Losing Elections

Hope is still stronger than fear

When I said I was thinking about getting involved with politics again, one of my oldest friends said, “Buckle up. Things ain’t what they used to be.” As usual, she knew things I didn’t, but I knew things she didn’t, too.

There’s nothing more precious than a newborn baby. Their skin is fragile, like Japanese tissue. Their bones are faint and fragile, like spun sugar. It’d be absolutely insane to let somebody we haven’t absolutely vetted from every angle hold that precious package, and yet that’s the first thing we do. We hand our most precious thing over to someone we don’t know to hold and examine and bathe. We do it because we trust the system, and the system wouldn’t put somebody who couldn’t be trusted in that position.

Getting involved with politics means that sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose, even when you’re absolutely convinced that losing is the worst thing that can possibly happen. Just like with a baby nurse, you have to trust that the system will protect you, even though you didn’t win.

Between 1955 and 1975, America experienced more social upheaval than in its entire history since the Civil War. Progressives thought they were entering a new age of optimism and opportunity, and then America elected Richard Nixon twice. Not quite done, they elected Ronald Reagan twice. People said they were voting for economic reasons, but Nixon’s plan was called “irresponsible” by economists, and Reagan’s plan was called “Voodoo Economics” by other Republicans.

Aside from economics, both Nixon and Reagan ran on the idea that the Soviets were dangerous to us and the promise to roll back some of the social changes in America. People don’t like to admit it, but social change makes them very nervous, particularly when it’s related to race, gender, religion, or sexuality.

It’s traditional to congratulate the winning party on a well-run race, but in 2024, I don’t know if that’s the case. The winning party ran a race based on legal Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs, squirrels that violate New York’s wild animal laws, transgender athletes where there weren’t any, and a supposedly satanic Olympic Opening Ceremony.

I don’t know that I can say that’s a well-run race, but they took maximum advantage of the aggressive social changes that have been happening in America in the twenty-first century. They even reversed some of the social changes from the 1970s, particularly with regard to women’s rights.

Democrats thought threatening and limiting the rights of women would usher them into power like a tidal wave. It didn’t. Part of the problem is that women are also very nervous about social change, even when it benefits them.

Most of the night last night, I took calls from people who felt for sure they would win, but were very concerned that they were losing. You’d be surprised how much of my life has been spent reassuring nervous people.

Most of the people I read felt like the Democratic ticket had a solid edge, but I knew this was America, and in America, I sensed a great deal of fear and a great deal of hate. It’s very hard to win against fear and hate—at least in the short run.

Talking to very anxious, frightened people, I reminded them that most of the time, politics is a fifty-fifty game. Even if your party always wins, like it does in Mississippi, there’s still about a fifty-fifty chance your guy will prevail in the primaries.

I also pointed out all the times we’ve been in this spot before. People have been comparing Trump to Nixon since before he won the first time. People compared Nixon and Kissinger to satan. A few illegal bombings in Cambodia and a Watergate later, there were still an awful lot of Americans willing to vote for Satan.

When I started informing myself about the schism in the United Methodist Church, I knew the Democratic ticket would have trouble. Methodists were calm, moderate, and boring, but they were so concerned about the social changes happening in America that they were willing to risk their financial future by splitting from the home church. That all sounded very familiar. All of this has happened before and will happen again.

I’ve lost races to people who were objectively horrible before. It’s part of the game. It’s not fun losing. It’s important to remind yourself that this isn’t sports and try to be objective about what’s happening. People will do just about anything to preserve their social position, and you’d be surprised how many things they consider a threat to that.

Like a lot of people, I’m concerned about what happens now. For one thing, I’m pretty sure Trump’s tax plan built on tariffs is just nuts—almost as nuts as Nixon’s price ceiling plan. I’m concerned, but I’m not afraid. I will not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.

Traditionally, progressives spend their time with boots on the ground trying to work for social change, and then they pay a price for it at the ballot box. That’s how Nixon won, and I’m pretty sure that’s how Trump won. Watching people on social media discuss who is and who isn’t trans told me there’s still a lot of irrational hate and fear out there. You’d be surprised how many people still think Michelle Obama is trans despite her two children.

You can get mad about people using hateful rhetoric to make people afraid and win political advantage, but it won’t help. Sometimes, you have to recognize the beast for what it is and deal with it on that level. I think the Harris campaign failed at that.

No matter what happens, hope is still greater than fear, but it’s not as loud, and winning elections is often a matter of being loud. The Democrats' “big tent” ideas failed them. People who want progressive politics for themselves but not for others seem to be the problem.

Despite your fears, the sun rose today. I can see it pretty clearly. I’ve lost a lot of elections, and I’ve won a lot of elections, which is part of how this is done. Every time it happens, it reveals something about America. This time, it revealed that there’s a lot more discontent and disjointedness in America than we expected. We’ve been through that before.

On our border, people are lining up for miles to get in because things are still better here than there. Someone once said that it’s not when people are trying to get in that you have to worry; it’s when they’re trying to get out.

It’s hard not to worry or despair when you have setbacks in life. They annoy me, but I don’t fear them. Setbacks, particularly political setbacks, illuminate the areas that we need to work on. In America, we clearly need to work on making people believe that the expanded civil rights of the last sixty years work in their favor, and we have to do it in ways that overwhelm the political memes used to resist them.

We’ve had this tendency to believe that if we can get fifty-one percent of the people to go along with our social agenda, then we’ve won, but that means that there’s forty-nine percent of the people who don’t, and it doesn’t take that much work to change two or three percent of the vote and reverse whatever it is you think you’ve won—and that’s what happened last night.

This is hardly the first president we’ve elected that I don’t much care for. It’s probably not the first for you either, even if you’ve voted exactly the opposite of me every time. Our political system has grown up to work by contention, not cooperation, and that’s the pretty obvious side effect.

From what I can see, Trump’s own people are trying to get him to walk back the tariff idea. Hopefully, they’ll prevail. People who are concerned about civil rights regarding sexuality, race and gender probably have their work cut out for them. I would suggest that it’s about winning over that forty-nine percent they left behind last time.

Don’t wring your hands thinking this is the most evil person we’ve ever elected. He’s about middling; he’s just louder about it. Being louder about it makes what he’s doing a lot more obvious.

Hope is still stronger than fear—it’s just not as fast.