How To Win and Lose an Election — BCB #124

What we will owe to each other, after tonight.

From a hundred years’ distance, what will they say about this election? Did the losers tarnish democracy by using force to get their way? Or will they say that about the winners? No matter what happens, we will all have new responsibilities tonight.

Each of you, Red or Blue, feels that this election could be the end of America. This fear is truly bipartisan – which doesn’t mean you’re both right. Still, we would never tell you not to fight for what you believe; better conflict, not no conflict. After tonight you must follow your conscience. But if you are also concerned about democracy, capital D, then there is more to do. 

Your candidate lost. Now what? 

Grieve. This is not the America you wanted. Lives will be lost because of what happened today, whether that’s women looking for life-saving medical care or police officers doing a dangerous job. Grieve, then remember that democracy also gives you an end to your suffering. You only have to endure this for four years. 

The grim truth is that every other course is worse. If you were to rebel against the results — if you were to concoct reasons the election wasn’t really lost, if you were to claim that unfair voting laws must void the result, if you would put rocks through windows and mobs against institutions — that would be the end of something fragile. You will want that fragile thing later. Nothing in our communal lives can function without the delicate cooperation of democratic frenemies.

It’s not Trump or Harris you must do this for. Not for the would-be kings, the influential classes, the power-brokers and the media moguls. Instead keep this faith for the others, the Americans no less American than you — there must be at least one that you admire! — that your wiser predecessors swore to live beside.

Your candidate won. Now what? 

Rejoice! Then remember that you won by mere margins. Half the country is with you, but the other half is grieving, angry and fearful. You’re only one unpopular move away from a majority against you. 

While it may seem that all is well now, that is hardly the case. You don’t even know the country you have inherited. You have mostly avoided fraternizing with the adversary, or living near them, or even having friendships and marriages across the new color line. You don’t know them, and that ignorance breeds contempt. We’ve all learned to say terrible things like “flyover country” and “libtard.” That’s no way to rule; it has to stop, now.

You will be sorely tempted to remake the machinery of power in your image. You will create new rules to harass your opponents, and new departments to prosecute the crimes that worry you most. You will try, one way or another, to control the noxious things that people say. But do not imagine that the weapons you create will never be used against you. Whenever you are tempted to stretch your authority for the best of reasons, remember: the other side will regain power eventually; if they cannot, then you have become the dictator you feared.

What we owe to each other

It’s easier to believe the other side must be stupid or evil than to imagine that they’re desperate to protect their families and communities, just like us. But they are. They formed their values through tradition, circumstance and experience, just like you. Humanity and democracy alike demand that we keep our promises to them, whether we have won or lost.

We are the inheritors of a pact that has defended us from kings and revolutions alike for over 200 years. It must seem to you now that the other side will certainly be the first to defect; or that they already have. But however fearful you are tonight, consider that it has only ever been our promises to each other that have kept us safe.