Remember when impeachment was going to be the seismic political event of 2020?
Neither does anybody else.
President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, which seemed so important in January, was overwhelmed in short order by even more tumultuous developments: A deadly pandemic that hardened the nation’s partisan divide and upended the economy. A racial reckoning that reverberated through American governance and culture. A president’s baseless attacks on the election itself, raising doubts about the legitimacy of his successor among millions of voters.
The past 12 months have left the United States a different place than it was when the year began. An unfathomable 330,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. The government is bigger after passage of the most expansive relief packages in the nation’s history to address the costs of the virus, still not under control. In the wake of politics of the most brutal sort, some scholars and citizens worry that fundamental democratic institutions have been bruised.
Lamonte Williams waves a flag outside the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del.William Bretzger, Delaware News Journal
Will the changes stick? Will 2020 turn out to be an aberration or a turning point?
Americans recognized the high stakes set by a year that was shaped by a combination of forces no one had experienced. “We’ve seen a pandemic before; we’ve seen economic crisis; we’ve seen racial turmoil,” Princeton historian Kevin Kruse said in an interview. “But not all at once, not all together.”
Asked for the single word that described 2020, the most frequent response in a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll this month was “awful” or “terrible” or “horrible,” adjectives chosen by nearly one in four. Fifteen percent used expletives that can’t be repeated here. Nearly all of the 1,000 registered voters surveyed Dec. 16-20 cited words that reflected strain or pain.
Only 7% chose positive words such as “OK/wonderful/good” or “enlightening/awakening.” Another 5% used neutral words, like “unprecedented” and “different.”
“We’re going to look back in 50 years and say this was the year of fundamental changes,” predicted Jim Messina, a veteran political strategist who ran President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012. Those changes have affected the contours of the economy, the power of social media, the strength of political parties’ bases and Americans’ views of the role of government.
“There’s this conception in Washington, D.C., that we’re going to go back to ‘normal’ now that Joe Biden is president,” Messina added. “But I just don’t think that is true.”
“We’re at a crossroads,” said Susan Stokes, director of the Chicago Center on Democracy at the University of Chicago, calling the moment “a big fork in the road.”
Here are four of the significant questions ahead about what direction the country will take next.
Was democracy damaged?
Trump challenged traditions and smashed norms from the moment he rode down the escalator at Trump Tower and launched his long-shot presidential bid in 2015. Never in modern times has an American politician provoked such heated controversies and survived, his political base unshaken. But nothing matched the potential repercussions of his assault on the democratic process itself during the final two months of his tenure, when he refused to recognize the results of the November election or to commit to the peaceful transfer of power.
Trump and his supporters filed dozens of lawsuits in eight battleground states; none of them gained legal traction. He lobbied governors and legislative leaders to take unprecedented maneuvers to overturn the certified count in battleground states. Even now, he is urging congressional Republicans to challenge the final Electoral College proceedings on Jan. 6.
While he has no realistic prospect of changing the outcome, Trump has succeeded in raising doubts among millions of his supporters about whether Biden won the White House fair and square. In the USA TODAY poll, a third of registered voters, including three in four Republicans, said Biden wasn’t legitimately elected, an assertion that has been repeatedly debunked by fact-checkers.
President Donald Trump continues to incorrectly assert fraud occurred in November’s presidential election.Patrick Semansky, AP
Those doubts could erode trust not only in the new president but also in the democratic process itself, political scientists and political practitioners warn.
“A lot of times the loser feels there was something wrong with the election, but usually the leadership gets itself up and dusts itself off and gets ready for the next time around,” Stokes said. “But if the leadership turns around and says, ‘This was stolen, this was fraudulent’ without any basis in truth or real kind of process or evidence, then the public will follow that – at the very least with a kind of ongoing decay in our democratic culture, and at the worst, violence.”
That “national culture of distrust” will test both parties and the next election, she said.
Was there a turning point on race?
On May 25, the final moments of George Floyd’s life were caught on a cellphone video. He pleaded for breath, and then for his mother, as a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
Clergy from the Minneapolis area march June 2 to the intersection where George Floyd died in police custody.Jack Gruber, USAT
Other cases of police misconduct toward Black people gained new attention and sparked more outrage, including the shootings of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta and Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“That homemade video recording [of Floyd] shook the world,” said Michael Eric Dyson, a Vanderbilt professor and author of “Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America,” published by St. Martin’s Press this month. “There’s no question that this year has been a game-changer in the first year of a new decade. There is no question that when you look at the pandemic of COVID, and the pandemic of race, and the presidential race, and all that it revealed about us as a nation – we’re astonished. We’re looking at each other.”
Not since the civil rights movement in the 1960s has there been such a powerful public response to and scrutiny of the nation’s record on race, and one that resonated with Black and white Americans. The debate that began on police reform also focused attention on the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on people of color and on signs of systemic racism in housing, education and employment.
Dyson is optimistic about the future, but he and other advocates say the protests of the year won’t lead to lasting changes without difficult and sometimes controversial action ahead.
“I just hope that everyone understands that the symbolic gestures actually are important,” Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said in August, “but they do not end the conversation.”
Will COVID-19 be vanquished?
In recent weeks, the initial distribution of two FDA-authorized vaccines for COVID-19 has given Americans hope that they can see a light at the end of the tunnel, of an end to the pandemic that has upended almost everything in American life.
At the same time, though, the tunnel has gotten darker than ever. The numbers of new cases, of hospitalizations and of deaths all reached new heights in December. The vaccines alone won’t bring the coronavirus under control for months or more.
Biden vows that the pandemic will be his first priority. It is likely to define his presidency, as it has defined Trump’s tenure. No new president has ever taken office in the midst of such a broad and deadly public health crisis with repercussions that are shaping other pressing challenges. The pandemic has thrown millions out of work and widened the nation’s economic divide.
Biden says he’ll start by asking all Americans to wear face masks, a common-sense measure that has become a bitter partisan divide. He’ll also have to persuade people to take the vaccine, another plea that will test their trust of him and their government.
In the USA TODAY poll this month, the percentage of those willing to take the vaccine as soon as they could jumped to 46%, up from 26% in late October. One in three wanted to wait. But one in five said they would never take it. Among Republicans, the partisan group that presumably will be the most resistant to Biden’s entreaties, 36% said they would never take it.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease specialist, now estimates that 70% to 90% of Americans need to be immune for the virus to fade and life to return to normal.
Allen Matthews, 42, an engineer from Lone Tree, Colorado, who was called in the survey, is among those who still needs to be convinced. “Probably just wait,” he said about taking the vaccine, unsure of its safety. “It needs to be out there for longer.”
Will voters be exhausted or engaged?
Nearly 160 million voters cast ballots in 2020, a record.
In an unexpected turn, the pandemic seems to have boosted turnout because it prompted many states to make voting easier, including an enormous expansion of mail voting, used by nearly half of all voters. Some states already have begun to debate whether to adopt or roll back some of those changes in future elections.
The partisan impact of higher participation – a good thing for democracy in general – was more complicated than pundits predicted beforehand. Democrats won the White House but Republicans gained ground down the ballot, including in the House of Representatives.
Biden received more than 81 million votes, nearly 12 million more than Obama got in 2008, the previous high-water mark. Even though Trump lost the popular vote, he broke the previous record, too, receiving more than 74 million votes.
The turnout rate was historic as well. In all, 66.7% of those eligible to vote did. That’s the highest in more than a century, since 1900, and part of a new trend. Turnout in the 2018 election had hit a midterm record, too, only four years after the 2014 midterms had scored the lowest turnout in seven decades.
Why the turnaround?
“There’s only one variable that changed between 2014 and 2018, and that’s Donald Trump,” said Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political scientist who runs the United States Election Project. “It’s clear that people have a visceral reaction to him: Love him or hate him.”
That raises the question of whether the jump in turnout will continue after Trump no longer stands at center stage in politics. He has energized voters both for and against him, but he has also left some exhausted by his shifting policies, provocative rhetoric and chaotic style of decision-making – all of those epitomized by his favored 280-character means of communication, Twitter.
McDonald, for one, predicts that the Trump turnout effect will persist. “A lot of research shows voting is habit-forming,” he said. “When you vote once, you’re more likely to vote again.”
Contributing: Sarah Elbeshbishi
President-elect Joe Biden receives a COVID-19 vaccine and urges Americans to do the same.ap
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
