If in fact most Americans oppose a Biden-Trump rematch in November, how is it that this majority cannot prevent it? Above all, what do we do with the outcome of that likely scenario? The question becomes consequential, at a level perhaps not seen in over a century.
Assuming that it’s Biden vs. Trump again, and further assuming a narrow margin between winner and loser, there will be bitter contention, possibly at an insurrectionary or separatist level, one way or the other after the election. Government will be degraded ever further amid the partisan preoccupations, and the very fabric of the body politic could face rips, strains, and even a specter of dismemberment. A latent fear of these possibilities might in part drive the broad opposition to a rerun.
One problem is that anti-rematch sentiment is divided over which candidate would be worst for America. When confronted with a direct choice, most will willingly vote for one or the other as the necessary lesser of evils.
This division serves the two party-poles of our politics perfectly. Aptly described as a duopoly by Michael Porter and Katherine Gehl in “The Politics Industry,” the two market dominators do not really try to displace each other, but to preserve their own large share. So long as the “other” side can be painted as a dire threat, new entrants can be cast as dangers, dividing “us” to help the other side win. In this dynamic, running a divisive candidate of one’s own actually serves both sides’ efforts to squeeze out additional competitors.
Calls for a “third Party” are weak. The duopoly has managed to cast our political discourse as consisting entirely of “red,” “blue,” or something in between – which is defined by the two poles. Anything that is not one or the other is only some blend of the two, in between the poles but on the line that runs through their two points. Even radical movements are only ‘beyond’ one of the poles – still on the same line defined by them.
The imagery distorts reality. A line between two poles cannot capture the concerns of the public: we live in full four-dimensional space. Most issues and concerns do not need to fall into one camp or the other. It’s just that the two parties know how to claim any issue as serving or opposing “our” needs, to pull everybody into one of the two trenches. Anyone who cares about anything will have to take up with one side or the other, or huddle in no-man’s land.
In 2024, this mindset will not likely be undone before the party conventions, and third-party aspirants all fall into the “wishy-washy mixes of red or blue” characterization – or the “out beyond” image. Almost all started from one side or the other, so also look to many voters like opportunists.
America’s real and urgent need, then, is to start a political discourse that allows for comity, even amid deep disagreements on any number of real life issues. This can only happen if a core of convictions is actively embraced by all, as more fundamental than politicized outlooks, a common bottom line.
We do have this bottom line. The nation conceived itself in 1776 as a “People,” only identified as seceding from another and by the holding of “self-evident” truths, that all humans are equally and inherently endowed with personal rights and that governments exist to secure those rights. So long as that creed can be validated, and we continue to hold its truths, the nation can endure. If somehow we renounce it, or it turns out untrue, the nation becomes something else. It is truly fundamental – and it favors neither of the poles.
To embrace this bottom line is not to parrot the creed to claim it for partisan stances, but to acknowledge others’ claims and argue as fellow Americans. It is not to hold the other side to my interpretation of the creed, but to respect the rights that the other side cherishes. And no creed enforces itself – we all need to police our own impulses actively, and defer to norms of social contract and impartial justice. As we can assume any political motives to be divisive, and any politician cynical in citing the Declaration, it will be up to us to restore the creed’s bottom line ethos in our discourse. If we the People demonstrably hold these truths as our bedrock identity, the craven will follow.
We, the sovereign People, need to take the reins. Whether to restore civic comity – or civil order – after the election, or even undo a “rerun” beforehand, we need to speak differently to each other, and move beyond the two party-poles’ duopoly. Politics will look more complicated without an “X vs Y” menu, and we need to recall that most “option Z” offerings are only weak blends of it. What a new way of talking and thinking looks like is difficult to imagine, and we will grope and stumble as we seek it. We can take confidence that the current lockstep will probably not last forever. But we need to ensure, whatever comes next, that we validate the creed on which our nation conceived itself.
Common Conviction 