I got home to New Jersey from my Midwestern road trip last Friday, and I want to conclude my travelogue with some reflection. Before I left I had pretensions of seeing what was going on in different parts of the country during a contentious election year. Little did I know my trip would coincide with one of the most tumultuous two weeks in American political history.
The assassination attempt on Donald Trump happened two days before we left. At that time the calls for President Biden to withdraw from the race were dominating the headlines. That left the center stage of the political news for maybe two days. The Republican convention followed while we were on the road and in Chicago. Despite some rather, well, weird behavior at the convention, Democrats still dedicated themselves to a circular firing squad instead of highlighting the extremity of their opposition. Speaking of, JD Vance gave a straight up blood and soil nomination speech to began his run as a true wet fart of a candidate. By the time my trip was over the couch memes were dominating my feed.
That week ended on the Sunday when Biden announced his withdrawal from the race. The news flashed across during a family gathering, and I have to thank my cousin (who does not share most of my politics) for jumping in and cutting off any political discussion. The next day Kamala Harris had already claimed the mantle of presumptive nominee. I ran some errands with my wife and kids in the car, abuzz with the kind of political conversations we were avoiding at my parents' house. I knew things were changing when my 12-year old daughters whooped and hollered when we told them the news about Harris. I had been thinking that the Democratic Party was in an impossible situation, that either with or without Biden the election was unwinable. Suddenly progressives had their mojo back, and the needle had been threaded. Biden had stepped down, and a new nominee had been found without a destructive intra-party dispute. That nominee was already generating the kinds of enthusiasm from Democrats unseen since 2008. It was some kind of miracle. The last night of our trip my family gathered around my laptop in our roadside hotel room in Ohio, watching a Harris organizing meeting with barely contained energy. Between July 15th and July 26th it felt like the entire world had changed.
On my trip I kept looking for clues to the national mood, but since I spent most of my time with family and old friends I would have to admit I can't say I observed much. My anecdotal observation is that I was pleasantly surprised at how little evidence of MAGA I detected. A house in my hometown not far from my parents that once flew a "Fuck Biden" sign no longer did. (I did see another house in another part of town flying one, though.) On our drive to and from Nebraska I saw a lot fewer Trump bumper stickers and fashy emblems than usual. I have long suspected that Trump is losing the juice, and that Biden's fumbling had obscured Trump's decline. With Harris's vitality dominating the news, Trump's doddering incoherence seems that much more pronounced. Nevertheless, one day when we drove through the Nebraska countryside a house on a backroad decorated to their fence to say "I am voting for the convicted felon." As the ranks of enthusiastic Trump supporters have dwindled it feels like the remaining ones have only intensified their zeal. This is a dynamic that mimics that in the churches many of these folks belong to.
It was eerily appropriate that we spent the last morning of our trip on the campus of Kent State University. We had decided to spend the night before at a random spot in Ohio because it was eight hours down the road from our previous stop. I soon realized we were right near Kent State, and I was lucky enough to have an online friend there in the history department who showed us around the site of the 1970 massacre. I learned a lot, to be sure, but I was also shook by the knowledge that when deep political divisions meet authority figures willing to wield violence, the blood will flow. As excited as I was that Democrats had come back from the dead, I also knew the reality of the situation we are in. Thinking about May 4th, 1970, I could not help but be reminded of the violence of our own political moment. I could not stop thinking that a new Trump administration would probably result in dozens of Kent States. My trip to the Midwest and back reminded me of how much I love this country, but also that the people who cheered the National Guard gunning down protestors are still alive and well. I'm more committed than ever to keeping them out of power.
No comments:
Post a Comment