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Steve Kornacki, MSNBC’s superstar number-cruncher, was in full frenetic mode at his storied “Big Board,” excitedly pointing out potential Harris and Trump pathways to victory in the electoral college.
After he finished, Kornacki grinned and gushed that the presidential race was “fun to follow because it’s so unpredictable.”
Fun? Not to me when the very survival of our democracy is at stake. American writer Michael Aleynikov also fails to see the fun. “On November 5th, it’ll be as if the whole world is waiting for a biopsy to come back,” he posted on Facebook.
Kornacki’s fun with the close race reflects much of the media’s addiction to “horse race” election coverage.
“Over the last few years, as it grew increasingly likely that Donald Trump would mount a third campaign for the White House, leading press critics and others in the media vowed that this time had to be different. The press couldn’t fail in its coverage of Trump once again,” wrote James Risen in The Intercept.
“This time, it must aggressively investigate Trump while focusing coverage on the threat that he poses to democracy. The stakes for the nation in the election, not just the odds of who was likely to win the campaign, should be front and center in the press coverage,” New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen argued.
“But the change in coverage hasn’t happened. Instead, the press has doubled down on horse-race coverage, proving unable to alter its traditional formula for campaign coverage. Distracted by the campaign’s dramatic moments, highlighted by the attempted assassination of Trump and President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race, day-to-day, process-driven coverage of the campaign remains paramount. Horse-race coverage is back in full force, and the threat Trump poses to democracy is now an afterthought.” [Italics mine.]
I’d have no problem with Kornacki having fun if he were an ESPN sports guy mapping potential routes to victory in the World Series. Game seven, if needed, is set for Nov. 2, three days before election day.
I’m a dyed-in-the-pinstripes New York Yankees fan, so I’m rooting for the Bronx Bombers to notch their 28th triumph in the Fall Classic. If they come up short, I’ll be sorry and hope for a better outcome next time.
History instructs there are no next times when authoritarians topple democracies. “Once you choose the strongman, there’s no way back,” warned historian Timothy Snyder on MSNBC last March. “You burn that bridge behind you. It’s not a menu in a restaurant. You don’t get to make more choices. It’s done. Once you burn this bridge, you get this guy or whoever follows him, forever.”
I suspect Gerhild Krapf wouldn’t find anything “fun” about reading the tea leaves in Harris v Trump. “We Americans have never lost our democracy, so we can’t fully envision the atrocities that an unbridled Trump could unleash,” she wrote in Bleeding Heartland, an online Iowa publication about politics. “But the Nazification of Germany provides a frightening object lesson.”
Krapf speaks from experience. Her German parents survived Adolf Hitler and migrated to America in the 1950s.
She conceded that it might not be fair to “equate Trump and Hitler,” but added, “Nonetheless, there are disturbing parallels – history may not repeat itself, but the rhymes are alarming. Trump has even told us that immigrants are poisoning our blood and has served up other quotes from Hitler’s writings and speeches. The roots of the Nazi party in Germany and the MAGA party in America are too similar to ignore. We do so at our peril. This I learned from my own family!”
Harris is my candidate. Agree with her politics or not, she has a demonstrably deep and abiding faith in republican government and the rule of law. Trump demonstrably doesn’t. Period.
“In recent weeks, the Republican candidate for president has said that the military should be called on to annihilate his political foes, the people he called ‘the enemy within,’” Sasha Abramsky recently wrote in The Nation. “He has insisted that shoplifters should face a ‘very rough hour‘ at the hands of the police.
“He responded to a heckler at one of his rallies by saying that she should ‘have the hell knocked out of her.’ He has called for media outlets he doesn’t like, such as CBS, to lose their broadcasting licenses. He has advocated the mass jailing of anyone involved in ‘election interference,’ which in his telling seems to be anybody who stands up to his goon squads in favor of fully counting all the votes. And he told an audience of Jewish voters that Jews would ‘bear a lot of blame‘ if he lost the upcoming election.
“That’s not even the half of it. He has inspired attacks on asylum seekers and on the schools their children attend with his unforgivable spreading of rumors that Haitians living in Ohio under Temporary Protected Status were stealing pet cats and dogs to eat. And he continues to refuse to say whether he will peacefully accept the election outcome, and will urge his supporters to do likewise, if Harris wins.”
The Bulwark’s Will Saletan similarly wrote, “THE AGENDA TRUMP IS PRESENTING in these interviews and rallies — political violence, suspension of the Constitution, suspension of civil liberties, unchecked presidential power, censorship of the media, imprisonment of opposition leaders, execution of people for nonviolent crimes, and legal immunity for the president and his thugs — isn’t just close to fascism. It is fascism. It’s what fascists have advocated and practiced in other countries.
“We like to think that fascism can’t happen in America. But it’s happening right now. A president who tried to impose elements of fascism in his first term — and who then deployed mob violence in an attempt to stay in power — is seeking a mandate to go much further. And half of the electorate is on the brink of giving him that mandate.”
During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked if the new United States was in store for a monarchy or a republic. “A republic, if you can keep it,” he famously replied.
By word and deed, Kamala Harris will keep it, and Donald Trump won’t. So I fail to see any fun in any aspect of this election, especially when, as Saletan wrote, “half of the electorate is on the brink of electing a home grown fascist.”
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