greater than expected Hispanic vote, and more support than anybody expected among black voters. Yet if this is a surprise, surely that fact is really down to a great failing of the Democrat imagination. Voters have many worries other than mere identification with persons of the same ethnic background; schools, jobs, taxes, housing, health, security, law n‘order are common causes for all, and politicians are expected to have strategies for meeting those concerns. The Democrats failure to recognise that and in particular the issues relating to rule of law after such a tumultuous and violent summer should haunt them when they come to think about lessons learned. Nobody wants an oppressive police force targeting young black guys – but nobody wants their homes and business looted and burnt in the angry response either. After all, as some wise politician said “Hearts whisper, but pocket books shout”.
But all that is for later. At this point – Wednesday afternoon UK time – there is no clear winner and indeed no state, apart from perhaps Arizona (the result was declared and then undeclared as the counting had not actually completed), is in different (presidential) hands than it was after the 2016 results. More Americans have voted than ever before – around 160 million. More than ever before have voted by postal ballot (about 40% apparently) and if Mr Trump loses by a narrow margin that is likely to be the focus of any legal challenge he may bring on grounds of illegal votes or voter influence. Oddly though, a lot of those postal votes may be Republicans voting for The Donald, elderly or nervous (or simply cold) Republicans who do not want to turn out in November to go to the polling station with Covid-19 in the air.
During the night Mr Trump gave a slightly bizarre press conference, declaring that he had already won and that the counting should be stopped. As with more than a few of Mr T’s more off the cuff remarks it is not entirely clear what he meant, as he had clearly not won and the votes generally go on being counted until they all have been. What he may have meant to express was his concerns over the very large amount of uncounted postal votes, especially in Pennsylvania, the vote tellers of Pa. having gone home for hot cocoa and a good night’s sleep, to resume the democratic process in the morning. That in some countries would allow a certain amount of ballot paper winnowing during the night, but, though this column likes a political conspiracy theory as much as anybody, vote fraud in modern times in the USA is actually very rare. Maybe Donald too should have had a cocoa and an early night.
By the time you read this you may know the result. But you may not, more likely, as the legal challenges unroll and the recounts roll up. It should have been in many ways a walk over for the Democrats, after four years of incoherence and confusion in the White House (and that is not to ignore the real achievements of the Trump presidency in the Middle East, in Korean relations, and more controversially, with the economy). There were several good candidates who would have shown more originality, more energy and more warmth than the man who was chosen by the Democrats. Future analysts will wonder how a modern party could go with such a dull, tired, and unimaginative candidate. And it is no good the Republicans giggling behind their hands. Mr Trump was maybe a bit of a political unknown back in 2016, but can the GOP party managers really have thought that he was the most distinguished candidate they could find in 2020?
In fact, and as you would no doubt hear in public bars across the nation if you weren’t locked out of them: in a country of 300 million people, are these really the best two people to contend to lead the nation? Those saloon pundits may well be expressing something else – surprise at how close Donald came (whether he has won or not) after all they read in the public prints about his disastrous presidency and his no hope campaign. As regular readers appreciate, this column always defends opinion polls who after all can only report what the public tell the pollsters when asked – and the public sometimes lie, get shy, become mischievous, and do all sorts of naughty things to trip up the poor pollster. What we do not have the appetite to defend though, are the media, which increasingly cannot keep their own prejudices out of their reporting; indeed, they do not seem to even recognise they are allowing that to happen. Many journalists and other scribblers (yes BBC, you in particular) simply never could believe that Donald Trump could be or, even greater horror, actually was, President. Or that he might win a second term. That inability to listen, consider, and report, has let us all down.
But for now, best of luck to the new President. He’s going to need it.
