‘2016 Was Not A Fluke’ — Unpacking Election 2020

by | Nov 20, 2020 | Commentary, News, Videos

The Park Center for Independent Media hosted a panel discussion on the results of election 2020, featuring Ithaca College-affiliated speakers who are experts in politics, media, and culture. The conversation tackled the issues that influenced the presidential race, the extraordinary mobilizing efforts that secured Joe Biden’s win, the devastating legacy of President Trump, the role of mainstream media in shaping electoral choices and why Trumpism remains a political force to reckon with.

Our speakers were Jeff Cohen, M. Nicole Horsley, RahK Lash, Thomas Shevory, and Peyi Soyinka-Airewele. Watch the full discussion here:

 

Raza Rumi, Director of PCIM, moderated the panel. His opening remarks touched upon several key issues of the election, including its record turnout amid a deadly pandemic and the deep polarization among the electorate. “As we move forward, the U.S. publics remain concerned by racial and economic insecurities, economic stress, racism and grave challenges of public health.”

Thomas Shevory broke down the political systems governing the election and our perceptions of it. He says, despite close calls in some states, “Ultimately, it was not a very close election,” and that “We didn’t have a civil war on election day . . . Trump said everything he possibly could to argue that the election is fraudulent, but those efforts have largely been ineffective.”

Given the 70 million Americans who still voted for Trump, Peyi Soyinka-Airewele observed, “We know the verdict: 2016 was not a fluke.” Intersecting issues of race, virus, and Democratic mobilization speak to the “urgent need for electoral accountability.” Soyinka-Airewele says “The MAGA nation, in all its variations, has become even more militantly fanatical.”

M. Nicole Horsley elaborated the historical significance of Kamala Harris as Vice President-elect, alongside the political power of Black women, who “have always been part of the political movement of mobilizations, from sororities to churches.” For this election in particular, Black women made their voices heard in record numbers, as “Trump presented a very immediate need and attention to stand up and vote.”

RahK Lash discussed how the Trump campaign’s refusal to transition power will further disadvantage those already hurt by the last four years and the pandemic. Further, “Our country has a long history of interposition and nullification … I fear what’s gonna happen in the year ahead of us. I fear the pushback. I fear the stalling … it feels like history is humming the same song on repeat.”

On the future of U.S. media, Jeff Cohen says “supporters of Trump aren’t going away, and Donald Trump is not going away. It would not stun me at all if he ran for president in 2024, but he will be a big presence in media.” Cohen described how a national popular vote could replace the electoral college, saying, “Imagine what it would do to the right wing. It would destroy them.”

More from The Edge

Finding My Way to Max Tohline’s ‘A Supercut of Supercuts’

We often discover new media fascinations in roundabout ways. In February of 2022, when filmmaker J.P. Sniadecki emailed me to ask if I’d seen Chloé Galibert-Laîné’s “Forensickness” (2022), I had only the vaguest sense of what had come to be called the “video essay.” I...

Complicity and Resistance in a Time of Genocidal Agony

What to Do? I am writing especially thinking about Palestinian women. They have suffered so immeasurably and grotesquely while they have tried to care for their children and their pregnancies, while being malnourished, dehydrated, starved, and heartbroken while death...

The Key to Maintaining Democracy? It’s Conversation.

On January 25th, the Harvard Kennedy School hosted a panel to discuss how candid conversations about  differences in opinion contribute to healthy democracy and social cohesion. The event, which was held on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts,...

Elitism and the Rest of Us as the New Semester Begins

This week, most college and university campuses will open across the country. The ghastly war in Gaza continues and the U.S. has become more involved as it bombs Yemen. So, I am thinking about how unsettled the surround is as higher education institutions begin a new...

War Rape and the Question of Hamas

Israeli Zionist women have been speaking out these last few days to bring attention to the horrific rape of Jewish women, and the lack of outcry of feminists, for them, to this plight. They demand an indictment of Hamas and its sexual treachery towards women on...

The 10 Freeway Has Been Reopened but L.A.’s Transit Problem Remains

During the early hours of November 11, a fire erupted in a storage yard underneath the I-10 freeway near downtown Los Angeles, structurally compromising a large section of the road and resulting in, what was at the time, claimed to be an indefinite closure of the...

From My Body to Yours, and Gaza to the World

A Meditation on Death, Killing, and Possibility I knew my body was healing from the surgery when I found myself ready to engage with the world and posted on Facebook: I am always anti-zionist. And never an antisemite. And always an anti-racist feminist against...