THE FIRE LAST TIME IS THE FIRE THIS TIME
Lessons from the 2020 Vote Count in Philadelphia
The trend lines in the 2024 Presidential election continue to point towards a repeat of the result of the last two: Donald Trump will lose the popular vote but the anomaly of the Electoral College will keep the outcome in doubt.
And that doubt provides space for violence.
Too much coverage of the current election is focused on polling and the narrative for the weeks until election day is already set: Kamala Harris is ahead nationally and seems likely to win the popular vote. But in the “battleground” states which will decide the electoral college the polling says it’s a dead heat and Trump could win.
But there is a deeper current at work driving this election and I’m not sure the polls and reports of their findings get to it, even though it has been observable since Trump won the presidency. I first encountered this force on Inauguration Weekend in 2017.
I stood on the Mall for Trump’s not particularly well-attended Inauguration and wrote about it for The Observer newspaper in Britain. The next day I rode the DC Metro into town again from suburban Bethesda, Maryland for the Million Woman March. From all directions, public transport to Capitol Hill and the Mall was packed with demonstrators. I joined the march with a friend, his wife, her pals and his young daughter who was still in a push chair.
My friend was ex-Army. He had served in Baghdad and I had reported from Baghdad. We knew from big crowds and didn’t like them. In the crush of what was closer to one million than not, the energy was tumultuous and vibrant but for us a little nervous-making. Call it mild PTSD but we pulled out of the throng and went back to his place. Hours went by before his wife and her friends returned full of a focused intention that reminded me of the post-march highs of the big anti-Vietnam War demonstrations.
Of course, those marches came to nothing, so a little unspoken cynicism was behind my smile as I listened to the women’s enthusiasm. I should have paid closer attention. Nobody was whining about how unfair it was about the Electoral College because Hillary had beaten Donald by nearly three million votes. There was a “let’s get to work” energy in the room.
My cynicism began to erode dramatically in October of the following year, 2018. The BBC sent me back to report on the mid-terms and in a small office complex in suburban Atlanta I met with some women preparing to go door knocking for a local candidate. Upper-middle class, professional women most of them. Several told me they had been on the Million Woman March.
When the results came in, the Democrats had regained control of the House of Representatives and nationally had polled 9 million votes more than the Republicans. That was the largest gap in mid-term election history, according to America’s supreme psephologist, Dave Wasserman of the Cook Report. Having observed its beginnings, I knew Democratic women had to be given much of the credit for the organizing energy that went into that record.
Joe Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris as running mate in 2020 demonstrated an understanding of this fact. Today, women drive any Democratic Party electoral success. Biden more than doubled Clinton’s popular vote victory.
Then came the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision on June 24, 2022, which overturned Roe vs Wade. Within months, states with anti-abortion legislatures looked to ban abortion altogether. Kansas, as red a state as there is, and with a troubled history of intimidation and violence against abortion providers, was the first to schedule a referendum on the issue in the form of an amendment to the state’s constitution banning the procedure. It was defeated and it wasn’t even close, 59% of Kansas voters cast ballots against the measure.
Again, women, did the organizing.
Six months later, in the post-Dobbs midterms, Republicans failed to get the usual voter surge towards the opposition party. It was the first chance to measure the effect of the overturn of the Roe decision nationally.
And the trend continues.
Look at that list: Michigan and Ohio are key states for the electoral college. In November, another key state will have an abortion measure on the ballot: Arizona. There is no reason to think that women in Phoenix, Tucson, Nogales or Bisbee will not vote in large numbers to preserve control over their bodies. Those same women will vote for Kamala Harris.
The trend since the 2016 election is unmistakable: The majority of American women never want to feel this way again:
Remember this when reading about inflation or immigration and other issues pollsters say will determine the winner in November, keep it in mind when reading another article about how much more money the Harris campaign has raised than Trump’s.
Also remember the other trend that hasn’t changed much since 2016 and 2020 is Trump’s unswayable support and the MAGA faithful’s willingness to use whatever means necessary to return him to power.
Nothing since his defeat in 2020 gives any indication that Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are willing to eschew violence if they lose the election this time.
Dear Readers:
I took the Philadelphia pictures in this post while in the city recording an FRDH, First Rough Draft of History podcast.
The 2020 election diary for FRDH was made possible by the generous donations of listeners and now I’m asking substack readers as well as listeners to financially support another reporting trip to the US.
I have already done one stint: in June I traveled a section of the American border with Mexico and also watched the infamous Biden-Trump debate with MAGA folks in Alamogordo NM.
This time I plan to base myself in Georgia from the second half of October through Election Day. From this side of the Atlantic, Georgia seems likely to be the crucible for this election: tightly contested, with voter suppression and intimidation and the count needing to be closely monitored.
I’ve reported from the state several times over the years. I know the playing field and I won’t be going just for the barbecue. If everyone who reads this chipped in 5 bucks it would cover a month of reporting. So please:
UPDATE:
Sseveral hours after I posted this, I got this email. Who would you rather give $5 to?
