There was some concern that the option of watching the New Orleans Saints lose to the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football might reduce the audience for the first Presidential Date of 2016. Despite the football option, more people watched the debate than ever before. The debate drew about 83 million that could be counted and many more who viewed the debate in bars, together at parties (like I did) or on their cell phones or computers. That’s a lot of viewers, but last year’s Super Bowl drew more than 110 million. Maybe this debate was not as important as the annual spiritual renewal that we collectively anticipate from the Super Bowl.
The larger viewership for the debate is understandable if you anticipated more cross body blocks, sacks, and “bell ringing” hits during the debate than on the football field in a game between two mediocre teams. Perhaps the possibility of real time viewing of the meltdown or failure of one or both presidential candidates is the sort of theater that draws us to the flame. I must admit that I could not not look.
My first response was to root for my team. I was eager for the other guy to make a fatal error. The fact that the polls were showing the race to be dead even enhanced my interest as well as my apprehension. The pre debate analysis suggested that a “C minus” performance by Trump would be graded on the curve as an “A plus”, and a “B plus” performance by Clinton would be a functional “F”. My last look at Nate Silver’s site “538” before the debate revealed that on the day of the debate Trump had a 45+% and rising likelihood of winning the election. Six weeks earlier on August 14, just after the conventions, Clinton had topped out at 89+% and Trump was hopelessly (not really) behind at just under 11%. Things were changing fast.
I need not recreate the evening for you, nor do I think that it really makes a difference who the pundits think “won” the debate. I was definitely amazed and disappointed that there was no reference to healthcare. Perhaps that will happen in a later debate, but even the New York Times has shared my concern that healthcare is getting no attention. I was pleased recently to see that the Commonwealth Fund has done a great job looking at the healthcare proposals of both candidates. The Rand Corporation sees billions of dollars of expense and millions of covered lives being lost if Trump wins. Is this not an issue that is more important than what Hillary has not done over thirty years of public life or alternatively, a review of just how many subcontractors Donald has stiffed?
Both candidates declare themselves to be the real winner although Trump has needed to invest more time explaining how despite a malfunctioning microphones and a biased moderator he really did win. I am sure that most of the people who went into the evening emotionally committed to one candidate or another stayed with their preferred candidate no matter what was said or done, whether the rest world thinks that person either won or lost. The debates were theoretically staged for those mythical undecided voters who are still pondering their decision. That may be true in most years, but this year the outcome will possibly be determined by whether or not a candidate’s supporters care enough to show up and vote.
My greatest concern has been that the outcome of the election will be determined by some yet to occur event. Will Russian hackers give Wikileaks some bombshell to drop on us the week before the election? Perhaps some disaster will occur in the middle of some busy urban center somewhere in America or in some heavily populated city in Europe. My worries intensified during a debate where the subject of the weight gain of Miss Universe of 1996 seemed to have more importance than the health of today’s urban and rural poor.
Three very mundane events since the debate have given me a new perspective on the debate and the election. The anxiety that I felt at the end of the debate has stayed with me, but over the past few days I sense that my idea of what it all means may be changing. As my perspective has changed I have an enhanced sense of connectedness to my neighbors at home and in the world beyond our borders. I am beginning to realize that any strategy for the future that is built entirely on national self interest and does not responsibly consider the best interest of the whole world is a strategy that will ultimately fail. I also realize that our most significant challenge internally is to rediscover how to talk to fellow citizens without disdain and loathing for one another. We are a country divided from one another internally by self interest and contempt for our neighbors. Ironically, in the wider world our growing nativism and focus on national self interest is has created a confusing and dangerous reality that may get worse in the future.
The first event occurred on my walk a not long after the debate. I was still pondering all that I had seen and heard from the candidates. The commentary from the talking heads on TV and the wits on the editorial pages who tried to explain to me what they thought it all meant had done nothing to settle my nerves. Near the end of my walk, about noon, less than a mile from home, I decided to stop at the public boat landing for a moment. This is where the folks not lucky enough to live on the lake can access it with their boats. On a weekday morning late in September I was surprised that there was someone there. I saw his truck first. On the tailgate of his truck there were a half dozen Trump/Pence bumper stickers along with other political and social statements that suggested to me that we had little in common.
His truck was pretty typical of thousands that I see as I drive around New Hampshire. They are often in the parking lots of Walmart and the other “big box stores” in West Lebanon, or parked in front of “double wides” on the back roads I ride while accessing fishing streams. Others are easy to see in the parking lots of the few remaining manufacturing sites in tired little towns like Newport and Claremont. There was a huge chest behind the cab that I was sure was full of tools. Here he was, the everyman of the angry Trump demographic. He was white, middle aged, probably with a high school education or less. Perhaps he was a self employed tradesman, a subcontractor on a construction job nearby, or a guy hustling to generate an income doing odd jobs for upper middle class guys like me. Whoever he was, he was looking out at the beauty of the lake and munching on his sandwich. He looked my way and smiled as he gave me a brief wave, even as I was beginning to ponder what a misguided jerk he must be. Suddenly, I was wondering who the jerk really was and then realized that I had no real clue why he saw the world in such a starkly different way than I did.
After returning home I could not stop thinking about the working guy in the truck with the load of Trump stickers as my wife and I prepared to drive to Boston where we had plans to hear Justice Stephen Breyer at the Boston Speakers Series at Symphony Hall. Justice Breyer’s speech was the second lesson. His objective was to open my eyes to the reality that much of the future work of the Supreme Court would require a new “world view”. He asserted that we are dependent on numerous international treaties and trade agreements as we face the challenges of the interconnected world. He believes that we are just beginning to understand the extent to which our affairs are inextricably interconnected to all of the problems of the world. Many of our greatest challenges go far beyond our shores and borderers. We can not solve these issues as if they are only our concern.
We are threatened by changes in the environment, terrorism, international commerce, healthcare, the Internet, and so many other issues that have ramifications beyond our shores and borders. These issues go to the ends of the earth and back again. We are a minority in the world with a leadership opportunity. As I listened to Breyer and reflected back on what I had heard in the debate, I felt short changed and wondered why Lester Holt had not pushed these issues harder. The debate had seemed to be about how to put what was best for America in the moment first over the long term best interest of all of humankind. After listening to Justice Breyer that did not seem so smart or even to be the best self serving strategy.
The morning after listening to Breyer, my wife and I met with our financial advisor for an annual review. I would rather have a root canal than this sort of meeting. His objective seemed to be to explain that without his help the painful losses of the last year would have been much greater. I did not realize how my financial future in retirement was so connected to the economy of Europe and Asia. I did not even get to vote on Brexit! It seems that a painful economic reality is that a world that is not creating opportunity for everyone is a world that will ultimately fail me. America must be able to buy and sell in a stable world for my wife and I, or for any American, to be able to imagine that our children and grandchildren will have anything close to the same opportunities that we have had. Deleted emails and unreleased tax returns have almost no bearing on the issues that will really impact the future of anyone in the world.
Something has happened to me this week. Perhaps it was triggered by realizing that I am connected to my neighbor who is a Trump supporter, or that the economic issues of Southern Europe may eventually impact my future, and that the victims of civil unrest in Syria may be previewing an experience that my grandchildren might someday experience. What disturbed me more than the debate between the two wannabes on the screen in front of me was the sense of separation and estrangement from half of my American brothers and sisters and the sense that our issues trump the concerns of any other population on the planet. I realized that the outcome of the election was as much about the pain of the many billions of people around the world who have no voice in the outcome but are perhaps even more vulnerable to the result of the election than I am. The sense of loss and separation that grew on me replaced the anger that I had previously been directing at the candidate that I did not favor.
My problems and anxieties are unresolved. I realize that fixing what worries me in healthcare and in international affairs will require much more than an election. No matter who wins most of the questions will remain. Our problems can not be solved by one “big man” or by one very competent woman. No matter who wins, the great sense of division within the country and the world will likely persist. Complex problems do not bend to simple solutions. They are aggravated by personal anxieties that make us unable to appreciate the things that join us all together. We must someday understand that we have a shared destiny that is threatened as we focus only on our own concerns.
