Character Wins

Van Jones was exhausted, as were we all. After four days of nearly non-stop reporting on the election, he could not hold back the tears as he said on CNN, “It is easier to be a parent this morning. It is easier to tell your kids that character matters. It matters. Telling the truth matters. Being a good person matters.” At that point the venerable commentator had to stop to wipe his eyes and could barely hold it together as he talked about the people who have suffered through the last four years, fearful for being evicted from this country as immigrants or for their personal safety as people of color. “I can’t breathe,” Jones said through his tears, “that was not just George Floyd. That was a lot of people who felt they couldn’t breathe.” (Watch it here.) And now, just maybe, they will be able to breathe a little easier again.

I share Jones’ sentiments. Logic tells me that issues like the climate crisis and the pandemic are what matters most, but my heart says at this particular moment in history, nothing was more important in this election than character. My emotions may not have risen to the same level as Jones when the election was called four days later, but then I have not been the victim of the kind of racism of which he spoke that has been unleashed under a President who has repeatedly given more than a wink and a nod to racist groups.

It was an emotional experience for me nevertheless, in no small measure due to the death of my father just days before, a man who made a career of preaching against the kind of divisiveness, animosity and bigotry that have been so prevalent recently under the guise of patriotism. Instead, the message from the pulpit under which I grew up was about compassion for the downtrodden, empathy for the suffering and justice for the poor. Dad would have been one of those who found redemption in this election and evidence that we can and will build a more just nation and world over time. (More about Dad in my next post.)

I wrote previously on this blog that character matters. How much it matters should now be abundantly clear. Rather than accept the possibility that the majority of voting citizens could vote for his opponent again and this time win the electoral college as well, the soon to be former President prefers to undermine the legitimacy of the election and to attack the integrity of the dedicated people safeguarding our vote. This is not just a travesty, it is incredibly dangerous, for ultimately the success of democracy depends on the assent of the governed. Trump and his enablers are not just attacking the election and the will of the majority, they are attacking the basis of democracy by making baseless claims of illegal votes to undermine the results and create a false justification for legislatures to appoint a set of electors different from those chosen by the people. (Yes, they can do that.) One South American newspaper captured the meaning well with the headline, “Who is the banana republic now?”

There is an especially rich irony in this election if the current numbers hold: 306 to 232. Those are the electoral numbers by which Trump won in 2016 and they appear to be the numbers by which Biden will win in 2020. And somehow 2016 was a “landslide” and 2020 is a “stolen” election? Never mind that the popular vote in both elections favored the Democrats and that the Biden/Harris margin of victory is greater than the total votes of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Utah combined. Or think about it this way, if just the surplus voters from California (4.5 million more than needed to win California’s 55 electoral votes) were distributed equally to Texas, Florida and Ohio, the electoral college tally would be 391 to 147 and there would still be three million surplus votes left to distribute to other states. And yet, as of this writing, the President can only tweet about how great his numbers were, surpassing all expectations, while refusing to concede. Such is one small window into the character of the lame duck President, who knows only how to win with bragging and seems incapable of losing with dignity. Time will tell.

But even as I celebrate the victory of decency over dishonesty, inclusion over division, a good man over a childish bully, my joy is tempered by that most sobering Pyrrhic victory of the President in the votes he did get. After four years, no one can say, “We didn’t know.” The character of this man has been on full display for some time–his leadership in the “birther” theory to discredit President Obama, his boast of sexually assaulting women on the Hollywood Access tape, his mocking of the reporter with a physical disability, his sexual affairs and the attempt to over them up, his charade charity and fraudulent college, the constant lies which created a cottage industry of fact checkers, his vocal support of white supremacists, the policy to discourage immigration by illegally separating children from their families, the disgraceful Bible photo op, his praise of authoritarian rulers–the list goes on and on. And yet, in spite of all of that, seven million more Americans voted for him in 2020 than in 2016.

This is simply hard to fathom and deeply troubling. Is this a reflection of how deeply racist our country really is or how easily people are swayed by propaganda and conspiracy theories? Is it because in guns we trust rather than in God and fear, falsely, that Biden will take them away? Do we believe in choosing the health of the economy over the health of the people (and getting neither in the process). Has the love of money won over love of neighbor?

These questions are hard to consider and I do not mean to over simplify the political opinions of 69 million people who voted to give Trump a second term. Maybe they agree with our immigration restrictions but not the manner in which they were implemented. Maybe shifting the balance of the Supreme Court out weighs everything else. Whatever the justification, we still must honestly face the reality of who we are as a nation, for the hard truth is that some of those ugly things are accurate for some or maybe even many of those 69 million, and yet, at the same time we should not think the worst of all those whose politics we do not share. Sometimes there are in fact good people on both sides, probably more often than not–though not when talking about white supremacists mimicking KKK rallies and chanting anti-Semitic slogans nor when comparing groups like Black Lives Matter to Proud Boys. (Good people do not bring guns to peaceful protests.)

We were reminded when the election results came in that our political opponents are not our enemies, they are fellow Americans. It takes someone of high character to make such an observation after such a vitriolic campaign. Fortunately that someone is our President-Elect. May the high moral character of our next President and Vice President inspire us all to be better people and to build a better nation, with liberty and justice for all.

Photo: Axios.com