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It can be diverting – even fun – to fantasize about who might become the next president of the United States.
Wouldn’t it be cool if, say, the dynamic, 52-year-old Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer were to be elected, with perhaps a forward-thinking congressman such as Jamie Raskin of Maryland or Hakeem Jeffries of New York as her vice-president?
Wouldn’t it be quite an improvement over our previous disastrous president if, for example, former congresswoman Liz Cheney – or someone else who hews to facts and conscience – were the Republican nominee?
It’s easy to understand this kind of speculation. Pundits must fill airtime and column inches, and regular people need something to talk about in the wake of football season. Also, next fall’s election is a compelling subject because it’s extremely consequential; it matters even more than Taylor Swift’s romance with Travis Kelce.
But the fantasy window – if not slammed and locked – has closed. The passage of time, the raising of campaign funds, and the results of the primaries have made that clear.
On the Republican side, former governor Nikki Haley’s loss in her home state of South Carolina was predictable but nonetheless dealt her campaign a death blow. That the only Trump challenger left standing hasn’t dropped out doesn’t change a thing.
On the Democratic side, there’s no reason to think Biden won’t be the nominee. For one thing, his campaign has a whopping $56m in cash. (Trump, by contrast, according to the Washington Post, has less than $31m.) Nor has Biden been substantially challenged in the primary season, which is what the primaries are for.
Weird things do happen in American politics, but unless something very weird happens, we are looking at this reality: there will be a Joe Biden v Donald Trump rematch in November.
Some members of the commentariat aren’t ready for that. Ezra Klein set off another round of chatter earlier this month when he published a long New York Times essay suggesting a brokered convention in Chicago to replace Biden as the Democratic nominee.
This notion was taken seriously on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and in other places where left-leaners meet to chew the fat, but that doesn’t make it any more likely.
So this is an excellent moment to take a deep breath, acknowledge the obvious and act accordingly. That goes for the media and for citizens alike.
Journalists should focus on our non-partisan, public-service mission. It’s not to elect a particular candidate or support anybody’s campaign, but to do our core job of informing citizens of the stakes of this election.
An example of not doing that came from NBC News this week with its credulous, six-byline story headlined: “Fewer grievances, more policy: Trump aides and allies push for a post-South Carolina ‘pivot’.”
Talk about fantasy! As the NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen posted: “Any reason to think [Trump] is capable of – or newly interested in – a reduction in personal invective?” If yes, where does the reporting say that? If not, “why are six NBC journalists helping to broadcast the pained wishes of his campaign staff?”
No, what’s needed is relentless, well-sourced, realistic reporting on the actual candidates, their actual records and their actual plans. The aim should be that no one in America who pays attention should be in doubt about what is at stake.
That should not include obsessing about Joe Biden’s advanced age, which everyone is well aware of. It’s already priced in.
As Joan Walsh argued this week, Biden supporters are not immune to concerns about his age or about Kamala Harris’s unpopularity. Rather, she wrote in the Nation, they “have added up the various risks and benefits of Biden-Harris 2024 and concluded that it’s less risky to run the incumbent”.
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Donald Trump is also old. He’s also a would-be authoritarian. He’s the target of 91 indictments in multiple states and his allies are ready to spring into anti-democratic action on inauguration day 2025. Do most Americans understand that as well as they understand that Biden is old? I doubt it.
As for citizens, there are (at least) three jobs. First, be well informed about the consequences of this election. Think about what kind of country you want to live in.
Second, be actively engaged in the democratic process. For example, get people in your community – including friends and family – registered to vote. Or donate to a candidate you support. Or volunteer to be a poll worker.
And finally, most importantly, vote. Don’t plan to stay home because perfection is not on the ballot, or because you disagree on a specific issue, or because you think you’re somehow registering a moral protest.
The real world isn’t as pretty or as pure as the fantasy world. But it’s what we’ve got.
Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
