Tapestries-28 | The day after
Reflecting on the lead-up to the US election, the celebration, and what may come next.
It's the day after the US election was called for Joe Biden. Saturday was a pretty remarkable day in New York City. Standing in Washington Square Park in unseasonal November warmth, with both the fall colors and champagne popping amongst a euphoric crowd, was surreal. My last week, like so many others in this country, has been filled with a grinding inertia. The outpouring in streets across the country was the release of that four-year-long feeling of holding down a spring, a feeling that was intensified through a draining election week.
I wrote a weekly column for the last ~6 months capturing my view as an Australian in New York. The column was regularly and understandably dominated by the lead-up to the election. I re-read those columns this morning to reflect on my thinking through this period, in order to assess its accuracy, and to remind myself of what may be true once the emotion of this moment passes.
Re-reading the columns was a fascinating exercise, and there's a common narrative in there I want to briefly unpack in this piece. I was skeptical of Biden's lead in the polls for the majority of the lead-up, driven by the view that the dominant Democrat narratives did not accurately map to the realities of this country. And in the early fall-out of the election, this position seems somewhat vindicated. While Biden's ultimate margin of victory may be healthy, it will not be the resounding victory the Democrats projected, with results in the House and Senate likely resulting in a divided government.
I am a progressive person, but I despise the Left's prescription for how one should think. In this model, self-interest is assumed for broad and diverse groups. And under this worldview, it is inconceivable that certain groups could vote in certain ways. And alas:
“In the current stats, Trump measurably increased his black, Latino, gay and Asian support. 12 percent of blacks — and 18 percent of black men — backed someone whom the Left has identified as a “white supremacist”, and 32 percent of Latinos voted for the man who put immigrant children in cages, giving Trump Florida and Texas. 31 percent of Asians and 28 percent of the gay, lesbian and transgender population also went for Trump. The gay vote for Trump may have doubled! We’ll see if this pans out. But it’s an astonishing rebuke of identity politics and its crude assumptions about how unique individuals vote.
To paraphrase Van Jones, yesterday was a good day for a lot of people. The last 4 years have been an incredibly testing and emotional time for a lot of people, to a degree greater than I can personally comprehend. Joe Biden's election is a vote for decency, healing and humility. But it should also be taken as a repudiation of what an increasingly illiberal and vocal section of the Left stands for, and an indication that its loudest (not necessarily most common) narratives miss the mark.
The fact that over 70 million people have voted for Donald Trump is wholly inconceivable to some people. The starkest example of this I saw was the New York Times piece headlined "Exit Polls Point to the Power of White Patriarchy", which itself shows a breathtaking lack of self-awareness, as if that construct, and not people exercising their legitimate right to vote in their own unique self-interest, can explain these results. Another example is the widely-shared tweet below:
In what universe do these two responses, from prominent voices on the left, convey the empathy and compassion on which they claim to hold moral superiority? To look at the way close to half of Americans voted, and surmise that it was a result of white patriarchy or that those who legitimately exercised their right to vote for a country that they want should suffer, is indicative of a very problematic ideology. The world is real and complex; those who insist on viewing it through a puritanical lens will continue to have their minds scrambled as real-world outcomes inevitably diverge from their expectations.
The right has succeeded in painting a caricature of a lot of progressive positions and in cultivating the view that these progressive policies are pushed by coastal elites. But piercing through this requires acknowledging that there is an arrogant, illiberal and entirely unempathetic streak amongst the Left. If we, as proponents of progressive ideas, don’t acknowledge and address the deficiencies in the messages that are being delivered, we will undermine the ideas we believe are central to a dignified life: removing systemic racism, providing access to quality healthcare, and protecting a fragile environment.
I want progressive policies to prevail. And to me, the essence of progressive politics and a progressive ideology is listening. Listening to stories and data that may not align with your view of the world. The word "progress" itself describes the process of evolving and changing. How can one evolve and change if one refuses to listen? The world simply is. Reality has little regard for should. To push it towards where we believe it should go requires acknowledging what it is.
Standing in Washington Square Park yesterday was jubilant, and watching Joe and Kamala speak later in the day was emotional. As I write this, my sincere hope is that this result is viewed as a moment for potential re-birth in this country. As a moment where the country decided to remove morally bankrupt and repugnant individuals from the halls of power. But also as a moment to acknowledge that the majority of their supporters should be the target of empathy, not retribution or scorn. To acknowledge that to progress, we need to create room for redemption.
Dave Chappelle said it best last night: "I would implore everybody who’s celebrating today to remember, it’s good to be a humble winner. Remember when I was here four years ago? Remember how bad that felt? Remember that half the country right now still feels that way. Please remember that".
The moment is real, and so is our ability to choose what to do with it. And progress means celebrating the wins while listening to the lessons.