Neither Kamala Harris nor Kamala Harris, Donald Trump will be a real winner

Johannes Lindstrom
| Contributing columnist

During election years, political reporters are often asked one specific question: Who wins?

My answer? Tell me.

Tell me this: who and what are you afraid of?

What and who makes you angry?

Honestly, who and what do you hate?

And tell me, is there anything you hope for in this election, and is there anyone among the candidates who exemplifies that hope?

Also tell me this: what are you doing about it?

I assume you’re going to vote, which is your duty, but whatever otherwise are you doing? Do you pay attention to the news, all the news, not just what your husband or the other person says, but what is happening nationally and internationally, in business, in crime and justice, in the environment, in the economy and business? Because whoever is elected to any post will have to respond to these events.

Do you also question your own beliefs about what and how should be done?

Are you speaking to your candidate, calling, knocking on doors, donating money?

Most importantly, what are you doing to ensure that our country is not torn to shreds as a result of the election? Because if violence comes, regardless of the winner, we will ultimately be blamed.

Who’s the boss

Look: we vote to choose leaders, but we actually run the show. Remember that.

The US Constitution begins with “We the people of the United States,” not “We the elected ones,” or “We the states,” or “We are the loud ones on TV-TikTok-Instakittenvideogram, then what also.’ We have the power to push through policies and results and push those elected to adopt them.

And only we could destroy our wonderful experiment in democratic self-government—and for no good reason other than being downright pissed off all the time.

Tell me this

So tell me who wins and how that person will help us win.

Notice that I first asked who or what you fear, who or what makes you angry, who or what you hate, and finally what you hope for. The order of the list was deliberate.

Not so long ago, we seemed to look for the best in who we wanted to represent our views. Consider former President George HW Bush, a Republican, who spoke of a “a thousand points of light” in his campaign speeches. Yeah, it wasn’t specifically hokey, but the hope attracted us. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, has offered that to us hope and change.

As recently as the 2012 election, most of us felt favorably toward both major presidential candidates. No, we did that. According to GallupThat year, 62% of adults had a positive view of then-President Barack Obama, and 55% had a positive view of his Republican opponent Mitt Romney. One of their debates took place on the Obamas’ wedding anniversary Romney went out of his way to congratulate the couple. He and Obama then attacked policies and proposals, but not each other.

Not that we were all sweet and light. Also in 2012, during a debate for the Republican nomination, the then candidate was American Rep. Ron Paul of Kentucky was asked whether society should just let a seriously ill but uninsured person die, and several people in the crowd shouted, “Yes!”

But the serious shift toward open anger and hatred came with the 2016 election. Most people had a negative view of Democrat Hillary Clinton and the Republican candidate, the man who is still the Republican candidate, former President Donald Trump.

The 2016 campaign was ugly.

Since then, all election campaigns have become uglier, regardless of race. If we look at history objectively, most of it must be laid at Trump’s feet. His method is not to challenge a candidate’s ideas and proposals, but to attack, insult, humiliate and belittle his opponent and anyone else who stands in his way. Early in the 2016 campaign, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush – who at one point was considered the favorite for the Republican nomination – said chastised Trump, saying he “couldn’t insult his way to the presidency.”

Ugly begets ugly

Jeb Bush was wrong. Trump’s victory gave us permission to openly hate, mock and threaten.

We applaud ugly campaigns. We encourage it. And we become uglier in our lives. Part of it is self-defense: when we are attacked, we feel like we have to attack back. We’ve moved on to lions versus hyenas.

Even Vice President Kamala Harris, who campaigned on joy, is now forced to focus on Trump’s negative aspects. Trump is giving her plenty of ammunition, with his vicious insults and vicious campaign proposals and vicious threats ranging from deport millions of people (that one, with his tariff proposals(the body could criticize the economy) and turn the military against the ‘enemy within’, which includes anyone who criticizes it.

Ironically, Harris has adopted a version of Trump’s January 6, 2021, warning that we must be strong if we want to preserve our country — in Harris’s position, that means standing up to Trump’s threats to the basic structure of free speech and essential rights.

Violence is not inevitable

We have become an honest danger to each other.

Threats against elections and election workers have played a role in many local Michigan residents leaving clerk is racing without candidates in this year’s election.

Afraid that Harris would lose, a staunch Democratic guy I know announced on Facebook that he had bought two shotguns. They are not intended for bird hunting.

Another friend worries about whoever wins: riots and violence are inevitable. You hope not, but days after the 2020 election, this reporter on the grounds of the Michigan Capitol saw: Trump supporters and Trump opponents – both armed – face each other. Cooler heads on both sides kept the peace seconds before it exploded.

That moment now seems trivial compared to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. An attack we fear could repeat itself, especially if Trump loses. But what would happen if he won? Will cooler heads still prevail this year, regardless of the conditions?

More than twenty years ago, the late Peter Secchia – Grand Rapids business director, Michigan State University alumnus, lifelong Republican, former US Ambassador to Italy – told this reporter how he was concerned about how angry people were now. For him, politics was a football game. Both teams left everything on the field, shook hands and then had a beer – because in the end we were all part of a bigger team.

We can still win

So I’ll answer my own questions.

What am I afraid of? That we will continue to tear ourselves apart over what are ultimately mostly solvable problems.

What do I hope? That we recognize how good a people we are, and also that we still have much work to do to – as the Constitution says – ‘form a more perfect Union’ and ‘secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity ‘, and that we will work together to achieve this.

The candidate that I and most of my friends – all Democrats, Independents and Republicans – support, I believe, offers the best plan to achieve those goals.

Who do I think will win? I hope it’s us.

Free Press columnist John Lindstrom has covered Michigan politics for fifty years. In 2019, he retired as publisher of Gongwer, a Lansing-based news service. Send a letter to the editor at freep.com/lettersand we can publish it online or in print.