Why I Love the 2020 Election
It's still not over. For the President, they are still counting in 4 states, and there are going to be recounts. The Senate is still up. The House technically is still up, but there are still 40 undecided seats as I type this morning.
And yet, I find that I love the 2020 election.
For a goodly while now our political climate has gotten more and more polarizing. We saw it really kick up in 2015 as both major parties made moves towards nominating the two most disliked candidates in history. And the last five years have been really tense. So tense that I'm sure I have gone down greatly in the estimation of many of my friends (I'd still count them friends, but counting is problematic in 2020) because I haven't picked a side.
The thing is... the sides aren't real.
Let me back up and get some groundwork that would have been clear even back in the mid-to-late 90s. I understand being passionate about one's beliefs. I understand holding to ideologies. Behold, I'm a Lutheran Pastor with very strong religious beliefs - ones that often run contrary to not only popular positions in (the ever fading) American Christianity, but also within Lutheran circles. And I am not afraid to be outspoken and contrarian.
Same way politically. I was often more conservative than many I knew. But I also wasn't afraid to hold to beliefs that were not popular. For 20 years now, I've been a member of the Libertarian Party. And I held positions that were often not popular.
I've been one with strong beliefs and positions that have been sensible but highly in the minority. That means I've had to modify my expectations. I don't expect people to buy the whole Catechism - but if I can make a point that makes them think, that's good. I'm not expecting the whole platform to go through (shoot, I don't even always agree with the whole Libertarian platform), but if something good comes in, even though it takes time... great.
In the past 20 years, some Libertarian positions have advanced - Drug Legalization and even now decriminalization, Gay Marriage. Some, not so much (looks at the looming deficit of doom). Some stances have held their ground in spite of intense opposition - 2nd Amendment. Some are slipping a touch but not as bad as they could - 1st Amendment. It's a mixed bag, but I'll take what I can get because I know I'm an outlier.
You can't get everything. And that's okay.
In fact, our system of Government, with it's multiple layers and multiple houses is designed to make sure that no one gets everything. There is a recognition that there are going to be a wide variety of interests in this Nation with a wide variety of legitimate concerns and desires... but it's really hard for a single focus to take everything.
This is something we have forgotten.
Why? Well, for one we have tended to simply complex interests into big monolithic groups. I think this is the weakness of identity politics - it oversimplifies. Instead of noting that there are some commonalities that people of a certain identity might share or mutually have experienced, it tends to treat the specific identity as THE reality of those people. I say "people" instead of individuals because it doesn't tend to treat people as individuals with massive complexity, but rather generic placeholders.
We don't see people, we see symbols. Symbols that are simplified placeholders upon which we can hang our ideology.
This is something I noticed myself in how reactions towards me started changing 12-15 years ago amongst my friends. I'd say that same things I had before, but the reaction shifted, sometimes all the way from positive to negative. That's because in many ways I was no longer an individual - I had assumed some identity that symbolized something bad. Clergy. White (though no one believes me when I note that even as a 2nd grader I refused to identify as white). And thus, the old canard from my Undercurrent days was treated as true - Satire and Sarcasm was viewed as reality.
Understanding people as symbols rather than discrete individuals is very useful for an ideology. It lets you comfortably dehumanize them, disregard their objections and concerns, and push forward with your virtuous agenda. Heretics are worthy of the stake, be they religious heretics or political ones.
Add to this the proliferation of media. Even as our view of others have gotten more symbolic, our own self-understanding has grown every more specific and precise (note the growth of gender identities and sexuality... remember when it was the Kinsey 1-6 scale) - and there is media that will cater to that specific definition. The mass variety of "Lutheran" groups that I could find is staggering - along with any other form of self-identification that you would cling to. I'll admit, I'm not up on all the gender stuff, but I doubt most of my non-Lutheran friends could discuss the differences and similarities between Gnesio-Lutherans, Radical Lutherans, and Neo-Confessional Lutherans. In reality, most Lutherans couldn't.
But as we have drawn our own identities with more precision, and we have media that let's those similar to us interact more and more - we don't know what to do with those who don't fit. We over typicalize those who share our quirks. Everyone who doesn't is an outlier and opponent (certainly I'm not the outlier!)
Add to this that the political media reports on the most salacious of figures, so anyone who doesn't fit my particular blick falls into the category of other - and that category of other is dominated in my perception by the worst, most extreme examples.
And that is why I love this election.
We've been driving ourselves more and more to the extremes, setting up expectations of getting our very specific ideologies across (in toto) as the only way forward, as the only way to be on the right side of history.
And this is so balanced and even an election that this narrative that treats my quirk as the normal is going to collapse. I can't pretend that the 50% who don't vote surely must agree with me... 40% of them voted, and they split basically 50-50.
And I think we are seeing the that the identity models are losing hold. 26% of non-whites actually voted for Trump - the highest non-white turn out for a Republican since 1960. Since before Civil Rights.
And no ideology is going to be able to dominate the government, much less their own party. You push too hard on something, and you won't get the votes from even your allies.
So, we can moderate expectations and realize that other people have valid interests and desires, you can play a long game to get some small advances and make things better... or you get nothing but the bitterness of failing your own unrealistic expectations.
I do not wish to live in either a Progressive or a Neo-Con Utopia.
This election is going to make compromise the name of the game, not this stupid Utopian formation. I tend not to fit in people's utopias.
But I really do think if we work on compromise and consideration, seeing individuals of complexity rather than simplified symbols of evil (or good), we might actually have a government that moves back to the task of writing good law.
So 270-268 would suit me fine, as would 51-49, as would 225-210.
Talk. Respect. Find common ground. Yield a bit to gain a bit.
Maybe I'm a dreamer, but this election could be a good thing. It could remind us that our ideals are a goal, not an excuse to become tyrannical.