The All or Nothing of American Politics
Our binary and only option forces extremism and polarization
“Facts are simple, and facts are straight,” sang cross-eyed and painless David Byrne on the classic Talking Heads LP Remain in Light, “facts are lazy, and facts are late” —
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don’t do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them
Facts are nothing on the face of things —
The 2024 presidential election results are in, and have gotten the best of us. Trump clearly trounced Harris at the electoral college, taking every swing state, a landslide at 226 (27.6%) to 312 (72.4%). Devastating to Democrats, Mr. MAGA also won the popular vote, but by a far smaller margin, 49.9% (76,995,720) to 48.3% (74,506,206) — for a difference of 1.6% (2,489,514).
The Internet has since exploded with detailed analyses that demonstrate, based on your perspective and intent, Trump’s unprecedented wins, or Harris’ negligible loss. The bottom line, at least in terms of the raw data, is 151,501,926 votes were counted, and Trump won by about 2.5M. With essentially half the country still split, that hardly seems like a mandate.
But that begs the question of our winner-take-all political system, especially in light of our progressively worsening extremism and polarization. With our two parties creating diametrically opposite visions of what America should be and do, those 2.5M votes flip the fate of the whole country — and soon the entire world — from one direction to another.
Decisions must be made, of course, and actions taken. Yet the binary destruction of all nuance creates the absurd and dangerous impression that the winners got everything right, and the losers got everything wrong. Running up to Election Day, most opinionated pundits threw their hands up, unable and unwilling to predict an outcome that looked razor thin.
In retrospect, by any standard Harris crushed Trump in their sole debate, while the established Democratic ground game and $1.5B investment seemed formidable against the latent incumbancy handicap. Meanwhile, Trump’s doubling- and tripling-down on his bread and circus bloviating and bombast seemed beyond the pale, even for the braggadocious.
Hindsight is 20/20, with epic mistakes in the Harris campaign strategy evident, and most surprisingly abortion becoming a non-issue — but the post-election reflex to throw Everything Democrat under the bus is unfair and unwarranted. Kudos to Trump as worldclass showman and master manipulator, yet that doesn’t make the rabbit pulled out of his hat edible.
The good news for America is the losers are forced to fix their festering flaws, and the winners are now given a chance to fully realize their vision. The question that lingers is at what cost, and how high of a risk to our country, and our culture? One of my Trumpista friends would argue the opposite, and he makes good points, while everyone holds their breath.
Oscillation between polarizing extremes thrills and terrifies the tribal winners and losers of every election cycle — and damages our democracy. Mixing up map with territory, campaigning with governing, proselytizing with policy succeeds only in perpetuating the ongoing dysfunction, and exacerbating the discord. Reality is analog, not digital, signal lost to noise.
All trends point to this hyperbolic problem worsening. Eighteenth century philosopher Giambattista Vico postulated cyclical societal stages, Gods to Heroes to Humans, theocracies leading to aristocracies to democracies, culminating in chaos fueled by individualism, loss of tradition, and social decay — and back again to religious rule, rinse and repeat through history.
Perhaps Vico left out a stage, or at least a bridge between democracy and chaos, in the shape of kleptocracy. To me, one thing is evident with the upcoming Trump administration: expect unparalleled levels of graft and corruption. Now that American Gods have fallen alongside Yankee Heroes, a new era of American Oligarchs takes control, all of us along for the ride.
The second law of thermodynamics posits the inexorable flow of entropy from low to high, order to disorder with a statistical inevitability, propelled by the probabiliistic backbone of space and time. Ideas about the multiverse suggest eternal recurrence, a concept familiar to Vico, and central to Nietzsche. Are we transitioning? Don’t ask me, I just write here
Despite the Left’s dread and the Right’s delirium, the Bad Libertarian in me is pollyanna about the US — and the planet — arriving net positive at the end of Trump 2.0, even if he fulfills his tease of an amended Constitutional, or otherwised coerced, third term. Dear Liberals: humanity is more resilient than you think. Dear MAGA, governing is tougher than bomb throwing.
