The power of decency

Last Friday, waiting for the 2020 American election to finally be called, I wrote my first draft for this column. It was full of doom and gloom. At that point, it seemed pretty clear that Biden would win. Still, the victory felt muted. It was a political victory, but not a moral one. The election was a lot closer than it should’ve been.

Yes, Biden was ahead, but by razorthin margins. Yes, a minority of voters had cast ballots for Trump in the end. But in raw votes, that minority was still enormous.

Like many, I had fantasized that Nov. 3, 2020, would be a day of mass repudiation of Trumpism. A day when Americans would snap out of their strange, solipsistic dream, realizing the extent to which they were flirting with something truly dangerous—and historically rare—in Trump.

When that repudiation did not come, I had the feeling that I was the one living in a dream. Are we overconfident about the staying power of democracy? Here in the West, most of us have never known a different system of government. Yet if we look cynically enough at history, we recognize that democracies are rare and fragile things.

In most times, in most places, power has been top-down, not bottom-up.

All sorts of memes are rolling around the belly of the internet right now, designed to soothe disappointed idealists like me. One shows Gandhi with the quote: “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it—always.”

Not to disagree with Gandhi, or anything… but I wondered if that statement is even true.

Put simply, last week I could not avoid my dark prognostications. Although America seemed poised to switch presidents, it hadn’t really rejected Trump wholesale. His impact on his nation—on the entire world, in fact—would certainly outlast him.

He could even run again in 2024.

His supporters were firmly behind him. And he was continuing to sow chaos and distrust by refusing to concede the election at all, claiming, without evidence, that it had been “stolen” from him.

Apparently, Mussolini once said to his mistress: “I want to make a mark on my era… like an alien with its claw.” Alien or otherwise, Trump has clawed his mark on his era, and will continue to do so for some time.

But then on Saturday morning, the election was actually called for Biden. And something began to change, subtly, in the collective mood.

People across America were taking to the streets. They were celebrating, dancing, waving signs. They honked their horns, painted their faces, and some wept openly. They were shaking off the black psychodrama of the past four years.

On Saturday evening, the new president-elect—(and doesn’t it feel good just to hear that phrase, “president-elect”?)—delivered his first official speech to a jittery nation.

Mr. Biden spoke for no more than 15 minutes. Yet in form, style, content, and tone, his address was like nothing we have seen from a presidential pulpit for what seems like an eternity.

The speech was no long-winded ramble, full of boasts, grievances, gloating, belittling of political enemies, or veiled threats. It was the kind of speech that a normal, goodhearted person might give in such a moment. Mr. Biden reached out to all the Americans—70 million or so—who had not voted for him.

“This is the time to heal,” he told them.

He read a psalm. He thanked those who’d helped him win. He came off as genuine—that seemingly rare thing—a decent human being as national leader. And in his simple, vital decency, he was precisely the man the moment demanded.

Listening, I was soothed, much more than any internet meme could soothe me. Yes, Trumpism is not going anywhere. But it is not the final word on America, either.

Our neighbours have a lot of soulsearching to do. But right now, it is no small victory that they have voted Trump out. It is no small victory either that the man to replace him has the gift of human warmth.

Whatever President

Biden accomplishes over the next four years, it cannot overshadow the significance of what he has already achieved.

I think I speak for most Canadians in saying—to him, to his administration, to all of America—good luck.