Of the people?

I’m posting this on Thursday, two days after voters in every state made their preferences known by mail and in voting booths. In a normal year we would know who won by now—but we have given up any pretense to normalcy in our elective process in recent years. The days of declared winners and gracious losers passed us before we knew what had happened. Now our elections feel both uncertain and unfinished. Voting has become far more complex in the last decade, its duration only exceeded by its frustrations. And each precinct is now under a scrutiny heretofore thought unnecessary in this once trusting and trustworthy democracy. A staggering number of votes must be certified and counted, recorded, and likely recounted to answer the almost automatic challenges and refutations from those on the losing side of that ledger. It makes me wonder what Madison and Hamilton, the great architects of our democratic republic, would make of what we’ve become.

As I try to wrap my mind around the state of today’s election process, my historical imagination takes me back to three foundational phrases that, for more than 200 years, seemed to describe us and the governments we worked, and fought so hard, to establish in America:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”

“We the people in order to form a more perfect union…”

“Government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish”

While these hold a prominence within the canon of America’s sacred texts, each was and remains tainted with qualifications and exceptions, both in composition and application. Jefferson’s understanding of equality, whether in a natural state or his own legal rendering, was far more narrow than anything we would now accept. Race, gender, and economic independence have broadened the horizons under which freedom, citizenship and justice are now reckoned. Madison and Hamilton’s constitutional ideals have been debated and amended precisely over the issue of who really are “the people” in this far from perfect union. And Lincoln’s climactic benediction to his near-perfect battlefield eulogy gives us pause today when considering how, or even if, our governments—local, state and national—truly represent and serve the people for whom they claim to work.

There was a time when the morning after election day brought closure to both the promises and the vitriol of each campaign. Most of the promises would largely be dismissed as little more than promotional elements essential to playing, and winning the election game. And the derogatory names and deceptive claims that so miscast and denigrated each opponent were also overlooked—or at least suppressed--with each condolence offered and handshake extended to the vanquished.  

My own timeline takes me back to an era when election cycles could be measured in months rather than years, culminating in one singular Tuesday when people went to the polls in November. And for most of our nation’s history, party platforms and candidates’ rhetoric were read or heard only by those who took the time to read the papers or attend campaign rallies.  Ceaseless and instantaneous media coverage from which there is no escape has changed all that. Those ultimately dubbed the winners are now haunted by their promises, their disparaging remarks about their opponents replayed in sight and sound bytes until the next campaign gets underway, which likely will be in a few short weeks.

Comparing what is with what once was, I, like many my age, wrestle with questions that none of us can adequately answer. When did America’s democratic process change into what it now has become? Or has it always been this way, just on a smaller scale within a shorter timeframe? Do we now find ourselves in a new reality that is redefining both our political discourse and the dysfunctional operation of our governments? Or are we seeing the extended arc of a cultural pendulum that will soon—if it hasn’t already—begun to swing back towards some center we like to think held sway in most of our history? Perhaps the most telling question for me is this:  Will we ever again see and hear candidates who are magnanimous in victory and gracious in defeat, who accept winning and losing without egotistical boast or childish protest?

So on this Thursday just two days past the election deadline, when, once upon a time, we would be settling back into real life while bidding good riddance to the hype and propaganda of campaigning, the political pot continues to stir.  Across the spectrum of news sources upon which I rely, from the National Review to the Christian Science Monitor to The Atlantic, post election analyses and prognostications will be churned out as if November 8 was little more than a momentary snapshot of our national will. And I can count those media personalities whose eyes meet mine across the short distance between TV and easy chair—old friends named Bret and Brit, Martha and Harris, Lester, David and Nora, George and Anderson, to name a few—to keep me from wandering too far from every rumor, accusation, intrigue and prediction that our political soap opera generates every day. I guess I can’t blame them? What better way is there to sell the pharmaceuticals, network shows, fast food and alcohol upon which their programs, and their careers depend.

With the aforementioned beefs and questions on the table, I offer these three observations about what this year’s mid-term elections mean to me.

First, the business of polling can be as biased as it is imprecise. The Red wave that turned out to be more like a ripple has made this very clear, embarrassing the conservative pundits and prognosticators who made no secret of their longing for a Republican deluge. It could be said that turn about is fair play, since those same polling enterprises misread the 2020 presidential elections too. Sample size and demographics, not to mention the free and changing will of the voters, make these weekly pulse checks little more than that. And we all know how often our pulse changes in response to a sight or sound that either excites or terrorizes.

Second, control of one or both houses is no guarantee of productive or improved government. In the past 100 years our eighteen chief executives have had to work with, and contend with, 52 different congresses. Democrats controlled both houses nearly half of those sessions with Republicans enjoying that luxury sixteen times. Ten of those congresses were split. The impact this had on effective governance seems less tied to which party was in power than to the personalities of those occupying the White House and legislating from the Capitol. Notables like FDR, Ike, JFK and LBJ enjoyed having their parties in control of both houses. But so did Warren G. Harding, Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter, each remembered for underwhelming terms of office. Yet executives like Truman, Nixon, Reagan, both George Bushes, Clinton, Obama and Trump managed to find some success dealing with congresses that were either split or controlled by the other party. When civility, negotiation and compromise are on the table, government tends to work. When it is lacking and the defense of ideological turf is the name of the game, stagnation and dysfunction prevails. We should expect no less as a new U. S. Congress assembles in January, no matter if it is all Republican or split down the middle.

And third, this election has shown quite clearly that there is no trump card that can be played that will guarantee victory for any candidate of that suit. The winds that blew Mr. Trump out of office appear to be churning without abatement among Democrats, much to the detriment of several GOP hopefuls whose failed campaigns cast doubt on the influence of their primary endorser. At the same time new and opposing gales appear to be sweeping out of the Sunshine State, threatening to take command of that grand old party, or provoke its fracture and impotence.  

So as I try to make sense of this November of some consequence, all the while keeping an eye on the yet undecided elections that may recast the balance of power in the Senate, I revisit our 16th President’s idealistic and uplifting words. Has government of and by the people been confirmed in the 2022 midterms? I guess each of us will answer this question depending on which party and which candidates claim our allegiance. You may prefer elephants over donkeys, or regard our presidential incumbent as the right person for this moment or another old guy biden his time until the next election. But the most important question that all of us need to be asking our elected representatives in the days ahead is this:

how will you ensure that the government to which you have been entrusted will, on your watch, truly be FOR the people whom you have promised to represent?

I, for one, will be staying tuned to the barrage of breaking news that is sure to come, hoping against hope that this new government proves itself both responsible and accountable. That, indeed, would be a welcome change FOR all of us.