Frazzled, Fearful, and Frustrated: America at the Ballot Box
From disillusioned voters to elite anxieties, a look at the uncertain road ahead
With less than a week to go, America’s 2024 election feels more tense and consequential than ever. This week’s three TL;dr essays reflect a blend of disillusionment, anxiety, and urgency. Brigit Phetasy starts us off by capturing the “frazzled” mindset of undecided voters who feel stuck with uninspiring choices. Her mix of humor and frustration echoes what I’m hearing from so many.
Meanwhile, Anne Applebaum and Matt Taibbi capture deeper fears that go beyond this election cycle. Applebaum warns of structural threats to our democracy and calls for active citizen engagement, while Taibbi points to an unsettling media narrative advocating extreme measures to counter a Trump victory or close race. Together, these pieces paint a picture of an election that’s not just about picking a president — it’s about navigating some of the deepest political and social divisions America has faced in years.
Inside the frazzled mind of the undecided suburban mom voter
In this essay for The Spectator, comedian and podcaster Brigit Phetasy wrestles with a choice for president that feels more absurd than inspiring. As a suburban dad watching from the sidelines, I can’t help but relate. Here are three insights — or punchlines — that struck a chord with me.
Two Candidates, Zero Excitement: “Folks are trying to decide between Kamala… and Trump? That’s like trying to decide if you prefer listening to Insane Clown Posse or the Boston Philharmonic,” she writes. “Five years after I wrote my ‘battle cry of the politically homeless,’ I still feel like neither major party represents me. In many ways, nothing has changed: I still think everyone in politics is awful — probably even more since I’ve remained immersed in the culture wars.”
The Crazymaking Choice We Face: Phetasy says Harris participated in what she believes to be “one of the greatest scandals of the past few decades: the cover-up of Biden’s mental decline.” On the other hand, “If you had told Bridget of 2015 that Bridget of 2024 would even be considering voting for Trump, I would have said, ‘Oh wow, so I go crazy in the future. That’s unfortunate.’”
The Personal Gets Political: During the last presidential cycle, Phetasy notes she was single, childless and living in California. Now she’s married, has a kid and lives in Texas. “Having a child has been radicalizing in ways that I didn’t expect it to be. I no longer have the luxury of being too cool for school, the kid in the back of class sneering at how dumb everyone is for caring. Now I have literal skin in the game. Suddenly it matters who’s on the school board and what weirdo gender stuff my kid is being taught in kindergarten. I also have to think about things like the future of humanity, longevity and retirement. Ew.”
Ew, indeed.
The Danger is Greater Than in 2020. Be Prepared.
Writing on Oct. 15 in The Atlantic, journalist and author Anne Applebaum issues a warning for the 2024 election, asserting the risks to democracy are greater now than they were in 2020. She highlights organized efforts by election deniers, legal strategies to contest the results, and the erosion of confidence in the voting system as serious threats. Applebaum provides a “citizen’s guide” to safeguard democracy, urging Americans to register, vote in person, and join efforts to monitor and support fair elections. Here are three of her key points:
Democracy Can’t Be Taken for Granted: “We treat democracy like clean water, something that just comes out of the tap, something we exert no effort to procure … But these are not normal times.” Applebaum reminds readers democracy needs active protection, especially in an era when election denial is organized and widespread.
Challenges are Mounting at All Levels: “We can be absolutely certain that an attempt will be made to steal the 2024 election if Kamala Harris wins.” She points to unusual moves in state legislatures and local election boards designed to undermine the vote count and instill doubt in the election’s legitimacy.
Stay Engaged, Not Disillusioned: “Emphasize the strength of the American people … Offer people a course of action, not despair.” Applebaum argues that civic participation — from voting to peacefully protesting — is key to countering disillusionment and preserving democracy’s integrity.
I agree with her concerns over election denialism. It is pernicious and cause for real concern. On the other hand, you don’t want the treatment to be worse than the disease. Which leads us our next piece.
Uh, Oh: New York Times, Washington Post Signal Post-Election Crackdown
In an Oct. 25 piece, veteran journalist Matt Taibbi analyzes recent pieces from mainstream media that hint at potentially extreme measures if the 2024 election doesn’t yield a decisive outcome. Highlighting articles from The Washington Post and The New York Times, Taibbi notes an emerging narrative where certain elites and media figures seem to advocate for proactive, even forceful, measures to counter a Trump victory or a close race. Taibbi suggests this rhetoric is part of a larger trend to prepare the public for a post-election crackdown, creating a climate of caution and unease. Here are three takeaways:
Rising Rhetoric Around Military Intervention: “Restoring order might fall not just to the courts, but to the military as well.” Taibbi highlights The Washington Post’s framing of military intervention as a potential fallback if Trump doesn’t concede, a reflection of heightened elite anxiety about this election.
Pushing Beyond Traditional Electoral Solutions: The NYT op-ed by two Harvard professors “is furious, pessimistic, and paranoid. It walks readers through four failed options for stopping a ‘clear threat to American democracy’ in Trump, then proposes a more extreme fifth,” Taibbi writes. “What about just letting voters choose? No go, explain the Harvard men.” The article implies that the usual mechanisms of democracy may not be enough this time, a sentiment he argues is part of a broader media shift toward justifying “societal mobilization” against perceived anti-democratic threats.
The Pre-Bunking Phenomenon: “If you warn people not to worry about something ten billion times, they will start to do just that.” Taibbi describes “pre-bunking” efforts as a calculated way to prepare the public for post-election unrest, suggesting that this strategy, promoted by the Department of Homeland Security and mainstream outlets, could inadvertently fuel suspicion rather than confidence in the election process.
I'm sympathetic to Taibbi's concerns about pre-bunking from official government channels; there’s a fine line between informing the public and appearing to play politics. We’ve seen way too much of the latter in recent years.
For more perspective, consider this from an Oct. 27 Wall Street Journal article headlined “America Is Having a Panic Attack Over the Election.”
“The angst is widespread across the political spectrum. In a Wall Street Journal poll released last week, 87% of voters said they believe America will suffer permanent damage if their candidate loses. Among Harris’s voters, 57% said they would feel “frightened” if Trump is elected, while 47% of Trump voters said they would feel frightened if Harris wins; smaller percentages expected to feel the milder reactions of anger or disappointment. At least half of voters said they think violence is likely if either Trump or Harris wins, and 53% say America’s divisions will keep growing regardless of the election’s outcome.”
The TL;dr for this week’s TL;dr? Buckle up, my friends.
In Other’s Words
Physicist Richard Feynman on uncertainty.
I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here. I don’t have to know an answer.
Musician, humorist and one-time Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman on choosing.
If you have the choice between humble and cocky, go with cocky. There’s always time to be humble later, once you've been proven horrendously, irrevocably wrong.
Journalist and critic H.L. Mencken on democracy.
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right.
Onward and Upward.