As of Thursday afternoon, returns showed more than 72 million people voted for Joe Biden, breaking the record of more than 69 million, set by Barack Obama in 2008, for votes received by a presidential candidate.
President Donald Trump was also approaching Obama’s 2008 mark with nearly 69 million votes, so as of Thursday afternoon, Biden had a 1.6% lead in the nation’s popular vote (Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1% in 2016).
The statistically tiny margin by which Biden will win the popular vote was reflected in how close voting was in the last states that had to be decided — thus deciding the totals in the Electoral College. It was looking good for Biden as I wrote this, although Trump was trying to play legal cards in states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.
But however the election ultimately tilts, the results were telling to both sides of the political aisle.
A popular narrative by Democrats — that all Trump supporters are simply deluded, evil, racists who want to turn the clock back to Jim Crow — just isn’t true.
Nearly 70 million Americans who voted for Trump don’t all drive pickup trucks streaming Confederate battle flags and with AR-15s on their window racks. Many voted for another Trump term for reasons such as they trust the president on the economy, they want immigration policies that follow the law, they don’t want rollbacks in law enforcement, they want the U.S. to confront China on economic espionage and grasps at greater world power, and they want our energy policy to follow a market-driven approach that uses our fossil-fuels production advantage while phasing in and building up renewables in a realistic manner.
People who hold such views are not deplorably evil, worthy only of being shunned.
Certainly, there ARE racists and deluded conspiracy theorists on the fringes of Trump support, such as the group of pathetic fools who plotted the kidnapping of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Trump deserved to be called out on rhetoric that might have triggered such dark thoughts and — even worse, plots — while he has never done enough to decry right-wing extremism.
However, another, far larger group of pathetically foolish people actually seized and sealed off entire blocks of Seattle at the height of the George Floyd protests, setting up their autonomous “nation.” Public and private property was destroyed, police officers were injured, residents of the area were terrorized — and people were killed.
So both sides of the political and social divide have their dangerous fringes, and despite the left’s fear and loathing of the president — despite impeachment, his not always playing by the rules, frantic criticism over COVID-19, lawsuits by state attorneys general and near universal hatred for him on the part of the media and big tech — he’s made a strong bid to be re-elected.
Yet Trump’s most fervent supporters also must come to grips with a few realities.
For all those who delight in his raucously insulting manner, it turned off voters who might otherwise have supported him. As I wrote earlier in Trump’s term, “politician” is not always a dirty word — and some political expediency by the president would have helped him these four years.
Take COVID-19. With a measure of empathy and a practical approach — if he had simply advised Americans to wear face masks when appropriate, wash their hands frequently and social distance as much as possible, while doing all we can to keep as much of the economy open as possible and prudent — he would have won re-election going away.
Among the more than 72 million Americans who voted for Biden, there are plenty who didn’t necessarily cast their ballot FOR the former vice president, they rejected Donald Trump.
Joe Biden is a diminished figure who campaigned negligibly, essentially riding an uninspiring message of “I’m not Trump.” Biden has had to repudiate much of what he stood for during his long career, and Obama even tried to convince him not to run again for the presidency.
Nevertheless, as of Thursday afternoon, Biden was close to winning the presidency. Advantages Trump should have been able to use in the campaign were undercut by negative aspects of his personality, speaking so many falsehoods and an inability to perceive that the pandemic was not as calamitous to his presidency as he feared if he had just confronted it honestly.
While many of the most passionate Trump backers might not admit it, if he loses, in some ways he failed them.
So where does that leave Americans? Divided as ever — almost precisely down the middle — with not as much decided by the election as some might think. Neither side has a mandate, neither side can claim moral superiority. There is a good chance of entrenching even further into the hopeless, pointlessly destructive political equivalent of a Flanders in World War I.
Maybe with a reachout here, an acceptance there by Americans from all walks of life we can find some common ground with our neighbors — perhaps even with friends lost because of politics.
Neither side is all right; neither side is all wrong. Understanding that is a place to start, whoever is ultimately in the White House.
(Jim Eckstrom is editor of the Olean Times Herald and Bradford Publishing Co. His email is jeckstrom@oleantimesherald.com.)
