Talk of this being the most important election in our lifetime is no exaggeration.
Just consider all that is not well in America. A worsening plague was under control until it wasn’t. Science and politics continue to diverge with competing priorities. The election is as much a referendum on mask-wearing as it is about the economy and America’s standing in the world — a world, by the way, with its own COVID-19 anxieties.
The public health demands of social distancing have conflicted with racial unrest from several recent police shootings. Black Lives Matter instantly morphed from hashtag to national anthem. Mass gatherings somehow became immune from dire warnings about airborne coronavirus droplets. Meanwhile, some peaceful protests devolved into violence and vandalism. Police cars and precincts were torched, and businesses ransacked. Chickens weren’t coming home to roost, but to roast.
A national conversation about race looked more like a shouting match, one in which the exercise of free speech was, at times, charged with racism all its own. The cancel culture established new moral criteria. Our Founding Fathers lost custody of America’s origins. And, not to be forgotten, #MeToo forever reshaped cultural attitudes about sexual harassment and assault.
That’s a lot of social upheaval to cram into one election. It’s especially true given the chaos of Donald Trump’s presidency, with it Falstaffian fixations and aversion to dull moments: the Mueller Report, Senate Impeachment Trial, trail of political pink slips, Supreme Court appointments, Middle East realignments, entangled tax-returns, and the most porous Chinese wall between private business and public life ever constructed.
Adding further drama to this election isn’t even possible. Bunkered sides have long been taken among a traumatized electorate unableto avoid so many overlapping hatreds — Democrats versus Republicans, red versus blue states, urban versus suburban citizens,immigrants versus nativists, Antifa versus the Alt-right, mainstream media versus social media.
Hatfields and McCoys have spread throughout the land, pitting families and friends against one another. And it seems like it has all come down to one gigantic disagreement — all centering around Donald Trump.
And this president wouldn’t have it any other way. Trump Derangement Syndrome metastasized and colonized all forms of thinking. The news cycle was Trump all the time. Even a global pandemic needed a Trump hook to become truly newsworthy.
Looking back on the past four years, it is apparent that everyone underestimated Donald Trump. He was no mere reality TV star. He spoke to — and for — a portion of the American public that many didn’t realize existed or simply ignored. You all know the gross stereotypes: beer cans, NASCAR, “Deliverance,” red meat, country music. and megachurches. The smug superiority of the coastal, culture-driven, liberal elite is boundless.
The media missed the story, and ferocity, of the president’s core supporters, too, never bothering to understand them. Even now, anyone with a red MAGA cap is dismissively written off as preternaturally deplorable.
Read Original Article on Jewish Journal
Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro College, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is the legal analyst for CBS News Radio. His most recent book is titled “Saving Free Speech … From Itself.”
