Frequent Writers Institute attendee Frank S. Robinson penned the following essay following our Telling the Truth event held at Page Hall on the University at Albany Downtown Campus on Friday, November 22.
The event featured two talks: "The Future of the Democratic Party" and "The Future of the Republican Party." He also posed a question during the second panel, which featured Timothy L. O’Brien, the author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald; Marsha E. Barrett, an expert on the political and social history of the US during the 20th century; and John Faso, former Congressman and New York gubernatorial candidate.
Frank S. Robinson poses a question at the NYS Writers Institute's Telling the Truth event on Friday, November 22, 2024, at Page Hall on the Downtown UAlbany Campus. (Michael Huber / NYS Writers Institute)
What now for Democrats and Republicans? The Purple Banana
by Frank Robinson
“Telling the Truth 2024” was the fifth in a series of public forums hosted by the New York State Writers Institute since the 2016 election, with our “post-truth” world a key theme. This latest had two separate panels on the future of the Democratic and Republican parties.
The first, moderated by Institute Director Paul Grondahl, featured TV journalist Chuck Todd, TIME magazine’s Charlotte Alter, and Congressman Paul Tonko. A key trope has been Democrats’ loss of connection to working class voters (and not just white ones).
Todd noted that almost every election in recent decades has seen a whiplash reversal of the last one’s result. Our zeitgeist is people feeling ill-served by “the establishment” and continually rebelling against the status quo, seeking change. An emblematic moment being when President Obama “forgot” his coalition and backed establishmentarian Hillary Clinton to succeed him. Democrats lost the “outsider vibe.” A lot of 2016 “Bernie bros” are now Trump bros.
Logical? I see the “bro” factor itself as overriding. Many males (and even females) just view the Democrats as pussies. While men feeling their masculinity threatened see raw macho Trump as their avatar.
And as for logic, Alter strikingly spoke of myriad parking lot conversations she’s conducted with voters all over. Hearing not much logical thinking. Not “A, therefore B, therefore C,” but instead “A, therefore purple, therefore banana.”
So people upset about high prices voted for Trump. Whose actual policies would raise prices. Talk about bananas.
Naturally “wokeism” was discussed. I feel that’s much overdone, inapplicable to most Democrats. But the panel suggested that after 2016, Democrats became the anti-Trump party — and with Trump representing “anything goes” racism, sexism, etc., Democrats sought to purge all such from their own turf, telling everyone how to behave.
Again, I think this only characterizes a fringe among Democrats. But Todd opined that the next successful Democratic leader will not get there by “picking a side” between left, right, and center. Such categories being unhelpful when it comes to addressing America’s problems.
We’ve been flooded, as here, with analysis of all the reasons people had to not vote for Harris. Forgetting all the cataclysmic reasons for rejecting Trump. And even if you like what he says — he’s a lying con man whose words are worthless.
The panel on the Republican party included Wall Street Journal political reporter Jimmy Vielkind; Timothy O’Brien, who authored a pre-political book about Trump; Professor Marsha Barrett, who’s written about Nelson Rockefeller and “moderate Republicanism;” and ex-Congressman John Faso.
I backed him for governor in 2006; wouldn’t now. Faso unnerves me. He exudes a vibe of reasonableness. Related that in 2016, he voted (like me!) for Libertarian Gary Johnson for president. But for Trump in 2020 and 2024 — based on policies, Faso said. Yet every policy concern he voiced seemed incompatible with Trumpism. For instance, he’s no isolationist, worrying that “the values of the West” are under threat. And isn’t one of those values truth?
Vielkind started by asking panelists to describe today’s Republican party. “A hostage video,” said O’Brien. There was much talk of a war within the party, “classic small government conservatives” versus the Trump cult. With the party still being an alliance of libertarians, religious evangelicals, and pro-business types.
This seems basically nonsense. Those orthodox Republicans had long been riding a tiger, exploiting the votes of racist xenophobe yahoos, until the tiger finally ate them. There’s really nothing left of them — nothing that matters.
Prof. Blackburn deemed false the idea that “identity politics” applies only to non-whites, this election showing otherwise. Indeed, Trumpism is identity politics on steroids, his supporters identifying themselves with him, warts and all. (I’ve written that his very transgressiveness attracts people wishing they themselves weren’t so constrained.)
Faso, however, insisted that voters actually ignored all that stuff, motivated instead by concerns like prices and immigration. But this reminded me again of Alter’s purple banana. Whatever seeming issues voters had in mind, there was no rational connection between those concerns and how they voted. How could they trust a party of creeps?
I got in the night’s last audience question — identifying the key thing about today’s American politics as the collapse of our civic culture, thanks to Trump. To make it a question, I asked if there’s any hope of restoration.
Faso responded that gatherings like this provide such hope. A pablum answer, I think.
Reprinted with permission. First published November 30, 2024, in rationaloptimist.wordpress.com by Frank Robinson.
About Frank S. Robinson
A graduate from New York University Law School, Frank S. Robinson served at the New York Public Service Commission as staff counsel and then administrative law judge (1977-97). He is the author of eight books including Albany’s O’Connell Machine (1973), Children of the Dragon (a novel), and The Case for Rational Optimism (2009).
Frank is a professional coin dealer -- http://www.fsrcoin.com -- and is married to the poet Therese Broderick.
You can find his blog at https://rationaloptimist.wordpress.com
Watch the two Telling the Truth conversations
Recorded at Page Hall, University at Albany Downtown Campus, November 22, 2024
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