Teddy
The “gold standard” in modern United States election turnout was the election of 1908. Teddy Roosevelt, the incumbent, chose not to run for a third term, citing Washington’s two-term precedent. This was in spite of the fact that Roosevelt, still young at forty-eight, became President as a result of the assassination of William McKinley and only served three years of his first term in office.
But after seven years Roosevelt had enough of being President. A yearlong world tour awaited, including a massive safari in Africa. So his “chosen” replacement was Cincinnati’s own William Howard Taft, the serving Secretary of War. And while Taft didn’t have the personable energy that the dynamic Roosevelt brought to the White House, he was the technocrat who could implement Roosevelt’s Progressive goals.
Progressive v Populist
Running against Republican Taft was the populist Democrat from Nebraska, Williams Jennings Bryan. His soaring oratory in the name of the “people” galvanized the small farmers of Nebraska, and the coal miners from Pennsylvania. It was his third (and last) run for the Presidency.
America was still a segregated nation, and women did not have the right to vote in many states. But of those eligible to vote, almost 66% came out to help choose the President: 14,087,379. That’s out of a total population of just less than 89 million Americans.
It wasn’t just the voting that was segregated. The nation was only thirty-two years beyond the end of the Reconstruction Era. While the issue of slavery was resolved, the former slaves states still voted as a solid Democratic block. The “Union” states tended to still vote Republican, and though Bryan earned a few inroads in Colorado, Nevada and his home Nebraska; Taft swept the northern tier and won with 51.6% of the vote. Bryan earned 43%, with candidates from the Socialist Party and a smattering of other causes taking the remaining percentages.
Showing Up
It is projected that a modern record 67% of eligible Americans voted in this month’s election. The current count is just under 152 million – but there are a few more million votes still to be counted, particularly in California. (No, the state of California isn’t “creating” votes, no matter what the Republican Party would like you to think. Their “vote anyway you can” system just takes a lot longer to tally. And besides, it’s almost 17 million votes – more than the entire national vote a century ago). The US population today is 331 million people.
So for those “glass half full” kind of folks – more people voted in 2020 than ever before. For those “half emptiers”: almost 100 million eligible to vote chose not to. For many it was a conscious choice. Some military officers and other officials follow the “George Marshall” precedent and don’t vote at all. And of course, there are different groups with religious reasons for not participating. And there are those people who just don’t think it matters, or that their voice makes a difference.
But as far as trends are concerned more Americans voted and at a higher rate in 2020 than ever before. America “SHOWED UP”.
And here’s another notable fact from the 2020 election. Donald John Trump, Republican candidate for President in 2020, received the second most votes of ANY candidate for President in American history. More than 73 million Americans voted for him. More than ever voted for Barack Obama. So while Joe Biden may claim a “mandate” with over 78 million, the nation is still starkly divided into two visions of America.
Uniting
Biden sees himself as a “uniter” not a “divider”. And that’s been the overall take on his forty-seven year history in government. Biden is the one who reached “across the aisle”. Not only did he deal with the opposition party, but some, like John McCain, were also his closest friends. And in his earlier days in the Senate, Biden would work across the divides within the Democratic Party. He could reach out to the old remaining Southern Democrats, the descendants of those post-Reconstruction era segregationists. Biden could span a party that included John Stennis and James Eastland of Mississippi, as well as Ted Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts.
The challenge of the 21st Century for President-Elect Biden will be finding common purpose with his opposition. The Republican Party of the past, with defined goals of personal freedom, unfettered capitalism and a strong world presence, is no longer. Instead, the “Trumpian” Republican Party has drifted towards a more isolationist, more reactionary and racist view. Where Biden and McCain could often find agreements, it’s hard to see the same possibilities anymore with McConnell or Graham.
It’s not because those particular Republicans don’t “think” the same way they used to. But the Republican politics of today don’t allow them to act on those thoughts. A “tweet” might destroy their political base. They are “required” to fall in line with Trump’s brand of “white victimization” or lose office. That won’t change with the 2020 results and Trump out of the White House. It’s how the former President will stay relevant, and more importantly, pay his enormous bills. And the battle for his “hardcore 40%” support base is only just beginning.
Division
Meanwhile the “Progressive” side of Biden’s own party will demand their agenda, the one that Biden already agreed to, at least in part. So how does President Biden take a nation so radically divided and apply an increased national health care plan, or improved environment standards, or comprehensive immigration reform? Who on the Republican side can he find with common purpose? Frankly, in a Senate so evenly split, regardless of the outcomes in Georgia, can President Biden even find commonality with fellow Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia?
Abraham Lincoln prophesized that, “…a house divided against itself cannot stand”. That was over the fundamental contradiction of the American experiment: how a nation founded on the principle of “…all men are created equal” could allow slavery. Biden faces a similar racial crisis. Within twenty-five years, white people in the United States will be the minority. It’s the growing fear of that unavoidable truth that creates the strength of Donald Trump’s “populism”. It’s the new incarnation of the “snake underneath the table” of American politics, the same “snake” that was there at the writing of the Declaration and the Constitution – racism.
So just over half of America has turned to a white man from the 20th Century to deal with this “not so modern” problem. He truly believes that we can be “E Pluribus Unum”, out of many, one. It’s hard to see the way forward – but I hope Joe Biden does.
