Oh My Goodness
I must admit, I am a bit stunned; ten hours removed from the most watched debate in American history, and I vacillate between frustration, anger, and grave concern. Everything about last night was a debacle. As one republican voter in Arizona put it, “I watched this debate and would label the candidates as, oh no and hell no.” In my humble opinion, if you watched that and weren’t scared about the direction this country is heading and the choice we currently have, then your partisan blinders have shielded your vision. We have a problem. Poll after poll has shown that most Americans do not want either person to be elected. And yet, both parties have chosen to nominate the one candidate that has the best chance to lose to the other; it is mindboggling.
I have been wondering lately how we got here and admit I can’t see an easy answer. In fact, you could easily construct a long list of actions and cobble together a story to reflect how the greatest country in the world ended up with two very questionable choices to run our country and it still would be hard to understand. I am not smart enough to outline in detail all the possibilities, and I don’t think it constructive to try. What I do think, however, is the public has allowed a relatively small group of people to determine how and by whom the country is led. Take for instance the Democrats; how in the world could they not allow voters to decide in the primaries whether Joe Biden should be their nominee? It is political malpractice and irresponsible. One of the primary talking points of the Democrats is that Trump represents a serious threat to our system of government and democracy. If they believe that, why did they passively set aside and nominate the one person who might lose to Trump?
As for the Republicans and their process, the primary system isn’t working. As an example, there are roughly 750,000 registered Republican voters in Iowa; of that number of available voters, approximately 15%, or 110,000, voted in the 2024 caucus. Trump received 51% of the vote; that translates to a little over 56,000 Iowans voted for Donald Trump; a ridiculously small number of voters compared to the US voter base. Despite the small sample size, immediately after the votes were tallied, the media, the Republican party apparatus, virtually all elected Republican officials, and many of the other candidates who were running, proclaimed Trump as the expected nominee. It is fair to ask, why does that happen and is there anything that could change it? It appears pundits are comfortable quickly predicting an outcome like this because they understand that primary voters generally are politically engaged and tend to be more on the fringes and extreme in their views. It is clearly true that candidates in both parties play to the edges of their political base to become the nominee and then begin to run to the center once they get the nod. Frankly, it is easy to see why they predict the nominee after a few states have voted. The national party wants to get on with targeting the general election opponent and they know Americans won’t vote in large numbers in the primaries.
What does this lead to? It appears it leads to a situation where Trump, an enormously flawed candidate and person, can skate through primary season without a threat from most voters weighing in. It is like not taking the time to discuss where you would like to take your family vacation and then being pissed with what everyone chooses in your absence. You didn’t want to, or choose to, or maybe in the case of the election, get to voice your opinion, and now you are stuck with it.
I am starting to believe last night highlighted three distinct groups of American voters and within minutes you could see how they reacted to the embarrassment that was the debate. Hard core Democrats reacted with tears and a gut-wrenching sense that they had to make a change at the top of the ticket or find the courage to rally around Biden, but they all uniformly knew it was bad. This small group of Democratic leaders are part of the problem, and they almost immediately began to navigate how and what to do. The second group, and I believe where most Americans reside, is in the middle and not on the fringe. For that group, and I am a part of that base, last night was stunning and depressing. As I write this, there doesn’t appear to be a good answer. We are, once again, beholden to a small group of insiders and hardcore partisans and faced with a terrible choice. It is beyond frustrating and feels like the country is losing its way. The final group was the MAGA crowd who seemed elated with the outcome. I don’t get that, but then again, no matter how hard I try, I don’t get them. Any group who looks at Trump and only sees greatness, a victim, and near perfection is hard to understand, and hard to engage with. I recognize there are people who want him to be president because of his policies. But there are others, and it seems like the majority, who can only respond to criticism of Trump by saying, “it is better than Joe Biden.” My question to that is, “is that good enough?” Is it okay that all we seek is someone who is better than Joe Biden? Damn I hope not.
The bar is so low that we seem to have accepted the worst we can, just because we think it is better than the other groups’ worst. Can you imagine in sports if your team was a perennial loser, but every year at least beat their bitter rival, who was also an annual loser? Two losing teams fighting for the pride of being the best, worst team? We don’t accept that in our sports teams, but we accept it in the most important job in the world.
It is interesting to me to consider politics from a different prism. Do you believe any successful company in America would allow its leadership to be this bad? Would either of these guys be allowed to run a public company? I think if you drop your tribal sunglasses for a moment that answer is, absolutely not; of course they wouldn’t. Companies have a responsibility to their shareholders to represent their interest and investment. By contrast the two major political parties have a different agenda—power. Have you noticed, politics is one big marketing effort designed to gain power and then to keep it? I have begun to adopt the line that politicians care about your vote, not your problems; and that isn’t good enough.
I don’t know what the answer is. It feels like we are stuck. However, in our history the will of the people has overcome a lot of challenges. The US has, and I hope will, continue to lead the world. However, we might not have a good choice this election cycle. We may be stuck in this unacceptable situation and forced to choose the best of two very bad choices. Regardless, in the future, Americans need to take back the power. We need to vote in primaries, and we need to elect people who can lead and aren’t an embarrassment, we need to stand up and be heard and not let MSNBC or FOX tell us what to think. We need a better option than oh no, and hell no.
