Biden's Mandate: The Great Moderation

In the end, Pennsylvania did not matter as much as I thought it would.  Biden won in Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, and - most especially - in Arizona, called early by Fox News.  That early call turned out to be the beginning of the end of Donald Trump's re-election.  The country did not steer hard Right.  The regressive momentum was tamed, sort of.  

The Republicans gained 6 seats in the House, still a minority but the Democrats lost seats.  The Senate, accurately reflecting the polarized nation, is presently at 50-46 in favor of the Republicans (with 2 Independents).  The last two Senate seats will be decided in my home state of Georgia.  Amazingly, not only did Biden flip Georgia in the presidential race, both Georgia Senate races are headed for runoffs and the future of the US Senate will be decided by my vote, among millions of others, in the January runoff. 

Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump to become the 46th President of the United States.  In his first semi-official speech since the close 2020 election Biden declared that is was "time to heal."  Indeed, there is much to heal.  More votes were cast in this election than ever before in America.  For all his faults, Joe Biden received more votes than any US presidential candidate in history.

As of this post, almost 75 million voted for Biden.  More than 70 million voted for Trump. Still, the best guess is that 66% of eligible voters actually voted in the 2020 election.  Think about that America.  As polarized and as media-frenzied as this election was, as passionate as both sides were, about 34% of eligible Americans did not vote.

So where's the so-called "mandate" in all of that?  Both sides predicted a "wave" of change, blue or red.  Both sides were wrong.  Trumpism was not repudiated.  The Left did not ascend in glory.  The two-party system showed us, once again, that it simply does not interest as many Americans as will vote for either candidate.  We ended up with about one-third of us for one candidate, one-third for the other, and one-third did not care.  Does any of that sound like a mandate?

It does to me.  But our traditional ways of looking at and analyzing elections cannot account for it.  The two-party system cannot account for it.  A new set of eyes, like a frontier tracker, are needed to divine what the ground tells.  The mandate is for the middle.  We need the Great Moderation, and, incredibly, Joe Biden is the perfect man for the job.

Middle ground.  The Far-Left has failed and has been rejected.  The Far-Right, equally so.  The voters are not motivated by either of those fringes.  They are, in fact, afraid of them.  The trouble is going to be that the Left possessed more power at the time of the Great Moderation than the Right.  Even with our recent troubles with Trump, the Left has controlled American national politics from legalizing abortions (1973) to permitting gay marriages (2015).  That's 42 years of liberalism mostly having its way.

But the Left must yield here.  Forget free college education and Medicare for All.  Forget even controlling the Supreme Court, for now.  By hanging on to the boundaries of leftist liberalism you are hindering your own progressiveness.  Two-thirds of the people in America did not vote for you.  Another third don't care about your crusade.  Understand that.  Yeah, Biden got a ton of votes, but it was still only a fraction.  That can't be overemphasized.  

Don't be naïve and think that just because someone doesn't vote they are not of political value.  In this consumerist culture one-third of the electorate is a huge market worth billions of dollars.  Non-voters spend money like everybody else and there are a lot of them.  We are most equal in what we all buy, not how we all vote.  Which is why, unfortunately, politics has become more about marketing than authenticity.  Trump tapped in to that.

As for the Right, Trumpism is not dead, yet.  Its pinnacle was rejected but in some ways it might be more dangerous now than before.  Trump still represents a huge chunk of American culture.  Trump gained about 7 million votes in 2020.  That is not the sign of defeat, it is the sign of resilience.

All of this more or less cancels each other out, the Right with their guns, the Left with their riots, and leaves us with the space for the Great Moderation.  As I have repeatedly asked the Left, do you want to be right or do you want to win?  The chaotic Democrats managed to win.  Now Bernie Sanders will discover that the immediate future of America is not his vision, just as it is not Donald Trump's.

Middle ground will likely mean a mixed bag political agenda; tax hikes on the wealthy, no new major government programs or policies, and repair of relations with our traditional allies.  Middle ground will likely mean not stacking the Supreme Court but also some sort of climate action and police reform.  Biden has to appease both sides as much as possible.  Compromise will hopefully come back in style, that is what the "mandate" is all about.

I have lived to see a time when my vote truly matters in national politics.  I have never known this before.  If the Democrats take the Senate they can control judiciary appointments; a huge power, as Trump just finished proving in his short term.  Even though Biden beat Trump, a lot is still at stake in this election.

I have been a political animal most of my life.  I have worked on a number of campaigns years ago, none recently.  So I watched with great interest as Georgia blue-shifted once the mail-in ballots were properly accounted for.  The same thing happened in Pennsylvania and, to a lesser degree, in North Carolina, but this was something new for me in Georgia.  

It was as exciting as a college football game, watching Trump's once impressive lead dwindle to nothing.  Then Georgia turned blue for the first time since 1992.  The fundamental credit goes to the fine work of Stacey Abrams, who has proven Democrats can compete in Georgia once again.

I will vote Democrat in both Georgia Senate runoffs in January.  If the Trumpists are discouraged we might flip the Senate, giving the Dems slender control in two of the three branches of government.  But if that happens they should not get cocky.  There is no mandate for the Democrats in 2020.  Like everything else in the crazy year, the mandate is vague and unclear to the two party system.

But when you remember that one-third of America failed to vote at all and those who did were pretty much equally divided between the two parties the Great Moderation is the only message that makes sense.  Fortunately, Joe Biden was nominated because he was the only qualified centrist for the position.  I wish him a lot of luck in pulling this torn country together.  He is going to need it. 

More than luck, however, he is going to need the Left and the Right to find ways to compromise and to work together.  (Work together on the deficit, together on infrastructure, together on the pandemic.)  That is basically beyond his control.  It requires people shut up and start listening.  After four years of Trump doing all the talking and none of the listening this will be both a welcome change and a testament to how much damage Trump has done should Biden discover no middle ground actually exists.

Late Note: James Carville said it best a few days after this post.  He stated that "woke" people need to take a "nap" after the Democrats lost seats in the House and failed to control the Senate.   Basically, he was echoing my sentiment here.  The Dems must moderate themselves.  Lofty Leftist legislation like the Green New Deal is dead, for now. Get real and stay in power.  Push too hard and you will lose power.  The American voters will not tolerate postmodern political weirdness.

Very Late Note:  Biden ended up with more than 81 million votes, more than any candidate in history.  Trump garnered more than 74 million, an increase of more than 10 million votes over how he performed in 2016.  A sobering statistic and the most votes received by any sitting president in history.  Meanwhile, in the House, the Republicans flipped a total of 12 seats.  Again, this was anything but a clear mandate in favor of liberalism, though Trump was defeated (thankfully).