Opinion: Revolution of 2020

By: Brady Rivkin

The results from today’s day of voting in-person are predictably unpredictable. There are widespread fears of violence from all sides, and the integrity of the election is in doubt, whether that is from claims of voter fraud or of voter suppression. Events from recent weeks recall the early electoral history of the United States and the backlash against suffrage as that right was meagerly extended. As the election season concludes this evening, it has become apparent that for a decisive result to occur, the outcomes displayed as the polls close must mirror the first time political power truly changed hands in the United States.

In 1800, the general elections swept the Federalists out of office as the unpopularity of the Alien and Sedition Acts motivated Democratic-Republican voters to give their party control of not only the presidency but also both houses of Congress. During John Adams’ presidency, which was the first to last only one term, the Federalists sought to restrict speech against the federal government with the Sedition Act and to tighten citizenship qualifications with the Alien Act. These would, respectively, deprive their opponents of a public voice and to suppress the vote of French immigrants, who overwhelmingly supported the Democratic-Republicans. The Election of 1800 became known as the “Revolution of 1800”, and there still exists some debate about that label.

After Thomas Jefferson and James Madison had their opportunities to influence policy as President and the United States had seen itself through another war with Great Britain, came what is now known as the Era of Good Feelings. This was a time period from approximately 1815 to 1825 in which the federal government was controlled almost completely by one party, the Democratic-Republicans. The Federalists had been relatively extinct for some time, having sealed their fate as a party with their show of political statements at the Hartford Convention. The Democratic-Republicans did not take into consideration any of their proposed Constitutional reforms, and life in the United States continued despite growing sectional tensions, most of which were around the dilemma of the expansion of slavery.

When the Era of Good Feelings concluded, which was after the election of 1824, the United States’ division heightened until the moments at which various Southern states seceded from the Union. Andrew Jackson was bitter over having lost his bid to John Quincy Adams from what historians call the “corrupt bargain” in which Henry Clay, another of the four presidential contenders that year, supported John Quincy Adams when the House of Representatives had to choose the next president-elect in exchange for the position of Secretary of State, despite Jackson’s having garnered a plurality of electoral votes. In that same decade, John Calhoun of South Carolina decried what Southern planters called the “Tariff of Abominations”, a policy that left cotton-dependent economies without resources, in the South Carolina Exposition and Protest, and indeed, South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union.

All of that history outlines what must happen in the aftermath of the 2020 general elections. For the United States to escape the tyranny of Trumpism, if the Republican party refuses to reform itself in the case of a loss for elected official Donald Trump, the only sustainable path forward is a second Era of Good Feelings. The election must serve as the first event in a Revolution of 2020 in which there is such a massive blue wave that the party of elected official Trump becomes extinguished on impact.

Assuming Democratic candidates take control of both houses of Congress and of the Presidency, they will have the opportunity to pass legislation that is enormously popular but which has recently stalled as a result of Mitch McConnell’s obstinacy. Over the objections of single-issue voters who would only vote for candidates who defend gun rights, they must enact gun reform that is not simply gun safety but gun control. They must preserve the healthcare laws that the current administration is trying to unravel in the midst of a pandemic that has claimed the lives of over two hundred thousand in the United States. They must protect marriage equality and remove the barriers to abortion that the uninformed states have imposed. All these and other causes are necessities for the Democratic candidates to address once the 117th Congress convenes in January.

Unfortunately, elected official Trump’s Supreme Court confirmations complicate matters. He nominated Neil Gorsuch when the Senate had nearly a full year to confirm Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland. When he had an opportunity to shift the balance of the Supreme Court slightly more to the right, he installed Brett Kavanaugh, who has been credibly accused of sexual assault. In what will hopefully be the last months of his presidency, he and Mitch McConnell broke a precedent that they set about four years earlier, when a Democrat was President, to replace the civil rights icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Amy Coney Barrett, who, though thoroughly qualified, was rushed to the Supreme Court as a midnight justice before the hypocrisy of the Republican senators could be exposed at the ballot box.

In order for Democrats to establish their agenda, they must work around the reluctant Supreme Court¹. Legal challenges to environmental regulations, voting rights protections, and other measures are sure to surface, and the Court must have the integrity to refuse to intervene. If the Court chooses to block popular laws, the Democrats have reason to pack it with justices who will reverse the backwards legacy of the current administration.

Whatever this evening brings, plenty of Americans will resent the results. There may be violence. There will almost certainly be media misrepresentation, but not necessarily from the “fake news media” about which elected official Trump often rants via tweet. No matter the outcome, the work of civically engaged students too young to vote today will not be in vain, for they will be the voters who transform their nation-state before long.

1. Article III of the Constitution stipulates that the “judges” (justices) “shall hold their offices during good behavior” and does not explicitly limit the number of justices serving on the Supreme Court. It would not be so improbable to see some sort of impeachment process for justices floated publicly in about eight years.

Brady Rivkin is not only a contributor to Full Disclosure, but also the Director of Education at Teens Be Heard, a student-led initiative with the goal of engaging teens in sharing their voices and building a more equitable society. Full Disclosure and Teens Be Heard share these goals and are proud to support each other in our journeys.