We can't avoid the fight that's ahead
Key American values are at stake in the coming election, and we need to be ready to face a showdown.
When a fight comes, it’s often the determination and training that yields a victory. (Photo by Johann Walter Bantz on Unsplash)
On a steamy morning in the Philippines in 1975, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier fought for the third time, a rematch remembered as one of the greatest bouts in boxing history. Perhaps a billion people watched worldwide. This “Thrilla in Manila,” as Ali dubbed it, comes to mind now as Donald Trump wages his third fight for the presidency, aiming for a rematch with Joe Biden. It’s already brutal.
A thoughtful writer, by the way, should hesitate to use a sports metaphor in the context of politics. Governing isn’t just about winning and losing, and political journalism that focuses on the contest encourages shallow citizenship. Voters may need to be reminded sometimes that the consequences of an election are far more profound than what’s at stake in a professional sports contest, and that you don’t just root for your side because that’s who you’ve always rooted for.
Yet the bout between Ali and Frazier is worth recalling as we face the likely Biden-Trump rematch for exactly that reason. Even at the top level of a sport, it’s easy to grasp what happens when one team tops another, or one person beats up another: The winner claims glory and a lot more money. But the looming fight of America’s 2024 presidential election presents stakes that are far greater, and we can’t approach it casually, or even with the same attention we usually give a presidential race.
This isn’t just a fight for supremacy in a sport — which, after all, doesn’t much matter — and it’s not only about which party will hold the White House for four years. No, this contest holds consequences for our nation’s democracy and for the world order, with the risk greater than that posed by any election in our lifetimes. That’s not an exaggeration, and it’s why people who overstate the failings of Biden or under-estimate the threat of Trump, or who flirt with supporting a third-party spoiler candidate, are putting us all at risk.
And it’s why now, with less than a year to go before the presidential election, we need to prepare for this contest and its consequences in the same way that a great athlete trains for the biggest contest of a career. We need to be ready to go all 15 rounds.
Trump, indicted four times and facing 91 felony counts, has made clear both his contempt for democracy and his inability to handle the essential task of American leadership. He has called for “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” which indicates that the insurrection he encouraged in an attempt to overturn Biden’s legitimate victory is unlikely to wind up as his most extreme action if he wins next year. His term in office brought uncertainty to the NATO alliance that has protected western nations for 80 years, and his stated admiration for strongman figures warns us that with another four years in office, he would act on his aspiration to be more like them — that is, like Putin, Orbán, Erdogan and Xi.1
Trump’s presidency aroused domestic conflicts that are yet undermining our national unity at a level unseen since the Civil War. His meandering ad libs in public events have long suggested emotional instability, or even narcissistic personality disorder, but there are growing questions these days about his mental capacity — reflected in his inability to keep straight the names of nations and leaders, or even who he ran against in his two prior White House campaigns. None of this seems to matter to his millions of passionate supporters, thanks in no small part to fantasies served up constantly (or Trump failings covered up) by the propagandists of Fox News and its imitators. Polls suggest that the other contenders for the Republican presidential nomination are lagging far behind him.
Biden, by contrast, has an admirable presidential record that has earned him only scant devotion among voters. Jobs have grown during his term at a rate not seen since the 1960s, and the global grip of inflation has eased in the U.S. to one-third the level it was a year ago. Manufacturing is growing and markets are rebounding from the trough of the pandemic. He is no extremist, nor even actually a liberal: Even as he pushes alternate energy solutions to combat climate change, the U.S. is pumping more oil than ever before, which is sustaining extraction-related industries (and the economy in such red states as Texas). He has rallied the world against brutal Russian expansionism in Ukraine, and is setting a thoughtful but tough course in the contest with China for global influence.2
Even so, only about 40 percent of voters approve of Biden’s job performance. Democratic insiders are worried, but they have no viable alternative to the president.
So America’s major political parties are about to send their two aging champions back into the ring, not because they are necessarily the fighters best equipped to deal with the pressing problems of a complex world — beset by climate change, terrorism and economic inequality — but because they are what our political system has served up. One side is led by a reckless liar unmoored from principles, the other by an aging moderate who fails to excite voters, but promises the civility and stability of an earlier time.
It’s not the fight we’d like to see, it seems, but it may be what’s needed. So we must be prepared for it, because the risk it poses is enormous.
If you don’t think that elections are points of extreme risk, look at what has just happened in Argentina and the Netherlands, where far-right populists won surprisingly strong majorities, in results that will affect the economic stability of Latin America’s third-largest economy and the political stability of the European Union. Or consider, with horror, what has happened to Israel, where the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, which has grown increasingly extreme over the years, now seems likely to be remembered for a war threatening that nation’s very survival.
We need to accept the fact that it’s no longer true that the same can’t happen here. America’s political parties have always contested elections energetically, which is appropriate, but the split that now divides the nation includes a frightening prospect of violence. An August poll by Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution found that one-third of Republicans and about 13 percent of Democrats agree with the statement, “American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save the country.” That’s a five-point jump among Republicans in the past two years, and a 7-point increase among Democrats.3 A poll by the University of Virginia offered even more troubling results, suggesting that perhaps 4 voters in 10 believe they may need to use violence to get their way.
But the two candidates don’t greet those numbers similarly. Trump encourages the fight: He asserted at a campaign rally in May, “I am your retribution,” declaring the election ahead to be “the final battle.”4 Biden, in a phone call aired by NBC during Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this week, urged unity. “There’s nothing beyond our capacity when we work together,” he said. “I’ve never been more optimistic.”5
Biden may need to hone a more sharp-edged message, because however sweet the notion of working together, the reality is that it isn’t always possible. On the interpersonal level, conflict can sometimes be useful, psychologists tell us — not so much because it will induce the other person to change, since that’s often impossible, but rather because it can affirm one’s own values. It’s often only by leaning into confrontation that we are able to establish what truly matters to us. That gives us firmer standing to achieve what’s necessary to meet our ideals.
And that may be where we are as a society, too. It’s likely too late to smooth over the conflict between those who seem willing to sacrifice American democracy for a candidate who disrespects it and those who are reluctantly backing a candidate who is their best hope to sustain it. It’s a risky but essential and inevitable confrontation, and it wouldn’t come if the nominees are, say, Nikki Haley and Dean Phillips (or whatever his name is). Carlos Lozada, a New York Times columnist, wrote this month that a Biden-Trump rematch, while not what voters want, according to polls, nevertheless “would compel Americans to either reaffirm or discard basic democratic and governing principles.” That is, Lozada added, we must “face what we risk becoming and… accept or reject it.”6
It's time for that fight, and it would be foolish at this point to imagine that it won’t come. So like the training that prepared two boxers for their match-up almost a half-century ago, we need to be ready for what’s coming, and mindful of the stakes.
Consider how Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier trained. Their prior match-ups had yielded one win by decision for each fighter. Ahead of the third fight, Frazier retreated to the mountains outside Manila, often sitting for hours in contemplation. Ali stayed in the city, and got his sparring partners to hit him relentlessly, so that he would be prepared to keep standing during an onslaught.7
Perhaps that training is what sustained Ali when Frazier, younger and seemingly stronger, connected some powerful blows. Ali repeatedly backed up to the ropes, which he used to absorb some of the impact of Frazier’s powerful hooks. Ali took hit after hit. “Normal fighters would not have continued — it would have been over,” one boxing writer recalled years later. By the later rounds, it was Frazier who couldn’t maintain the pace. And after the 14th round, Frazier’s trainer, Eddie Fuchs, threw in the towel. Ali would later claim that he had been on the verge of quitting, too, and had never felt closer to dying.
Ali’s victory wasn’t his last, but his later bouts showed the effects of the estimated 200,000 hits he had taken during his career. In 1999, both Sports Illustrated and the BBC named him the top sports figure of the 20th century. Toward the end of his life — in 2016, at age 74 — the effects of Parkinson’s syndrome left him unable to speak. But a quotation attributed to him reflects the depth of the determination that propelled him forward: “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”
The risk that confronts America just now isn’t one that many of us have welcomed. That is, a majority of voters have never supported Donald Trump, nor embraced the anti-democratic notions and coarse personal values that we’ve grown so accustomed to witnessing as his habit. But millions have followed him, and the confrontation over that allegiance isn’t something we can avoid.
So if we want to stand for the principles that have long guided America, this much should be clear right now: We need to be ready for the very tough fight that seems to lie ahead. It’s time to lay aside wishful thinking, because there’s no shirking the confrontation that now is all but inevitable.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/us/politics/trump-2024-president.html
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-2024-his-record-so-far-economy-immigration-civil-rights-2023-04-26/
https://www.axios.com/2023/10/25/support-us-political-violence-prri-brookings-survey
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/03/politics/trump-constitution-truth-social/index.html
https://people.com/joe-biden-jill-biden-share-unifying-message-during-macys-thanksgiving-day-parade-8406364
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/opinion/biden-trump-election-2024-rematch.html
“Thriller in Manila,” BBC Films, 2012
NEWSCLIPS FROM THE UPSTATES
Dispatches from our common ground *
Wherein each week we look around what we call the nation’s Upstates — those places just a bit removed from the center of things — to find illuminating news and intriguing viewpoints, which you might not otherwise see.
This week, we share reporting published here:
Victor, N.Y. (Canandaigua Daily Messenger, mpmnow.com)
Jackson, Tenn. (Jackson Sun, jacksonsun.com)
Abilene, Tex. (Abilene Reporter News, reporternews.com)
Ames, Iowa (Ames Tribune, amestrib.com)
NOTE: The complete “Newsclips from the Upstates” section, and The Upstate American Midweek Extra Edition, which is sent to email boxes most Wednesdays, are available only to paid subscribers. Thanks for your support!
NEW YORK
Festival teaches indigenous customs and preserves grain
In the 1600s, what is now the Ganondagan State Historic Site was the largest Seneca village, and nearby Fort Hill is where the Haudenosaunee Confederacy stored grain. But a French attack force from Canada chopped down the cornfields and burned the grain stores — except for some seed now known as Haudenosaunee White Corn, which over centuries has been preserved. Now, according to reporting by Tina MacIntyre-Yee in the Daily Messenger of Canandaigua, an annual festival celebrates the corn and preserves the ancient means of cultivating and saving it. Today, MacIntyre-Yee reports, one of the challenges is to make sure the corn isn’t genetically modified or patented. Indigenous farmers are careful to plant at times that it won’t cross pollinate with other corn in the fields. All the seeds remain with the Indigenous community to encourage sustainable agriculture.
TENNESSEE
Inmates get business degrees from HBCU
Almost half of people released from Tennessee prisons return to incarceration within three years. But that statistic can be reduced, Sarah Best reports in the Jackson Sun, if the ex-inmates have jobs. Now Tennessee, which has been slower than some other states to provide college training for inmates, has some success to note: Six inmates have received bachelor’s degrees in business from Lane College. They’re the first in the prison's history to earn bachelor's degrees, and the first incarcerated class in the state to earn a degree from a Historically Black College and University. "When we introduce post-secondary educational options while the individual is incarcerated, we reduce the risk of recidivism by nearly half," a state official involved in the project noted.
TEXAS
Youth facility benefits from private generosity, government funds
Abilene’s city council has approved giving $10 million toward a $31 million athletic complex for youth — including millions of dollars in federal Covid-relief funds. Lani Sneed notes in the Abilene Reporter-News that the Abilene Youth Sports Authority project will include 10 new outdoor fields and a huge clubhouse, which will enable Abilene to host large events, with their economic benefits. The project has been years in the making, and was originally projected to cost $15 million, with the city providing $5 million. But costs have escalated as fundraising has gone forward. AYSA collected $20 million from private donors, but even with the city’s promised $5 million, that still would have left the project short — except that the city decided to draw on $5 million from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the $1.9 trillion economic recovery package that President Joe Biden pushed through Congress. The local news story fails to note this: Every Republican in Congress voted against ARPA, including the two Texans in the Senate, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, and Rep. Jodey Arrington, who represents Abilene in the House.
IOWA
Public universities struggle to keep up with student food insecurity
Leaders of food programs at Iowa State, the University of Iowa and University of Northern Iowa are seeing large volumes of students come through, reports Brooklyn Draisey of Iowa Capital Dispatch. As costs of living and higher education continue to climb, more students are seeking programs to help them put food on the table while juggling school, work and other responsibilities. “We’re kind of trying to scramble and find resources and honestly, there’s just times where we’re like, there’s nothing else we can do,” said Steph Beecher, who is Basic Needs Coordinator at the U of I. The article notes that less state investment in higher education has prompted colleges to consistently hike tuition, and financial aid offerings have failed to fill the gap.
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IF YOU’RE A READER who wants to hear more of Rex Smith’s views, check www.wamc.org for his weekly on-air commentary aired by Northeast Public Radio. Here’s a link to the latest essay. And if your interest is specific to American media, you can download the podcast of The Media Project, the 30-minute nationally-syndicated discussion that Rex leads each week on current issues in journalism. In the states where Northeast Public Radio is heard, the program airs at 3 p.m. each Friday, and is rebroadcast at 6 p.m. Sunday. You can tune in live, too, at www.wamc.org. It has been called “a half-hour of talk about finding and telling the truth.”
Thanks for reading The Upstate American, and for supporting this work that explores *our common ground, this great land.” And if you’d like to learn how to write opinion essays — for newspapers, audio or digital platforms — check out the live class Rex co-teaches, that is offered by The Memoir Project. Click below for information. Our last class of 2023 is coming up on Tuesday, Dec. 12, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Eastern. Lots of our students have been well published — and you can be, too!
-REX SMITH
"It couldn't happen here" is something those not cognizant of history or missed a lot in school. I agree with what you said. It certainly affects us upstate, regionally and nationally. What is of more interest to me is the mobilization: where and when will I be aware that those wanting to strengthen and feed our democracy are largely gathering and pulling on the oars in the same direction? I can see the bits and pieces but to me it doesn't appear in my reading and listening. I did read a quote of Biden from HCR about the President criticizing the 3rd congressional district representative Ms. Bobert for badmouthing and trying to scuttle and the programs delivered to the southern Colorado district: jobs and infrastructure improvements. If moderates and democracy supporters want to thrive then the volume of hard work needs to be spoken of louder and more frequently.
Well conceptualized and interesting essay. I wonder if it departs a bit from the stated aims of this blog, however, in the sense that it does not add an "upstate" perspective to what a Bos-Wash columnist might have said?