Don’t expect an Election Night Concession.
It might not be a fast resolution of the longest campaign of our lives. But we need to focus on what comes next.
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PROGRAMMING NOTE: As this unfolds I am going to do live programming on Substack. You’ll get a notification and you can join through the app after 10 PM Eastern.
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It’s Election Day. I don’t expect a concession tonight.
We’ll have an idea of the vote totals, we’ll know whether responsible media organizations are willing to call it, and we’ll likely have speeches from candidates. I just don’t expect a concession. And that’s different than in years past.
***
In 2012, I was standing backstage at President Obama’s Election eve event in Chicago. Jen O’Malley Dillon was patient and organized. She was very pregnant with twins. And she’d orchestrated a successful campaign. The media was now calling the election results in our favor.
The networks were asking me when President Obama would speak. But we were waiting for Mitt Romney to call and graciously concede.
I remember it seemed like it took forever. Now, I look back and it seems short. On the same night that everyone voted, Mitt Romney eventually called, conceded, gave a magnanimous speech, and our plans went into action.
I waited backstage with President Obama as the atomic clock counted down to the second he would take the stage, with all the networks’ eyes on him: He would win his reelection to be President of the United States.
Why don’t I expect that this time around?
First, this is a close election by any statistical measure. (If we can rely on polling.)
Second, there’s been a shift in mindsets: For those supporting Trump and believing it will be an overwhelming landslide, there’s already been allegations of issues in key states over voter access. For those supporting Harris and believing it will be an overwhelming landslide, it’s important to remember President Trump never conceded in 2020, and even this weekend suggested he should have never left the White House.
Now that would have been interesting: If President Biden and President Trump were roommates.
But that’s not going to happen. One person – one party – will win the Presidency. How we get there: That’s a different story. And what comes afterwards is far more important.
***
I’ve long believed during this very long and weird campaign, that the true test for America comes after Election Day: in how we treat each other in the aftermath of such a verbally abusive, zero-sum campaign.
President Trump’s surrogates in North Carolina yesterday said that all of Western Civilization’s future depends on this election. Vice President Harris’ surrogates claim that democracy itself is on the ballot, and have highlighted comparisons of the Republican candidate to Adolf Hitler.
The election, which has seen multiple assisination attempts, a candidate swap, and historic early turnout, has been anything but predictable. But so far with all the unpredictability the energy has been directed to this day. When it’s all over, where does that energy go?
“I think we're a whole lot closer than what we think,” Bobby Diehl tells me, speaking of the divide the media often says is as stark as ever.
He voted for President Trump in tonight’s election. We went to high school together in Galesburg, Ill. He lives in Southern Illinois and is frustrated by rising prices and by a lack of investment in manufacturing and good paying jobs.
We talked about our hometown. Since I wrote my first column here on substack, John Deere announced more layoffs in our area, and Walgreens announced it would close a store in Galesburg as part of a wider closure.
Bobby is concerned about the economy, and he wants peace and prosperity for America. He gets frustrated that we can’t have more of the conversations with each other about issues without it devolving into a personality contest.
“If I have a conservative view, I'm immediately a MAGA guy. I'm a Trumper. And I think there's a lot of people that are not that way,” Bobby tells me. “They just saw what they saw four years prior to what we saw the last three, and a half four years, and it's not been good.”
That’s a view I hear a lot from Republicans and Trump supporters I talk to: They see this not as a race to save humanity but a normal, are you better than you were four years ago, election.
We have two different perspectives on what caused the inflation we’re seeing but of the pain our areas feels, neither of us can deny the realities. Places like Galesburg, Ill. have seen decline in manufacturing and no one administration has changed it.
Of the media: “(They say) we're just so polarized …I don't believe that that's the case,” Bobby says. “I’m fiscally conservative, but I have a lesbian niece. I could give two craps about what anybody wants to do in their personal life.”
He adds, “I'm gonna love you as my neighbor. I'm never gonna hurt you, I would help you if I see you on the side of the road.”
I agree with Bobby. The American spirit is so much deeper than the jerseys or hats that people have worn on these campaigns for the last two years (or those they haven’t taken off for more than 8 years). We do want to help each other. We want a country that thrives.
I know there are kind people – who would give the shirt off of their back to someone in need – voting for both candidates tonight. But so often in politics we’re not willing to take the shirt from the other. We’ve made the other team out to be the enemy. And thus we’re unable to compromise for what might be better for us all.
“I do hope that whoever wins, that the transfer of power … is not what we saw four years ago …” Bobby says.“At the end of the day, we cannot keep hanging on to and wanting to kill each other because we don't agree about something and I feel like that's where we're at,” Bobby says.
***
This Election Day will end (and eventually, recounts and tight races pending, this election cycle) As I said, I’m still hopeful that the media have an understanding of the vote outcome tonight. I’m hopeful we can hear fact based speeches from the candidates and that they can give us a clear idea of their next steps.
I just don’t expect either side to concede. Because on each side, supporters are all calling for them to fight. Even when we don’t actually want them to fight. We want them to make progress.
I’ve been around enough politicians to know that most of them react to what we the people want. If we indicate we want them to fight, they’ll keep fighting. If we indicate we want them to find agreement, they’ll do that too.
What we need to remember is we as Americans can find grace with each other as this unfolds. That will be the true test of our character.
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PROGRAMMING NOTE: As this unfolds I am going to do live programming on Substack. You’ll get a notification and you can join through the app after 10 PM Eastern.
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