The original date of publication for this essay is Sunday, November 8th. It is the 17th of what’s intended to be a year’s worth of essays, published on Sundays. That intention, like everything, is subject to change.
Last week’s essay: Not On Coming Back, But On Coming Through
The presidential election, for our intents and purposes, is over. Joe Biden has emerged as the winner. Kamala Harris will be the Vice President. Donald Trump has lost. The shouting will continue, falling and rising and falling and rising, but there is no legitimate doubt now. The voters have voted, and enough of their votes have been counted to know who won this thing.
Earlier this week, as I prepared to write this, I made a note saying “no one’s thrilled” about the outcome. This was wrong. Many are thrilled. But the vast majority, even of those thrilled, aren’t thrilled that Joe Biden, the man, will be the 46th President of these United States. They’re thrilled that Donald Trump will not continue to be the 45th.
It’s common for mankind to look for a hero. A savior. A king. Someone who, vested with enough power, will solve all the problems. Many viewed Donald “I alone can fix it” Trump through this paradigm. Many others treated Barack Obama as such a conqueror. My impression is few, if any, are viewing Joe Biden this way. Joe Biden is no übermensch. He’s a man. He may be a vanquisher, for many—a rescuer, a warrior, a victor, sure—but few, if any, view Joe Biden as some sort of American messiah. And this is good. Because there is no American messiah. There will never be an American messiah. American elections, as majestic a democratic institution as they may be, do not solve all our problems. Neither does the federal government.
To my eyes, it appears many Americans hold something of an implicit belief that government is the sole power in the land. This belief recedes during the odd-numbered years, relaxing into some sort of hibernation. But at the midterms, it raises its head, and when the presidential primaries surge, it emerges from its bed, and when the parties’ conventions are over in August it begins to stomp around, roaring, until Election Day hits and we tell ourselves, we tell each other, that this is existential for the country. And why? Well, for one, elections are important. Government does have a great impact on our lives. And at certain times in our history, war has been in the balance, or immediate economic relief has been in the balance, or different magnitudes of corruption have been in the balance, or all sorts of other, legitimately consequential things have been in the balance, to the degree that every few decades, one can make an argument that the election really is consequential. But for the most part, the importance is amplified.
Some of this may simply be that to our eyes, the office of the president is the highest in the land. If one were to ask, “Who is the most powerful human on Earth?” one might determine the answer to that is the president of the United States of America. “The leader of the free world.” And in a nation in which belief in higher powers is fading, it tracks that the highest earthly power would be a matter of great concern. When many cease making their appeals to God, they don’t cease making their appeals. They redirect them to the highest power they can find.
But I suspect it’s more than that. I suspect these elections—especially the presidential ones—are of such importance because they’re the only time this nation engages in a collective, active, concrete decision. They’re the most cohesive mass event in these United States, and when they happen every fourth year, they’re more than a decision on who will lead the executive branch of the federal government of the United States. They’re a referendum on who we are, as a people. They’re our chance to say what we stand for, what we want, and to what we aspire to be, through something simple and clear and beautiful: a vote. We give ourselves two or three chances a decade. Five chances every twenty years. Over a few weeks, the majority of American adult citizens make a decision, mark that decision on paper or machine, and wait for the count—the count that says, to ourselves and to the world, who we are.
This, I suspect, is the real importance of our presidential elections. What kind of nation are we? What kind of society are we? What kind of people are we? We make our claims. We cast our votes. We get our answer. Four years later, we do it again.
Such an event is important. But still, we amplify the stakes. Because we don’t treat it as just a national referendum on ourselves. We treat it as decisive. And we betray this even in the odd-numbered years, even in the midterm years, even in those times in the election in which we turn our eyes away from the campaign. We betray it every time we say that the president of the United States “runs the country.”
The president does not run the country.
The president runs the executive branch of the federal government.
And this is a crucial distinction.
Again, this is an important job. One could argue it’s the most important job (I’d personally make a claim that in the year 2020, Tim Cook’s job more sizably affects the average one among us, but I recognize the silliness of raising such an objection). Still, it’s not a job as important as “running the country.” The president does not do that. We do that.
This is the great fallacy of our feverish, tribal, existential treatment of these elections. We ascribe a power, in our hearts, to the president that he or (one day) she does not possess. And what’s worse, we possess it ourselves. We run this country.
And we don’t just run it in state and local governments, important as those might be. We hardly run it there. No, we run this country in our day to day lives, at coffeeshops and in factories, in fields and on interstates, in schools and churches and prisons and football stadiums. We run this country at highway underpasses, at parks, at soup kitchens, in board rooms. We run this country in our homes. We run this country: our home.
Because a country, a nation, is more than its government. It is a people that chooses a government to handle such matters as it believes a government best to handle. But it is not a government, in itself. It is a people.
This is not a call to be politically disengaged. Governments are important, and ours is no different. But political engagement is just one slice of societal engagement, and even the issues political engagement addresses are far too often left unaddressed by individuals in a societal manner. Do you wish to alleviate poverty? Give time and resources and opportunity to the poor. Do you wish to better the environment? Ride your bike. Recycle. Patronize carbon-negative businesses. Do you wish to end abortion? Support disadvantaged mothers. Invest in sex education. Fundraise for the medical research that saves babies suffering from complications in pregnancy. Yes, policy affects all these matters as well. But it is not the only thing that affects them. It is often not the primary thing that affects them. Free healthcare clinics might not be enough today to provide healthcare to every American who needs it. But they could be one day. And in that middle ground, there’s a whole lot of good.
There is no American messiah that will come assume the presidency and make this country Heaven-on-Earth. But there is an American messiah that can accomplish that without the presidency. And hokey or not, it’s you. And it’s me. And it’s your neighbor whose yard sign pissed you the hell off last week.
Our problems are more than our government can solve. And that’s ok. Because we are more than our government.
Next week’s essay: On Winning, and Having Fun
“This, I suspect, is the real importance of our presidential elections. What kind of nation are we? What kind of society are we? What kind of people are we? We make our claims. We cast our votes. We get our answer. Four years later, we do it again.
Such an event is important. But still, we amplify the stakes. Because we don’t treat it as just a national referendum on ourselves. We treat it as decisive. ”
and
“Our problems are more than our government can solve. And that’s ok. Because we are more than our government.”
Well said!