Here We Go Again?

By Alec Pruchnicki, M.D.

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats

As we look forward to the presidential election this coming November, we read about the intense loyalty MAGA Republicans have for their presumed nominee, Donald Trump. But on the Democratic side we see warnings about lukewarm responses and doubts from young voters and black men. Indecision has cost us many presidential elections over the years and we may be on the verge of repeating history.

In 1980 when Jimmy Carter was running against Ronald Reagan, it was a difficult fight. There was high inflation and unemployment along with a hostage crisis with Iran. Carter was significantly more conservative than Lyndon Johnson, the previous Democratic president. I remember many very progressive political activists complaining that there was no significant difference between the two candidates. When Reagan was elected, tax breaks for wealthy individuals helped trigger the massive economic inequality we still see today.

In 2000, when Al Gore was running against George W. Bush, there was a similar lack of enthusiasm despite eight years of solid economic growth under Bill Clinton. Gore was “dull and boring” whereas Bush was a “regular guy” you could go out and have a beer with. But instead, a minority of American voters made him president, assisted by a lack luster Gore campaign, the Supreme Court, the Electoral College, and the Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. Whether or not Gore could have helped to prevent or lessen the 9/11 terrorist attack and the multiple incompetently handled or downright deceitful Middle East wars that followed can’t be proven, but it’s hard to see how he could have done worse. And, of course, Republican economic incompetence led to the Great Recession when millions of people lost jobs or homes.

Eight years of solid economic growth under Obama wasn’t enough to make voters enthusiastic for Hillary Clinton. She was just so, so “Hillary.” I remember people scrunching up their noses at the thought of voting for her. And, of course, there was her vote on the needless Iraq war. Again, a minority of American voters assisted by the Russians, Jim Comey of the FBI, the Electoral College, and maybe a little misogyny, decided that decades of public service weren’t enough to qualify her to be president so a complete political amateur was needed instead. Trump followed the tradition started by Reagan and gave some tax cuts to high income, though not working class individuals, and massive marginal tax cuts to corporations. His incompetence handling Covid lead to possibly hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths and yet another Republican recession.

Where does that leave us now? Many of Trump’s supporters are filled with “passionate intensity” as described by Yeats. But the mainstream media has been filled with articles about a loss of enthusiasm for Biden among different population groups or voters in general. If voters are disillusioned or disappointed in Biden due to his age, foreign policy, a good but not perfect economy, and who knows what else, consider how disappointed they will be when a wannabe dictator claiming divine endorsement becomes president again. What if the most immoral, ignorant, criminal, selfish, racist, and misogynist president we have had in modern times is elected by a minority of American voters with help from the Electoral College and maybe the Supreme Court? Let’s not add voters who “lack all conviction.”