Turn Out!
Voting is now underway in the U.S. presidential election, and its outcome seems to be a coin toss.
As recently as a week ago, the best-informed analysts’ predictions were for a probable Electoral College landslide for one of the candidates. They just couldn’t say which one!
Sometimes, the only choice is to choose the lesser of two evils, but even then that is still a vital decision.
Today, the choice is much easier: between a decent, middle-of-the-road Democrat and a despicable excuse for a man who believes in nothing but his own self-interest.
We know that about one in two Americans who bother to vote will actively choose Trump.
The approximately one-third of eligible voters who will vote for Biden will need to exceed the Republican vote by at least three million to stand a chance against the stacked deck of the Electoral College system.
We also know that one in three Americans won’t get off their couch to vote: “Why bother? They’re all the same.”
While it could be argued that those who are so disinterested are no great loss to democracy, it is a bitter irony that they are usually among the most affected.
As an aside, I wonder how many of these disengaged and disinterested citizens would stand in line for hours for the latest iteration of the iPhone. How much time and money would they spend to snag Taylor Swift or Super Bowl tickets?
You can’t always get what you want
In what is close to a true dichotomy, only the Republicans or the Democrats can win the presidency. Third-party candidates are doomed to failure but can and do significantly affect the final outcome.
In 2000, Ralph Nader, along with hanging chads, gave the White House to the Republicans.
While I share most of Jill Stein’s environmental aims, as in 2016, her run for president could help elect the biggest threat to Planet Earth. She is effectively being played as a “useful idiot” by the Republicans.
As the French philosopher Voltaire wrote, “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien”—the perfect is the enemy of the good. As the English philosophers Jagger and Richards wrote, “You can’t always get what you want.”
The best chance for decency to prevail is for a huge turnout among women, particularly in the swing states. It needs to be big enough to overcome residual racism and sexism and definitive enough to silence the MAGA crowd.
That way, America and the rest of us just might get what we need!