Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair of Political Science at Skidmore College and author of “A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law.”
This is the latest in “A Republic, if we can keep it,” a series to assist American citizens on the bumpy road ahead this election year. By highlighting components, principles and stories of the Constitution, Breslin hopes to remind us that the American political experiment remains, in the words of Alexander Hamilton, the “most interesting in the world.”
One day.
One single day. That’s how long it took for President Joe Biden to abandon his call to “lower the temperature in our politics” following the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. “I believe politics ought to be an arena for peaceful debate,” he implored. Not messages tinged with violent language and caustic oratory. Peaceful, dignified, respectful language.
That was on Sunday evening, July 14. And yet by Monday evening — one day later — he was back on primetime television, this time with Lester Holt, and his tone had changed. Within three minutes of the start of the interview, Biden returned to the language of division. “Look,” he exclaimed, “I’m not the guy that said, ‘I want to be a dictator on day one.’ I’m not the guy that refused to accept the outcome of the election. I’m not the guy who said that [he] wouldn’t accept the outcome of this election automatically.”
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Twenty-eight Minutes.
Less than a half hour. That’s how long it took for former President Trump to abandon his call for unity. The setting was the Republican National Convention, and the occasion was Trump’s official nomination for president. His speech started promisingly. “The discord and division in our society must be healed,” he announced. “We must heal it quickly. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart.”
But within the span of a standard sitcom (with ads), Americans were treated to a jarring return to the vitriol and dissension that has characterized this entire election. The scorn and fury of the Donald Trump show was back: “[T]o achieve [a conservative] future,” he railed, “we must first rescue our nation from failed and even incompetent leadership. We have totally incompetent leadership! Under the current administration, we are indeed a nation in decline.”
Enough! How manysurveys do we need to conduct for the leaders of both parties to realize Americans are fed up? How many opinion pieces do we need to write asking for more civility in our political dialogue? How many more American citizens have to say they are angry, frustrated, disillusioned and despondent? How many of us pang for the good old days when Barack Obama and Mitt Romney squared off?
The news that Biden will “stand down” and not seek reelection is an opportunity for a reset, a chance to correct the deeply divisive tone that has stained this election. Trump’s claim that Biden is “the single worst president by far in the history of our country,” as he predictably declared only minutes after the Democratic president stepped away from the campaign, is the usual Trump hyperbole. The only difference is that now it is a moot point. Whether the Democratic nominee is Vice President Kamala Harris or one of the half-dozen other capable and electable contenders, this moment offers a unique opening. A fresh start is rare in American politics. Both candidates must take it.
I fully understand that candidate displays of righteous anger often amount to a winning electoral strategy. Elections are the ultimate in-group contest. Americans like to feel solidarity with similarly inclined partisans and, inevitably, the best resin for one’s group is a common disdain for another. Time and again in this and previous election cycles we’ve seen parties and presidents energize their followers not by efforts at conciliation, but by demonstrations of division. It’s pervasive on both sides of the aisle.
And then there are the distressing corollaries that spawn from relentless divisiveness. I’m thinking of political narcissism. To this point in the election, both major party candidates have touted that only they can “save America.” Trump is explicit: “I can stop wars with a phone call,” he boasted during his acceptance speech. This follows a chorus of moments where he has claimed, “I alone can fix [America].”
Biden was more subtle. But even he resorted to narcissistic messaging before dropping out of the race. The president retorted that only he could beat Trump when allies were calling for his stage exit. He would later soften that stance, admitting others could beat the former president. But even then, the message turned to, “I” am best positioned to hold on to the White House. Even Trump, the standard bearer for the personal credit claim, used “we” pronouns more frequently than his rival from Delaware.
What has been missing in this presidential campaign (until Biden’s selfless act) was any trace of humility. Let’s hope we can unearth some more in the weeks and months ahead. Perhaps the way to jumpstart a more authentic, more humble campaign is to appeal to the words of a great American president, Abraham Lincoln, and to remind all political candidates that modesty and decorum can also deliver memorable moments.
After only six sentences of the magnificent Gettysburg Address — only 90 seconds into his speech — Lincoln confessed to his own triviality. “[I]n a larger sense,” he acknowledged, “we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”
More solemn and soaring words have rarely been uttered. Today’s political rhetoric bears no resemblance.
