Sunday Scribblings
Voiceless in America
This week’s Sunday Scribblings features a guest post by a longtime friend of mine, Rick Warters. Rick was Global VP for Labor Relations at a major US corporation before he retired some years ago. Rick and I have worked together many times over the years.
As readers of these Scribblings well know, I am a European social democrat. I think if fair to say that Rick would see himself as an old-fashioned, Eisenhower business Republican. He is no fan of Donald Trump, as he makes clear below. My views and Rick’s views were never that far apart in practice, and we could work together because we come from an age when civility between those who held opposing views was a given.
The big eye-catcher from Rick’s comments is this: “28.7% of the U.S. voting-age population elected Donald J. Trump to lead the free world”. But does Trump want to lead the free world, or just America? We’ll soon know.
My takeaway from Rick’s article is simple. Many Americans feel politically homeless. As I said in last week’s Scribblings, many see the Democratic Party as in thrall to a small minority obsessed with “critical theory” and “liberation struggles”, whether at home or abroad. On the Republican side, they dislike the capture of the party by the Trumpian “MAGA” movement. “Moderates” like Rick feel they have nowhere to go.
What also strikes me from what Rick writes is that the US Presidential electoral system is dysfunctional. There are nailed-on Democratic states. There are nailed-on Republican states. Then there is a handful of “swing states”. On top of that, there is the electoral college system which in 2016 gave the presidency to Trump, despite Clinton pulling in 3 million more votes than him.
All of this, as Rick says, leads him to wonder whether it is worth voting because his vote is not going to count. But he votes because he believes that it is his duty to do so.
Maybe it is time to scrap the electoral college system and elect the US president by popular vote? Then all votes would count. But then those invested in the current system will resist change, as readers in the UK who argue for proportional representation know well. To use an old trade union phrase: what you have you hold.
But plenty to think about from what Rick writes.
Rick Warters writes:
The U.S. election is over. The world watched. Partly because the world’s largest economy influences everything, everywhere. Partly because it’s hard to turn away from a slow-motion train wreck. I won’t comment directly on the outcome but please read on if you want to understand how we got where we are.
Votes continue to roll in, but the state of America as I write follows:
Population of the USA 337,368,585 [Nov. 5, 2024 est.]
Voting Age Americans 263,957,181 [2023 Demographic/78.24% 18+]
Registered Voters 185,600,000
All Votes Cast for POTUS 151,191,556 [Sum below: Nov. 14 2024 @ 09:30A]
Votes for Donald J. Trump 75,871,131 [Nov. 14 2024 @ 09:30A]
Votes for Harris 72,859,027 [Nov. 14 2024 @ 09:30A]
Votes for Others 2,461,398 [Nov. 14 2024 @ 09:30A]
The bottom line here is that 28.7% of the U.S. voting-age population elected Donald J. Trump to lead the free world. That sounds absurd, but in simple, round numbers:
70% of the 18+ population is registered to vote
X 80% who voted
X 50% of those who cast a ballot for Trump
= 28% of the voting age population anointed the president elect
At the end of the day, former President Trump won with 28%, Vice-President Harris lost with 27%, and 45% of voting-age populations chose not to vote, were unable to vote, or opted for a third-party candidate who had no chance of winning or placing in America’s two-party system. For context, that’s an uncounted and unheard voice of 118 million Americans; a population larger than Spain and Italy combined.
This hardly comes as a surprise. In the latest Gallup Survey, the plurality of voting-age Americans do not consider themselves either a Democrat or a Republican. In the survey closest to the election, 37% identified as independent. As it has been managed for the last several decades, America’s two-party system has been most successful at pitting Americans against Americans.
However you look at it, Americans were the biggest losers in the latest election. The Republican and Democrat parties failed us miserably. This is the greatest embarrassment for the world’s longest-running democracy since Richard Nixon resigned 50 years ago.
On the one hand, there is Donald Trump. Unless you lived under a rock, you will have read about his assorted weaknesses as a president, as a candidate, and as a person. Republican politicians, nonetheless, backed him for fear his MAGA movement would abandon them in their own elections. Their inside voices scream, “America-be-damned, my election is on the line.” They rationalize that their “good work” can’t be continued if they aren’t in office. The reality is much simpler and base. People want more. American politicians are not the exception, they are the rule.
On the other hand, we had a sitting president who was losing control of his faculties. This is not hyperbole. Staffers kept Mr. Biden locked out of sight, but on June 27, the state of the president was live and on stage for all to see. To his credit, Joe Biden’s decision to abandon his candidacy was the greatest act of leadership in decades. In a country of hopelessly self-serving politicians, he took one for the proverbial team. The team, however, proceeded to fail Mr. Biden and the American people, not necessarily with their selection, but with their selection process.
In a race of institutionalists vs. a charismatic, if flawed, maverick, the Democrats did what institutionalists do best. They secured the outcome. The race wasn’t fixed, it was nixed. What would have been messier than entering an open convention to determine who should run against Donald Trump? There would have been too many puppets for the masters to control.
Remember, Harris abandoned her campaign for president months before the primaries began in 2020. Biden selected her as his running mate after narrowing the pool first to a woman, then to a black woman. Was she the best candidate for vice president? We’ll never know. She was, from the party leaders’ perspective, the best from a very small pool in 2020. Could she have delivered enough delegates from across the nation to secure her nomination for president in 2024? We’ll never know, but I doubt it.
In terms of outcomes, people keep asking what happened to the ten million people who voted for Biden in 2020 and failed to come through for Harris in 2024.
That question comes with a presumption of party loyalty. The plurality of Americans do not affiliate with either party. And of those who do, we should assume there are some people who can think for themselves on both sides.
It’s not about the ten million. The figures are not exact, but the data suggests that there were 166 million registered voters in 2020 and 185 million four years later. The real question, then, is, “What happened to Biden’s ten plus the 19 million newly registered voters?” The simple answer is that there was nothing compelling enough to get them to the polls. The possibilities range from the view that if you can’t vote FOR someone, it’s not worth voting, to the conspiracists’ view that their vote literally wouldn’t be counted anyway. Many had to believe voting just doesn’t matter.
In politics, as in the workplace, a sense of voicelessness will keep you on the sideline. Pollsters no longer project winners before polls close on election night. The media does, however, report ad nauseum on likely outcomes of the races throughout the campaign period. As a result, we knew going into election day that seven states would determine the outcome of the presidential race: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The swing states were all that mattered. The rest of us? Not so much.
I live in the small, New England state of Connecticut. I seethe under the unsettlingly liberal policies of a seemingly forever-blue bench of politicians. The governor, all seven congressional representatives, and an overwhelming majority in each house of the state legislature are all Democrats. And the Democrats have gotten the state’s voters’ nod for president in every election since Bill Clinton in 1992. Connecticut is not a swing state. The outcome was predetermined. If I did not view voting as a patriotic duty, I may have stayed at home. My vote doesn’t count.
I was not left alone with that nagging feeling. By their inaction, more than 100 million people did not believe casting a ballot was worth their effort. This may be the greatest failure of all. Whatever the reason – voiceless, disinterest, or anxiety about wading into the ever-widening left-right abyss – their disengagement allowed 28% to seat the candidate they believed would be the least-worst for the next four years.
Where does that leave us? The dark force is strong among those in office. They have no incentive to change. None. They’ve got theirs. Should we abandon the electoral college? Encourage legitimate third parties? Push term limits in Congress? Would age limits have saved us from all of this? We will never know.
Should we discuss these things in the hope of a better future? Definitely.
And Donald Trump will be my president. Again.