Post-election troubles will be a test

Few of us expected to be where we are today. Anticipating a Donald Trump presidency. Slim margins of victory in a handful of key states and the peculiarities of our electoral system delivered a victory to a man and a political party that have shown little regard for our country’s democratic traditions and achievements. In an historical first, an overwhelming majority, likely several million voters or more, chose a different vision for our country than Donald Trump’s.

The economic pain experienced by millions of Americans perhaps can explain to some degree the outcome, but not nearly enough. Trump’s campaign tapped into something very ugly in our national psyche. An impulse to address our problems not through a strengthening of our democracy – but a dismantling of it. An impulse that too easily and quickly, is ready to throw significant sections of our people under the bus. Women, blacks and Latinos. Immigrants and Muslims. And if he holds to his view that climate change is a hoax - our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Nor is it an impulse limited to some far off “forgotten” rural, white county. In sections of the Bronx, including Riverdale, Trump garnered 20 percent to 30 percent of the vote. He won Staten Island. To lay the results of the election at the feet of Hillary Clinton is tempting, but in my opinion misplaced. This was an election that was a long time in the making and in no small part due to Republican willingness to place the pursuit of power over respect for democracy. 

Republicans will likely retain control of the state Senate. Jeff Klein’s Independent Democratic Conference has yet to say who it will caucus with, but with the GOP now the party of Trumpism, to caucus with it would be tacit support for its backwardness. One can hope that some Republicans in state government will have the decency to oppose the policies coming out of a Trump administration and their advocates on a state level. It is a slim hope, but they should be welcomed if they do. 

The future will be difficult. New York State can be an example of a different path. Economic “populism” not intertwined with racism and xenophobia, but with equality and justice. Values based on the best traditions of our democracy, not the worst practices of the powerful. Where our local representatives will stand in the coming months and years will be a test of their character from Senator Schumer on down. More importantly it will be a test of ours. Will we accept as the “new normal” politics that belong in the garbage bin of history, or will we build something new? My bet is still on the new.

David Mirtz is a northwest Bronx resident and State Committee member of the Working Families Party.