A DIFFERENT ELECTION / GEOPOLITICAL FUTURES

A Different Election

Thoughts in and around geopolitics.

By: George Friedman

In less than a week, the United States will elect a president for the 59th time in its history. This one, as others before it, will be sacred. They represent 59 moments at which the dream of the founders and of the Enlightenment came to be, where the people judged their rulers and decided on their fate. It may not be the noblest imaginable method, but its sanctity lies in the fact that it is an extraordinary idea made manifest.

These 59 elections have also been profane. Andrew Jackson’s wife was called a prostitute, and Abraham Lincoln’s election led to a bloodbath the likes of which the nation had never seen. There is a relentless viciousness of the ambitious who want to destroy the good name of their opponents. We are human, so the sacred and profane resides in us all.

My job is to see patterns, so most events to me are always old songs sung to a new beat. I have seen the beauty of the Constitution unfold in the 1960s and 1970s, stabilizing the republic in spite of the anger in the country. 

I can tell you about the corruption that marred previous elections, like Rutherford B. Hayes’ or John Quincy Adams’ second election. I am comforted by the fact that each moment has a precursor, and that the country’s ability to pass through these precursors means it will likely pass through this moment.

But there is something different here, something that alarms me without causing me to be frightened, at least not yet: a hatred of supporters.

In every election there are candidates, and each is generally loathed by their opponent’s constituents. That’s not new. In fact, I’d argue that loathing candidates is normal and even healthy in a liberal democracy It focuses attention on the event. But beginning in 2020, supporters of one candidate began to despise the supporters of the other candidate with visceral rage. 

A marker for this was Hillary Clinton’s condemnation of Trump supporters as “deplorable.” It is no longer that the candidates might deplore opposition supporters (not a great strategy) but that their supporters hate each other. In a poll a while ago, about 75 percent of New York liberals said they would refuse to date someone who supported Donald Trump. 

Somewhat lower was Trump supporters’ aversion to Joe Biden supporters. There was something of the religious here. My parents did not want me to marry a Christian. My wife’s were less than enthusiastic about me. But the issue then devolved to staying with your own type, not that the other is morally depraved.

Each camp has come to see the other as contemptible. The contempt is expressed as Trump voters being racists or the like, and Biden supporters wanting a powerful government to strip people of their rights. Each is seen as morally depraved, and each is shunned by the other. 

Part of it has to do with social roots. Austin, Texas, is filled with Biden signs. Hays County, where I live outside of Austin, is filled with Trump signs. Hays County sees Austin as a place teeming with amoral techies from California. Austin sees Hayes County as filled with racist rednecks. 

Nothing is so clear in reality, but the stereotype has become the way we sort our enemies and keep them at a distance. There was tension between the counterculture and middle America in the 1960s, but the middle Americans were the parents of the counterculture. 

That made for family crises, but it died down. This time, the line is drawn in a way that family can’t ultimately transcend the line.

If the NPR/PBS/Marist polls released Oct. 20 are right, Biden will beat Trump by about 8 percent. That means that in social terms the country will be sliced nearly down the middle. A bit over half will hate a bit below half. 

A political landslide does not translate into a social landside. A vast part of America will continue to loathe another vast part of America. To me, what is frightening is that this time it won’t go away. It has in the past, but I don’t think it was like this in the past.

Not all is lost, of course, but what has been lost is the idea that reasonable people can disagree over important matters and remain friends. That has become difficult if not impossible in the United States.

It is not the political passion that troubles me. It is good for politicians to be demonized, to be forced to the edge and to see what they are made of. 

What troubles me is the hatred and contempt we show our fellow citizens who might once have been friends. I voted for Ronald Reagan, and I had friends who voted for Jimmy Carter. We disliked the candidate but not each other. 

The same could be said of the election between Barack Obama and John McCain. I am sanguine about the future of the republic, but our inability to remain friends with those who vote differently is growing and alarming.