Understanding The 2020 Presidential Election

The 2020 presidential election that’s just now finding its true shape is going to be unlike any other that America’s ever seen. As it unfolds over the next 6 months, this election is going to go down in history as unique unto itself, unlike any other previous presidential election.

That’s because, this time round, this presidential election isn’t about deciding who’s “the best man for the job.” It’s not going to be an election that’s aimed at deciding whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump will be the best president.

This year’s election, deep in its heart and soul, is going to be about discovering whether, for most of us, our vision of America is despotic or democratic.

Fundamental Questions

From the beginning, this election has always been about more that Biden or Trump. Because of the existential anxieties we’ve been struggling with since 9/11, and President Trump’s first term in office, 2020s presidential election has become our first real opportunity to tell each other whether we want a despotic ruler to save us or a democratic leader to help us shape our future. Do we want to be saved or led?

What’s going on all across America right now is clear proof that this election is (and should be) about whether we, as a people, want to go back to being the white, Christian, male-dominated nation we’ve been since 1776. Or, whether, as a people, we instead want to suck it up and decide that we, as a nation, want America to move forward towards becoming the multi-ethnic, multi-gendered, multi-faith democratic republic our forefathers bequeathed us.

Forward or backwards? Democratic or autocratic?

These are the questions we’ll be answering on November 3rd. They are the toughest, most consequential answers we’ve ever been asked to give.

2020’S PARADIGM SHIFTS

All this is true because the issues buried deep inside this election involve some of the most complex, highly controversial paradigm shifts ever to appear on a U.S. ballot. Paradigm shifts like these four:

• The paradigm shift presently going on in this country that is moving us away from America’s original White Christian society towards today’s emerging agnostic, non-sectarian society, as demonstrated by this kind of evidence.
• The paradigm shift going on all across America that is moving us away from a white, male-dominated society towards an inclusive multi-gendered, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, ‘Me Too’ society, as demonstrated by this kind of evidence, this kind, and this kind as well.
• The paradigm shift going on in this country that is moving us away from a patriarchal society towards a polyarchal, non-gendered society, as demonstrated by this kind of evidence.
• The paradigm shift going on all across America that is moving us away from a society that can only see a binary, male/female definition of gender to a society that sees and accepts a multi-gendered definition that includes male, female, gay, lesbian, and trans-sexual identities, as demonstrated by this kind of evidence.

If you read any of these articles, you will sense the visceral, threat-induced responses that unfortunately are our natural minds’ instinctive reactions to these four quite dramatic national identity shifts.

Useful Actions

Given that that these fight/flight/freeze reactions of ours are only going to get stronger as we move closer and closer to the election, we (if we want to cast smart, well-reasoned, evidence-based votes) need to reframe the way we’re currently understanding the 2020 presidential election.

Instead of seeing it as an election that’s choosing the ‘best man’ for president, we instead need to explore why we should see this election as a referendum that either will affirm the white patriarchal principles our founding fathers wrote into our constitution, or affirm the liberal democratic principles they wrote into our constitution that encourages the development of an inclusive multi-gendered, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, ‘#Me Too’ society.

I don’t have a sure fire way to create this reframe. But, I do have three steps that will move us in this direction:

• First, you and I need to acknowledge that America’s foundational ideals are concepts that we once understood, but now for us have become taken-for-granted presuppositional beliefs about freedom and representative democracy that long ago slipped into our subconscious. Given we can see this, we’ll understand why we can’t simply coast into our polling places on November 3rd.
• Second, you and I need to take some time to re-learn what freedom and representative democracy are all about. We need to investigate questions like “Is the polarized and polarizing government we now have in Washington adequately practicing and protecting democracy’s essential tenets of majority rule and minority rights?” “How are issues like rising levels of income inequality, immigrant detention, and voter suppression hurting or helping America’s representative democracy?” And “Does it matter that our elected representatives, at both the state and national level, do not adequately reflect America’s current multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-denominational demographics?”
• Third, you and I need to decide when, where, and how each presidential candidate, through their espoused policies, match up with our own refreshed vision of what America should become.

There are resources you can use to address these questions. For instance, you can:

• Use the Bipartisan Policy Center to inform you about the best Republican and Democratic policy proposals.
• Access the Pew Research Center, which is in business to offer those who are interested the kinds of substantiated facts that facilitate open, evidence- based public dialogues.
• Use The Heritage Foundation, which is a think tank advocating conservative policy alternatives.
• Try the Center for American Progress or Demos, both of which are research centers offering liberal ideas.

No matter which resource you use, the point is to get started thinking and talking about the new order of consciousness, the new mindsets, and the new modes of thinking that the 2020 Presidential Election is asking of each of us. Given that you want to cast a wise, well-reasoned, evidence-based vote on November 3rd, any one of the resources listed above is a good place to start.

Bringing It All Together

There’s no doubt the 21st century is ever so slowly asking us to revamp our sense of the world we’re living in. And to think carefully about the vision of America we want our nation to pursue going forward.

A big part of moving forward — especially if we want to do it successfully — involves reshaping our sense of what being a good citizen means in this era of polarized and polarizing politics and desperate protesting. Transformational Learning Opportunities, especially TLO’s America’s Next Revolution resources, has been built to address exactly these kinds of questions.

Thanks for reading this article. You can find more like it, and more information about 2020s election at Transformational Learning Opportunties.com.