The Republican incumbent in the 2020 presidential election built his 2016 election victory on fear. Fear of the Other. White fears of loss of power. White fears of becoming a mere plurality in a former white-majority nation. As soon as he can no longer sustain claims the coronavirus is a liberal hoax, as soon as his MAGA faithful start dying from it, as soon as they stop coming to his rallies for fear of contagion, as soon as he cannot get his weekly fix of their adulation, he’ll need someone to blame for it (other than his administration’s failed response). He’ll need new scapegoats for supporters to fear. You, maybe.
In the meantime, fear of the unknown may have powered former Vice President Joe Biden to his first primary victory in his third attempt to reach the Oval Office.
Zak Cheney-Rice explains for New York magazine’s Intelligencer how the black vote in South Carolina powered a blowout Biden victory there on Saturday :
… the same themes keep emerging whenever reporters ask black South Carolinians, who comprise the majority of the state’s Democratic electorate, why their support for him has been so durable: With Biden, they know what they’re getting. “Black people are rightfully suspicious of things they don’t know, so that’s why name recognition becomes critical,” organizer and Elizabeth Warren surrogate Leslie Mac told Politico in January. “[People] don’t know Elizabeth Warren,” added Antonio Robinson, a 42-year-old who works in education. Julius Stephens, 74, told Politico that he likes what Warren and Bernie Sanders stand for, but thinks that Americans “would never vote for a woman and a liberal that’s been branded a socialist.”
These are objections borne primarily of doubt and uncertainty, not philosophical disagreement. And while they cannot be taken to represent the views of all black South Carolinians — a cohort whose support for Biden and Bernie Sanders, for example, is split by age, with more young voters backing the Vermont senator — the reticence they convey is typical of how black voters have long been required to consider their political choices. The costs of racist demagoguery in South Carolina have long been the steepest for black people; the legacies of the lynching era, Jim Crow, and an ongoing mass incarceration crisis all attest to this. For a population with such a rich history of supporting Democrats since the parties realigned in the 20th century — and facing a Republican president who exhibits many of the same ideological and temperamental traits they’ve come to associate with all manner of racist violence — Biden’s recognizability was the likeliest channel for their partisanship and survivalist risk aversion, especially in such a cluttered field.
But Biden’s soft-focused invocation of Barack Obama and some bygone era of bipartisan cooperation seems as out of step with reality as our acting president’s fantastical claims that the coronavirus is hoax. Indeed, Jill Biden on Saturday promised a meeting of North Carolina Democrats’ state executive committee that her husband would reach across the aisle, bridge divides, and work in a bipartisan fashion to get things done, etc.
Where have they been since January 2009? Maybe get back to us when Mitch “Grim Reaper” McConnell no longer controls the U.S. Senate.
Fears of Donald Trump’s reelection may have driven South Carolina voters to seek refuge in the familiar, Cheney-Rice writes, but “should not be mistaken to mean that the familiar is safe.” Rather than a glowing endorsement, Biden’s win may be “a concession to a politics of fear.”
With the coronavirus spreading underdetected in the U.S. and the first reported death here on Saturday, and with Vice President Mike Pence praying the virus away, there is plenty of fear to come.
An eye-catching headline at the Daily Beast landing page this morning promises “This May Be the Best Face Mask You Will Ever Use.” If your first thought was it heralded a new medical device, welcome to the COVID-19 scare. It was for a cosmetic.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. 2,600+ counties contacted, roughly 900 “opens,” over 400 downloads. (It’s a lead-a-horse effort.) Request a copy of my free countywide election mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.