One of the most consequential figures in the US presidential campaign is a woman who is not on the ballot.
Taylor Swift is a singer with a global audience and immense appeal to younger Americans. She is encouraging her followers to register and vote. They will!
An election 2020 denier has just been elected as Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives. With Donald Trump remaining a right-wing demi-god notwithstanding his legal troubles, the 2024 elections look like a clear-cut choice between democracy and dystopia.
The 2024 election also chooses between the past and the future. I’m betting on a tumultuous turnout of young voters to increase the 7 million vote plurality Democrats managed in 2020, electing Joe Biden, everyone's granddad. Hopefully, this swings close states to gain electoral votes.
Many of us who grew up in the post-WW2 era remember America when Dwight Eisenhower won in 1952. It was my first encounter with a political convention, followed on the radio. There were 158 million citizens then. Voting was close, and both political parties were similar on multiple issues, with the necessity of change and adaptation often the critical divider on most issues.
Today, the nation is twice as populous at 335 million plus, and much has changed. Once, we believed we had saved the world from fascism.
However, today, we stare it in the face again, this time here at home, just as mean and irrational as in 1934. This time, the MAGA block of Republicans carry the torch for fascism, which I define as a strong leader without constitutional restraints, elections that cannot be lost, business functioning absent any regulations for fairness (to employees or customers), environment ignored, individuals subservient to the wishes of the government on health and religious issues.
Momentous change always upsets people who feel the adverse effects initially. The political and social chaos of the past six years has scarred the nation. Multiple ongoing criminal cases address some of the fevered dreams of the people who want to maintain an America they believe existed decades ago, of the sort captured in movies like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939 American political film) or perhaps the nation depicted in the movie Forrest Gump (1994).
Is the 2024 choice about economic leadership, or is it about chaos and a culture war fought over assumed values in the future?
On Wednesday, PRRI released the results of its annual American Values survey, a look at broad themes in American political and religious thought. The Public Religion Research Institute is an American nonprofit, nonpartisan research and education organization that conducts public opinion polls on various topics, specializing in the quantitative and qualitative study of political issues related to religious values.
It included questions aimed at evaluating the motivations of political players. Among them was a question that got at the dichotomy issues. Did respondents prefer a presidential candidate who was best at managing the economy or one who was best at being able to "protect and preserve American culture and the American way of life?" This explicit question differentiates between the practicalities of leading global and national issues versus using presidential power to influence culture-war battles.
It's not exactly a surprise to learn that people who substantially watch right-wing media favor the preservation of the past. That is the constant drumbeat that underlines all commentary and dominates all so-called news on right-wing TV, Online, and print. If it often sounds hateful, you are not imagining it.
The central theme of Donald Trump's career has been fraudulent financial accounting, perhaps a fitting background for someone who in politics, argues he will "make America great again,” claiming it has changed for the worse and needs redirection.
Nostalgia is a powerful drug for older citizens, just one more drug for the daily regimen. Younger Americans look forward, not back, especially in this new communications age. There is growing clarity that America may not be the greatest nation on earth anymore if it ever was.
Another finding from PRRI useful to this discussion is that respondents explored the question that approximated support for non-democratic or autocratic power deployment: Did the country need a leader willing to "break some rules" given how far off track things have gotten?
Most people disagreed with this idea. But half of Republicans liked it, while only a third of Democrats did. Those trusting Fox News and the fringe-right news sources agreed that a rule-breaking leader might be the prescription.
These results offer a different lens for the GOP focus on the economy. Trump knows his voters believe in protecting American culture — a nebulous, fraught goal. So, he is making economics a focus to appeal to a wider group.
Not surprisingly, the first Republican Speaker nominee in this Congress to get the entire GOP house to vote for him on the first ballot is a barely known hard-core culture warrior. Such an obsession is negative regarding performance leading to the 2024 general election.
The idea that voting should be available to all citizens and exercised without restraint has always been alien to political leaders once in power.
Despite various impediments raised in multiple states, the power of performers like Taylor Swift and her "Swiftie fans" will be on display in 2024, more extensive than in 2020 when she shared an "Only the Young" lyric video on YouTube, which ends with a call to action, telling her fans to register to vote at VOTE.org.
That song's first verse included, "You did all that you could do / The game was rigged, the ref got tricked / The wrong ones think they're right / You were outnumbered — this time."
In the second verse, she describes the fears and horrors young people face: "You go to class, scared / Wondering where the best hiding spot would be," she sings, before pleading with young voters to take action. "They aren't gonna change this," she says, "We gotta do it ourselves."
Her influence is a generational game changer that will help elect Democrats nationwide, including an aging president, rather than whomever Republicans choose.
This piece is offered with a thank you (posthumously) to Mickey McCleery, a political science professor at Antioch College, 1964)
By; Kenneth Tiven
Image: The Daily Beast / Getty