Things are rarely this good for our side...
Because first of all, presidential election cycles tend to have high turnout and demographics that favor Democrats — but not only that, this cycle the presumptive Republican nominee is an exceptionally thin-skinned, thick-skulled man, openly viewed by many in his own party as an embarrassment or worse, with zero experience in government and a history of failure even within his supposed field of expertise — while, by contrast, the presumptive Democratic nominee is widely recognized as exceptionally bright, eminently qualified, and an adult — which means we are very likely to maintain Democratic control of the White House for more than two terms — something that hasn’t happened since Harry Truman was elected in 1948 — and we are very likely to elect a woman president of the United States — something that hasn’t happened since...ever!
And what’s more, we’ve seen a populist-progressive candidate in the Democratic primaries do gobsmackingly well — a candidate who actually embraces the term democratic socialism was able to win 23 of the contests! He’s proven that these ideas are enormously appealing to younger voters; that unabashedly populist-progressive candidates can run extremely competitive, small-donor financed campaigns, even in the outrageously expensive presidential contest; and that even when such candidates don’t win the contest, they can still do much to set the terms of the debate, to move the Overton Window, and to help push moderates to adopt more left-of-center positions (e.g., on TPP, Keystone XL, and Medicare) — and even if those positions aren’t promises written in stone, they are on the record, and that gives us more power to hold politicians’ feet to the fire.
Isn’t it healthy to take a minute just to consider the good tidings, to take a little break from all the primary season angst?
Because God knows primary season angst can cause some hyper-partisans and some political junkies to develop an incredibly jaundiced view of their fellow human beings. Disagreement with the candidate who isn’t their favorite candidate turns into visceral hatred of that candidate (and even hatred of their staff, or of their spouse!!) Exhibiting ridicule of or spite toward that candidate’s supporters becomes default behavior for some folks.
Some people become their worst selves in primary season — at least here on the Internet, they do. If you’re a Star Trek fan, you may recall Spock poking fun at his colleagues after having spent some time with their mirror-universe counterparts:
They were brutal, savage, unprincipled, uncivilized, treacherous — in every way splendid examples of homo sapiens, the very flower of humanity. I found them quite refreshing.
Here we are, nice liberal folk — and yet, seriously, it becomes like Star Trek’s mirror universe during primary season — many folks are downright nasty, utterly suspicious of each other, and brandishing knives (luckily just the verbal kind, in our case.)
In a fictional universe, I can appreciate Spock’s joke: it’s entertaining and amusing when familiar people have their creepy mirror selves revealed.
But seeing it happening in our (supposedly liberal) corner of the real universe, it’s not so entertaining. Makes me ponder. Politics — even tame American primary politics — can cause decent people — intelligent liberals — to turn bilious and literally hateful. Even here, among friendly, intelligent, liberal folk, we see hatefulness — the seed of violence — that has plagued societies throughout history and in our own times.