THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020

Recently, several students have asked me questions about America’s November 3rd presidential election. I thought I would put together a list of ‘briefing points’ and suggested reading that might help us see not only what is before our eyes but also what lies beneath the surface.

My selection and description of points are influenced and limited by my identities; a partial list follows. I am an American citizen, a life-long member of the Democratic Party, a liberal committed to an incremental approach to solving social problems, a believer in Black Lives Matter protests but not in the defunding of the police, a friend of many Trump supporters, and a Political Scientist professor.

Personally, I hold this last identity marker loosely because while I may know things you don’t, I also, perhaps, have a better sense than you of how much I do not know. When it comes to politics or other matters of complex human systems, we all ‘see through the glass darkly.’

1. President Trump, as a candidate in 2016, and as president has been one of the least popular politicians in American history. His approval rating as president has never tipped above 50%, unprecedented in the era of polling. In 2016 he ran against Hillary Clinton who matched him in unpopularity. A good argument can be made that the 2016 election was more about Clinton’s unpopularity than Trump’s appeal. (Morris Fiorina Unstable Majorities )
2. Candidate Trump won the presidency in 2016 through the slimmest of vote margins, 77,000 votes in four states. The election could have easily gone the other way. Trump dominates the American political scene so much it is good to step back and see how slim his victory was. America is much more than Donald Trump. However, Mr. Trump’s victory also suggests that America is also much more than Barack Obama. America is both Obama and Trump, and always has been!
3. From the moment President Trump took the oath of office, America’s civil society provided an outlet for protest movements against President Trump and the Republican Party. A similar phenomenon occurred during the Obama presidency, particularly after the Affordable Health Care Act was passed in 2009. The Black Lives Matter protests after the killing of George Floyd continue this tradition. In my judgment, America’s key democratic strength is the strength of its civil society. (Theda Skocpol Upending American Politics; Eric Liu You’re More Powerful than you think)
4. Today, Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight gives Joe Biden a 78% chance of winning the presidency. I believe Silver’s site is the gold standard for polling predictions. I think this for three reasons. One, he averages a large number state and national polls instead of depending upon one or two. Two, and most important, he builds state polls into the prediction formula, essential given how America’s electoral college works. Three, on Election Day in 2016, Silver’s formula gave Donald Trump a 30% chance to win and Silver throughout fall 2016 emphasized how volatile the polls were and how many undecided voters there were. He urged caution. If you want to know more, dig into FiveThirtyEight. There is a lot more to the site than polling.
5. There is less volatility in the polling for 2020 meaning Biden has held a solid national polling lead for many months. There are likely fewer undecideds in 2020 than in 2016, perhaps as few as 5% of the voting population. The election will be a referendum on the Trump Presidency and most American voters have already formed an opinion.
6. President Trump’s handling of the COVID crisis has hurt him politically, perhaps dooming his chances for re-election. The fact he has contracted the disease and that it is spreading through the White House makes it impossible for him to divert attention to other stories.
7. The following is a personal comment, by Paul Gardner, the American citizen. President Trump’s performance in last week’s Presidential debate was the low point of my life observing and living American democracy. I have never felt so down, so utterly depleted.
8. Having said that, I know many of my Trump-supporting friends feel similarly. Or at least close. However, some will support him because they prefer Republican policies to Democratic policies. It is good to remember this. Almost 63 million Americans supported Donald Trump in 2016, most, I suspect, are offended by his character, racism, and cruelty.
9. One of the consequences of America’s polarized politics is that millions of Americans hate the other party so much they are willing to support a candidate and now a President Trump. (Ezra Klein Why we’re polarized )
10. President Trump is a product and not a cause of America’s polarization. It is also true that he has worsened America’s divisions. He feeds on America’s conflicts and that is why Candidate Trump has never really tried to be President Trump, has never really tried to expand his base. Not only is he imprisoned by his own personality but by the make-up of today’s Republican Party and the limitations of America’s two party system. (Lee Drutman Breaking the Two Party Doom Loop)
11. America’s polarized politics is rooted in sociocultural and demographic changes in America now more than half a century old. This story is well told by Ezra Klein and Lee Drutman. America’s political fights today are mostly about what kind of country we want America to be. Racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual diversities are central to America’s divisions. (Heather Cox Richardson How the South Won the Civil War )
12. There are similarities between America’s political struggles and what is happening in many Eastern and Southern European countries, including Romania. Populism is rising across the world, including in America. This populism is connected to immigration or fear about immigration, stagnant wages, distrust of elites, and de-alignment of traditional parties. (Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin National Populism, Ivan Kristen & Stephen Holmes The Light that Failed.
13. Both America’s mainstream parties, Republican and Democratic, have serious internal divisions. On a personal note, I am a moderate Democrat, and there are significant differences between my political vision and the vision of the progressives in my party. ( on the Republican Party Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson Let them eat tweets & Democratic Party Steven Stoft Ripped Apart )
14. In Breaking the two-party doom loop, Lee Drutman makes a compelling case for moving America to a multi-party system, the norm for Democracies across the world. Not impossible, as his case study of New Zealand suggests.
15. Finally, race is central to understanding so much about America, including its current divisions. When someone asks me who I read to understand race in America, my go to is anything by or about James Baldwin. Top of my author Baldwin list is The Fire Next Time, followed by No Name in the Street. Fire was written in the early 60s and No Name after the assassination of Martin Luther King jr. Eddie Glaude jr. Begin Again: Jame’s Baldwin’s America and its urges lessons for our own times brings Baldwin up to the moment.