Trump or Kamala? We’ll know who’s won in just a few days.
Whoever is elected the next President, we can count on the fact that supporters of the losing candidate won’t take it well. So polarized is our politics, supporters of the defeated candidate may despair. Trump or Kamala, there’s going to be an outbreak of doomerism in the days that follow. Many may wallow in pessimism. Some might even sound like they are willing Bad Things on America merely to vindicate their own political preferences. Don’t.
Whatever happens, Americans should avoid catastrophizing about the outcome. Life in this country has been getting better over the past few decades, despite rather than because of some of the politicians America has had.
Steve Pinker, the cognitive scientist, reminds us of this with a series of graphs he produced, showing how life has improved in America since the early 1970s. Output has shot up 321% since 1970, and the population increased by 63%. America’s industrial output today is approximately twice what it was in 1980. It's nearly three times what it was when Lyndon Johnson was in the White House. So much for the myth of American “de-industrialization”. Life expectancy is also up. Homicide, too, is down.
Over the past five decades, poverty in America has plummeted. Among those officially classified as “poor”, 99 percent live now in homes that have electricity, water and a fridge. 95 percent have a television. 88 percent have a phone. 71 percent own a car. And 70 percent have air conditioning.
In the early 1970s, many Americans simply didn’t have many of these things. In the late 1970s, to buy a 14-inch television, the average American earning the average wage would have needed to work 70 hours to earn enough. Today, a vastly better TV can be purchased for the equivalent of 4 hours of work.
The first cell phones in the early 1980s retailed for almost $4,000 - or over $10,000 in today’s prices. They needed re-charging after 30 minutes. Today, almost every American can afford a far better cell phone for a fraction of the cost.
America has 50 states, and thanks to Article 10 of the Constitution, those powers not “specifically given to the federal government, nor withheld from the states, are reserved to those respective states, or to the people at large”. Perhaps it is time to abide by that Amendment?
Stay true to America’s Founding Principles, and America will, I hope, continue to prosper whoever lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. If the question of who lives in the White House for the next four years is overshadowing everything across the country, maybe it’s time to listen to the former Texas Governor, Rick Perry, who once suggested that we ought to make Washington as inconsequential as possible.