An election like none other? Maybe
Teddy White wasn’t being the least bit romantic when, 60 years ago, he wrote this:
“The power [to govern] passes invisibly in the night as Election Day ends; the national vigil includes all citizens: and when consensus is reached, the successful candidate must accept the decision in the same rough, ragged, and turbulent fashion in which he has conducted the campaign that has brought him to power.”
The journalist whose books on presidential elections ushered in a whole new genre of reportage noted that Election Day in America is pretty unremarkable, in that “no bands play, no troops march, no guns are readied, no conspirators gather in secret headquarters.”
“There is nothing to be seen except an occasional line outside a church or school, or a file of people fidgeting in the rain, waiting to enter the [voting] booths.”
While we may yet end up with a quiet Election Day, there are signs pointing in the other direction as well. White’s “rough” and “turbulent” of 1960 seem certain to take on a whole new cast in 2020. Buckle up, America, it could be we’re in for a rough and turbulent election – an election like none other in our history.
For one thing, Election Day and night may stretch into a fortnight or two or three. In the worst of cases, the anxiety and uncertainty of who will occupy the White House beginning at noon on Jan. 20, 2021, extends all the way to the hour of oath-taking.
Could both Donald Trump and Joe Biden show up at the Capitol expecting to be sworn in? Not likely, though nothing can be ruled out at this stage of the game.
We’re already in uncharted territory. When was the last time a president of the United States called on his attorney general to bring charges against his political opponents, including the guy who’s running to take his place?
Answer: Never.
When was the last time a president called an American election “rigged?
Answer: Never.
When was the last time officials planned against the possibility of armed men (and women) showing up at polling places, ostensibly to maintain order and to guard against disruptions at voting stations?
Answer: Not for a very long time.
Waynesburg councilman Lynne Snyder, for one, recently asked Greene County officials to be alert to the possible appearance on Election Day of rifle-bearing outsiders prowling near polling places.
She said she sensed this could happen, based on the presence in Waynesburg of riflemen during a Juneteenth celebration last summer.
“What are you guys going to do to block voter intimidation at the polls?” Snyder said in quizzing the Greene County commissioners. “The brandishing of weapons – I don’t think it’s necessary here in our town.”
Was Snyder being an alarmist? Are her fears far-fetched?
Maybe, but if so, she has company. Marcus L. Brown, director of the state office of Homeland Security, recently spoke to the matter of voter intimidation, on Zoom with reporters.
“Obviously, it’s a concerning situation if someone is ever feeling uncomfortable in their efforts to go and vote,” Brown said. “I think law enforcement across the state is prepared to respond to our polling places to ensure anyone showing up at any polling place feels safe.”
All of this is new, relatively speaking. When was the last time talk about the lynchpin of democracy – the ability and the right to vote – was heard in America? Not in my lifetime, certainly. Oh, I recall loose talk in the late ’60s that President Nixon, using protests against the Vietnam War as a pretext, would “call off” the mid-term elections of 1970.
But no one – or hardly no one – believed that was a real possibility.
Today, concerns seem more realistic in part because reporters are asking about it and because people in charge, like Brown, are talking about it and above all because the country never before has had a wrecking ball at the helm of government.
“With every day the tensions get higher,” the Democratic Party chairman of Erie County, Jim Wentz, recently told the Washington Post.
Passions are high on both sides, said his counterpart, Erie County GOP chairman Verel Salmon. “I don’t think I’ve heard a single optimistic thing this year.”
With this as background, it seems somewhat quaint, yet somewhat hopeful, to read Teddy White’s words from 60 years ago: “Heroes and philosophers, brave men and vile, have since Rome and Athens tried to make the … transfer of power work effectively; no people have succeeded at it better or over a longer period of time than the Americans.”
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. His latest book “JFK Rising” is available on Amazon. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.