Not one person said: Ronald Reagan.
It was such an illuminating experiment that I’ve repeated it over the years when in the U.S. or with American ex-pats. Here are the results:
In 1992 not one person said: Bill Clinton.
In 2000 not one person said: George W. Bush.
In 2008 not one person said: Barack Obama.
In 2016 not one person said: Donald J. Trump.
So, predictions anyone?
With the benefit of hindsight, we see the logic of what occurred, that Clinton would triangulate his Third Way into a minority presidency, that W would slip into the White House on a hanging chad, that Obama would benefit from running smack into a financial crash, that Trump would exploit billions in free advertising and a premature coronation to challenge our sense of reality. We forget that all this came as a series of middling-to-huge surprises at the time. I conclude that those announcing what WILL or WILL NOT happen in 10 months are pompous boobies.
What I do dare to predict with modest confidence is that things are not going back to normal, whatever that was, any time soon. Now that we have a Third World pattern of income distribution, we should expect to experience Third World politics to go with it. Trump marching his slash-and-burn entourage through our constitutional framework accompanied by the feckless, Democrat non-opposition clutching its collective pearls is just the beginning.
That said, it was refreshing to spend a week soliciting reflection on the political questions of the day from dozens of Iowan households, a moment in which it was possible to reimagine a civil, civic space that did not rely on 12-second sound bites or WWF-style shouting matches. It’s hard work trudging up and down the snowy (and for a New Yorker distressingly spread-out) sidewalks of Davenport and suburban Iowa City, but one gets used to the brush-offs while seeking that sweet spot on the porch with the storm door ajar when someone offers you two minutes of issue-based conversation. Mine tended to drift toward single-payer health care as that’s my core issue.
Some endorsed the idea with enthusiasm while the more interesting conversations were with those hesitating to back Bernie. Their doubts included these: that union health plans are hard-fought gains that a member didn’t want to give up; that Bernie’s heart attack might mean he doesn’t have the energy for the job; that incrementalism makes more sense given the ferocious opposition; that other candidates had interesting alternative plans.
We were strictly instructed never to discuss other candidates, so on that one I pivoted. The union guy’s mind was made up, so I didn’t linger. The others were at least open to persuasion as I opined that incremental changes, which leave insurance companies as gatekeepers between us and our doctors, are ineffective and reversible. When the woman questioning Bernie’s age turned out to have had a heart transplant, no less, I said he looks like he’s in better health than ever, and she agreed.
One thing that did not come up, perhaps surprisingly, was socialism. No doubt I was given canvass lists of households less likely to have a problem with that, but nonetheless I was struck by the absence of that old bugaboo.
It’s hard to believe that these tiny nudges amount to anything, but multiply my miniscule efforts times 130,000 doors knocked by over 10,000 volunteers in a single weekend Jan 25-26, and you might have enough pro-Bernie tilts to push him up a point or two while consolidating those already leaning in his direction. Once the electoral excitement dies down, I hope these eager and hardy youths realize that the same efforts have to continue throughout the entire calendar if we’re to have any chance of pushing through these urgently needed changes. Campaigns are exciting and have an end date; organizing and mobilizing for political influence do not.
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