The Upcoming Election

Remarks to Wellesley Weston Senior Living // September 23, 2024

  Even as we approach Election Day, it is very difficult to suggest with any certainty as to where we are headed as a nation.  Prof. Beer once told me that “peace and prosperity are difficult to defeat.” Will that rule hold true in 2024?

 2024 may end the grasp which my generation has held onto the White House since Bill Clinton beat George H.W. Bush in 1992. George H.W. Bush had served in World War II, as had every American President, in some fashion, since Dwight David Eisenhower. Generational change is inevitable, and necessary. Will Trump now be labeled as being old, spiteful, perhaps delusional and yesterday’s news?

 Towards the end of summer, I had a long conversation with a friend who was a veteran of Massachusetts politics.  I predicted that Donald Trump would self-destruct, just as did John Silber when he ran for governor in 1990.  Silber was the winner of a contested democratic primary and had a head of steam heading into the general election against Bill Weld, a quirky non-traditional Republican.  I commented years later that, had John gone to the Fall Foliage Parade in North Adams and decided to spend the next month in Berkshire County, he would have won.  Notwithstanding the advice from people who had been involved in campaigns for a long time, Silber took on one group after the other, including the elderly, and even had an angry on-air confrontation with Natalie Jacobson, a beloved television news anchor for more than a generation. 

 It appears Trump, like Silber, cannot help himself and is doing his best to alienate most every group out there.

 Let me suggest a few topics for all of us to consider in the coming weeks.

 1.         Will this be the first election, perhaps in all of American history, whereby a conviction for a felony is not viewed as a negative? Growing up in Dorchester, our goal was not to have “a record.” Has all of this changed, this year?

2.         Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. may have taken votes from both parties.  I don’t think his endorsement will help Trump. What is much clearer is that Cornell West and Jill Stein will only take votes otherwise headed to the Democratic ticket.  Could 2024 be like 2000 when those voting for Ralph Nader effectively elected George W. Bush? Will Republican-aligned Super PACS funded by Elon Musk and others flood black neighborhoods in swing states with messages in support of Cornell West? Will they do likewise in academic communities such as Madison, Wisconsin in support of Jill Stein? She will be on the ballot in New Hampshire following efforts by a Republican political operative!  Will we see Democratic advertisements in Wisconsin and Michigan showing President Ford 50 years ago suggesting that “we are a nation of laws and not of men?”

3.  It will be a close race. It will be close because people sort themselves into certain defined groups. One of my recent articles referenced Bill Bishop who proposed “The Big Sort” theory about 20 years ago. If you are a pro-choice, pro-immigration Democrat, you are not likely to relocate outside Dallas.  If you are a low-tax, low service Republican, it is not likely you will land in Massachusetts.  Few will move to Oklahoma, but for religious zealots.

Perhaps there are a dozen states which will be in play. You know all the names.  Nobody will do any campaigning in Massachusetts, visiting only to collect a number of large checks. Our state is known for its generosity to Democratic politicians.

4.  To win, both parties will need to be wary of the degradation of their respective entities as issues of race and gender and class begin to simmer. 

In the case of the Republicans, Trump will have to calm down or silence those mouthing the same racist theories as was the case almost exactly 100 years ago when the nation last passed a restrictive immigration law.  He must restrain the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys and White Christian Nationalists, who demonize most anyone who has come to this country in the past 150 years!  Nick Fuentes having dinner at Mar-a-Lago does not look good.

If you are a Democrat, you have to be very wary of the controlling of the agenda by “coastal elites.”  Elites tend to be more educated and more affluent than the majority; I would make the case that Kamala Harris need not be lectured to by Ivy League graduates who have decided that only they can save the nation from itself.  By the way neither Democrat went to an ivy league school while both Republicans did.  Tim Walz is a breath of fresh air for the Democratic party and the nation.

5.         Whoever wins must tackle the ever-expanding national debt by only cutting taxes while reducing expenditures, not an old-fashioned idea to me, as well as to reassure our allies that we will not abandon our eight decades of leadership of the free world.

6.         How will the new president deal with Medicare and Social Security which need to be restructured so that benefits must not be cut? Is it time to raise the income limit for Social Security taxes beyond $168,600? Is it time to slowly increase the retirement age which was pegged by Bismarck well over a century ago?

7.         What message will the winner of the election give to his fellow Americans and to the world as we approach our 250th anniversary as a nation?  Can it be used as an opportunity to reinvigorate our democracy rather than to reinvent our history?

8.         Our birth rate hit a historic low in 2023. How can government encourage the repopulation of our nation? Is it time for new policies to make child rearing more affordable?

9.         Many pediatricians and others believe that our children are poorly served by having access to social media. Do our candidates agree with the psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who believes that the addiction to electronic devices is causing a mental health crisis and damaging young peoples’ brains?

10.  It is essential that, without regard to who prevails, we have a peaceful transition of power.  It is essential that elected officials proceed with the counting of votes and the casting of ballots by electors.  We cannot yield to an unruly mob. We cannot listen to those who advance irrational theories.  Some suggest that, if elected, Trump might not step aside after four years.  We are not Putin’s Russia!  God help us if he declares a state of emergency and tries to suspend the Constitution, as if we were some banana republic! That would be my deepest fear.