The fuzzy battle lines of the 2020 election
So far this has not been the election anyone thought it would be
It's been real, hasn't it? Two weeks of montages about who is the nicer grandfather and competing testimonies from small business owners, two unmemorable speeches delivered far too late for the target audience of senior citizens in the Midwest to watch them live. The guy who wrote the draconian crime bill is accusing the guy who (partially) repealed it of being an authoritarian monster; the latter is insisting that the former, along with his party, are simultaneously too soft and too tough on crime.
In 67 days we will know whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden is going to be the next president of the United States. What we might not know is why. Obviously in the barest formal sense we will learn that one man managed to win a majority of the 538 electoral votes and that the other did not. But this is not an election in which there are well-defined "issues" at stake or competing visions of the common good that are even remotely as clear as partisans on both sides believe.
In fact, we cannot even agree on what the national mood is or what the country has been through in the last year. Did we just narrowly survive a naked coup attempt against a sitting president by rogue partisan elements in the FBI and the Department of Justice held over from the last administration? This is what the president and his supporters were telling us as recently as February, but if the Republican National Convention was any indication, this is something that everyone, not least Trump himself, has agreed to live and let live.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The GOP's rhetoric concerning the lockdowns was similarly incoherent. Poll after poll suggests that public feeling about the coronavirus is split on more or less partisan lines. Listening to Trump and his children, one would get the impression that no one has taken the virus more seriously, that no issue has been of more importance to him and his supporters than continuing to take every possible precaution to arrest the spread of the virus whose victims are predominantly older than 65. The fact that every single speaker was not hammering away at the need to reopen schools, easily the single best wedge issue available to Republicans since the War on Terror in 2004, beggars belief. Instead, a handful of people didn't wear masks. This is what we call saying the loud part quietly.
Meanwhile, last week's Democratic convention was similarly baffling. Over and over again we were told that the most pressing issue facing the country was not unemployment or rising crime or the pandemic or even Trump himself but a kind of grand coalition of systemic prejudices — Big Racism, Big Sexism, Big Homophobia, Big Transphobia, etc. — of which the president is merely the public face. We are already seeing the half-hearted pivot, as senators like Chris Murphy of Connecticut tweet both sides-ism (and then repent of it) and mayors like Muriel Bowser of Washington, D.C., decry the iniquity of harmless upper-middle-class white people being harassed outside of their favorite brunch locations. What is the real crisis again?
I think it is fair to say that so far this has not been the election anyone thought it would be. It is not being fought on schools being closed or on the efficacy of lockdowns, much less on impeachment, but on who should be in charge of the stock market and which septuagenarian is more avuncular.
The first step is not admitting you have a problem. It's deciding what the problem should be.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.
-
Why au pairs might become a thing of the past
Under The Radar Brexit and wage ruling are threatening the 'mutually beneficial arrangement'
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
'A direct, protracted war with Israel is not something Iran is equipped to fight'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Today's political cartoons - April 17, 2024
Cartoons Wednesday's cartoons - political anxiety, jury sorting hat, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion ban
Speed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week UK Published
-
Henry Kissinger dies aged 100: a complicated legacy?
Talking Point Top US diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner remembered as both foreign policy genius and war criminal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Last updated
-
Trump’s rhetoric: a shift to 'straight-up Nazi talk'
Why everyone's talking about Would-be president's sinister language is backed by an incendiary policy agenda, say commentators
By The Week UK Published
-
More covfefe: is the world ready for a second Donald Trump presidency?
Today's Big Question Republican's re-election would be a 'nightmare' scenario for Europe, Ukraine and the West
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published