VOX POPULIST

AFTER THE ELECTION, A NOTE OF HOPE

Populist author, public speaker, and radio commentator JIM HIGHTOWER writes The Hightower Lowdown, a monthly newsletter chronicling the ongoing fights by America’s ordinary people against rule by plutocratic elites. Sign up at HightowerLowdown .org.

Many years ago, literary critic Dorothy Parker skewered an unfortunate author with the apocryphal line: “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” That’s how a lot of us feel about the 2020 presidential election, distinguished by an incumbent who is so self-centered, incompetent, and both mentally and morally unsteady that he’s more dangerous than a baby who’s gotten hold of a hammer. Trump, swinging wildly, tried to win by demolishing the truth, shattering the law, smashing basic rights, annihilating fair play, trashing the common good, busting up social trust, splintering justice, and . . . well, generally eradicating the egalitarian principles that unify Americans into a functioning democracy. Lincoln didn’t preserve the noble idea of America by rewriting the law, but by altering the culture, pushing the people to act on their better natures.

It has been the worst and most divisive election ever, right?

No. That horror belongs to the 1860 contest, a four-way race that Lincoln won with 39.8 percent of the vote. Rabid racism, furious intimidation of voters, blatant manipulation of ballots, personal attacks so vicious they’d even make Trump cringe, and daily death threats not only from the goofball “proud boys” of the day, but from Southern elected officials and establishment newspapers.

“If Lincoln is elected,” a Virginia member of Congress told the New York Herald, “we will go to Washington and assassinate him before his Inauguration.” It was a campaign of demonic fury. Mobs attacked and wrecked Lincoln’s campaign offices in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland, and ten Southern states wouldn’t even put his name on the ballot.

Despite the vitriol and violence, Lincoln won, stayed calm yet firm in a time of dangerous turmoil, and not only held a bitterly divided nation together, but expanded our democratic ideals and advanced the possibilities for ordinary people to achieve them. He didn’t wear a silly red cap arrogantly proclaiming “Make America Great Again”— he did it. Indeed, he died for it.

The point is that Lincoln didn’t preserve the noble idea of America by rewriting the law, but by altering the culture, pushing people to act on their better natures. So, 160 years after that toxic election, here’s another one, and there’s no Lincoln in sight. That means that We the People have to do the healing ourselves.

Good grief, cry many progressives. How has America turned so far to the right that a narcissistic, wannabe-dictator like Trump was even in the running?

But wait—aside from a minority of racist, xenophobic, misogynistic voters, plus a bunch of uber-wealthy corporate profiteers making a killing from his richman’s agenda—many of Trump’s rank-and-file voters are not rightwingers at all. To see evidence of this, look at the multitude of overtly progressive ballot issues that won majority support on November 3, even in so-called “Trump Country.” • Fifty-two percent of Arizona voters said yes to a tax surcharge on incomes above $250,000 a year, specifically to raise teacher pay and recruit more teachers. • A whopping 78 percent of Oregon voters approved a populist proposition to put strict controls on the corrupting power of big-money corporate donations in elections. • Sixty-one percent of Floridians voted to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026, a working-class advance vehemently opposed by corporate giants and rightwing groups. • Fifty-seven percent voted yes on a Colorado provision requiring corporations to let employees earn paid time off for medical and family needs. • Between 54 and 73 percent of voters in six states—including in such conservative bastions as

Arizona, Mississippi, and South

Dakota—approved initiatives liberalizing and even legalizing marijuana and other drug use. • Plus, there were some big symbolic victories, such as Mississippi replacing a Confederate symbol on its state flag with a magnolia blossom, and the people of Nebraska overwhelmingly voting to amend their constitution to excise an antiquated provision authorizing slavery as a punishment for certain crimes!

The hope that resides in these progressive policy positions is the prospect that a truly great American majority might yet be forged— not around some politician, but around our people’s basic shared values of fairness, justice, and equal opportunity for all. ◆

Much More Online Recent Posts from Progressive.org

DISPATCHES:

Progressives Savor Historic Election - Ruth Conniff How the U.S. Became an Inferior Communication Nation - David Rosen The Trump Formula - Mark Fiore Foreign Correspondent: The Challenge for Joe Biden - Reese Erlich New Report Highlights Difficulties for LGBTQ+ Students - Eleanor J. Bader Midwest Dispatch: Protecting Our Polls Is Only the Beginning - Sarah Lahm The Other Americans: United States Attacks Cuban Medics During Pandemic - Jeff Abbott ‘We Feel Like We’re Responsible for Waukegan’ - Raven Geary Is the U.S. Prepared to Resist a Coup? - Stephen Zunes Unequal Justice: Confirmation Hearings Exposed Barrett as a Hardcore Rightwing Activist - Bill Blum I’m an Eighteen-Year-Old Black Girl from Wisconsin. I Want My First Vote to Mean Something - Tziah McNair Smart Ass Cripple: Amy Coney Barrett Is a Threat to the Disabled - Mike Ervin Why Police Body Cameras Haven’t Stopped Police Brutality - Andrew Lee

FROM OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL SHAKEDOWN PROJECT:

Betsy DeVos’s ‘Voucherland’ Spells Disaster for Public Schools - Peter Greene Instead of Funding Public Education, Oklahoma Bankrolled a ForProfit Virtual Charter School - John Thompson As Schools Reopen, Teachers and Staff Aren’t Being Consulted - Sarah Lahm Why Trump’s Myth of American Exceptionalism Is So Dangerous - Rann Miller The GOP’s Plan for Education: Whatever Trump Says - Peter Greene Why We Need an Antiracist Education System - Rachael Rifkin How John Lewis’s Message of ‘Good Trouble’ Is Inspiring Change in Education - Yohuru Williams

PROGRESSIVE MEDIA PROJECT OP-EDS:

A Pandemic of Division - Dorian Warren After the Election, We Need Empathy - Elana Rabinowitz Pandemic’s Toll on Young Black Women - Annerieke Daniel, Amanda Furdge The Case for Giving Everyone a Job - Jennifer Zhang, June Hopkins Trump Has Consistently Harmed Workers - Michael Felsen Congress Must Deliver COVID-19 Relief - Karen Dolan

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