(Music begins)
Emily Buckley: It’s 6 p.m. on Election night
Fox News anchor: after months of campaigning, virtual conventions, and two contentious debates
CNN anchor: It’s Election Night in America and a Nation in crisis is at a crossroad
Maddie Hernandez: The 2020 Election has been called the most significant election in the history of the United States.
Bernie Sanders: This election is the most important in the modern history of this country
Maddie: It has been deemed a turning point and the most critical decision we will make in the next four years.
NBC News anchor: but possibly the most consequential election of our lifetime
Maddie: We have been told that this election is integral to the future of our democracy.
Sanders: The future of our democracy is at stake
Maddie: The rhetoric surrounding this election has instilled fears of voter suppression and voter fraud
Stacey Abrhams: …and more than ever crisis of access to our democracy
Donald Trump: Everyone knows mail-in ballots are a disaster…
Maddie: We are told that our voices matter and that voting is our civic duty – at the heart of our core democratic values
Barack Obama:You need to vote because our democracy depends on it
Maddie: We are more emotionally invested in politics than ever before
(indistinct voices arguing)
Maddie: We are living in the middle of a global pandemic
CNN anchor: The U.S. Coronavirus death toll has now topped 243,000 people and more than 10.6 million American have been infected by the virus
Maddie: So it’s no wonder that we were and are feeling a lot of pressure and anxiety surrounding our possible choices….because in short, we are all doing our best to comprehend an overwhelming amount of information. 2020 has certainly brought it’s challenges, but the election seems to be a crescendo of all the issues we’ve been doing our best to wade through all year. I’m Maddie Hernandez and over the course of this season of Michigan voices, you’re going to hear about how we’ve learned to unmute ourselves in the pursuit of protecting and perfecting our democracy. In this episode we’re going to take a closer look at how we got here in the first place by reliving the time leading up to, during, and right after the votes were counted in the 2020 Election. In the midst of one of the most politically and personally exhausting years we’ve ever had to face, we’re going to find out what’s really at stake.
Sanders: …a movement like never before where people are prepared to stand up and fight for democracy and decency
Maddie: There’s been a lot of talk this election cycle about what is at stake… and more often than not, politicians and media pundits are quick to say that this election is a fight to preserve our democracy. In fact, since Trump’s election in 2016, the media and political scientists have greatly increased their worry over whether the fate of our democracy has become dire. But before we can understand whether these claims are valid, I think we need to define what democracy even is… the main conditions for democracy are that frequent, fair, and meaningful elections take place. In the US, we certainly have the illusion that we meet all these requirements and more than anything – the United States is the world’s oldest continuous democracy, so how could our democracy possibly even begin to die?
Professor Steven Levitsky: Political scientists have uncovered two pretty rock solid facts about democracies
Maddie: That’s political scientist and professor Steven Levitsky giving his first public lecture of his Andrew D. White professorship at Cornell University. Levitsky is a renowned political scientist studying democracy and authoritarian governments. He is also a professor of Government at Harvard. In this lecture, he discusses the implications of the well-known book he co-authored with Harvard colleague – David Ziblatt titled “How Democracies Die.”
Levitsky: First of all, old democracies never die and secondly, rich democracies never die. In fact, no democracy even remotely as rich or as old as America’s has ever broken down
Maddie: In this book, Ziblatt and Levitsky challenge the conventional notion that America’s democratic system is stable and resistant to any possible threats. They point to three main reasons that our democracy might be at risk.
Levitsky: First of all, levels of income inequality in the United States have risen to levels unseen since before the Great Depression. Secondly, the United States has begun a transition that, to my knowledge, no democracy has ever successfully undergone.That’s one in which a previously dominant ethnic group loses its majority status. I will return to that point. And third, of course, Americans have elected a president with visibly authoritarian instincts.
Maddie: In the 2020 election, two of these reasons are clearly relevant. First of all, much of the rhetoric surrounding this election has been highly racialized and the increased awareness of racially charged political and cultural life through the Black Lives Matter movement serves to highlight that racial tensions in this country continue to be high. And secondly, the president with authoritarian style tendencies that Levitsky is referring to… is Trump… so will we continue to show support for authoritarian-style politics by voting his reelection? Or are they over exaggerating the threat of Trump’s presidency all together?
I am not going to get into whether the actions of the Trump administration could lead to the demise of American democracy – I will save you from that inevitably long conversation, but it’s clear that Trump’s presidency is a side effect of a declining faith in our democratic values. And from Ziblatt and Levitsky’s argument, we can see why the 2020 election has sparked these conversations about the stability of our democracy.
Levitsky: Today democracies die in a much more subtle fashion.They die at the hands, not of generals, but of elected leaders– so presidents, prime ministers who use the very institutions of democracy to then subvert it. They use elections and referenda. They use acts of parliament or Congress. They use Supreme Court rulings.
Maddie: Since democracies die in very subtle ways today, we’re not concerned so much with a militaristic take over like we’ve seen in the past. We’re concerned about what happens behind closed doors…what happens when we go to the ballot box. Which is why the 2020 election seems to have so many emotions riding on it. It seems to have so many people talking about whether or not our democracy is at risk or whether or not we have time to save it from its ultimate demise.
Kamala Harris: …America’s democracy is not guaranteed. It is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it.
Maddie: With the stakes of this election in mind, I wanted to understand how other people were feeling and dealing with the overwhelming amount of anxieties we had going into Election Day. So, on November 2nd, the night before the election, I spoke with a couple of my friends
Shelby Zuk: Hi, my name is Shelby’s Zuk. I’m 28 years old, and I’m a college lecturer at a prominent university in Southeastern Michigan.
Maddie: I also spoke with my good friend
Buckley: Emily Buckley! Oh, um I’m a Junior at the University of Michigan
Maddie: The first thing I asked them was if they can use one emotion to describe how they were feeling at this moment, what would it be?
Zuk: The first word that comes to my mind is stressed, but I don’t think stress is a big enough word to encompass how I feel. I just feel like every nerve in my body is at wits end, and I just have this constant pounding headache.
Buckley: Oh, that’s a hard one… it’s the one part that gets ‘ya ‘cause there’s a billion. I’m sure everyone says this, but I’m feeling anxious – that’s my main emotion… waiting to see how this will unfold and waiting to see how it will affect us in the future so…
Maddie: Without me even prompting them, they both brought up what this election will mean for the future of our country
Zuk: I truly feel like our nation’s future is riding on the outcome of the Election Day of 2020. It’s like we’re at the fork in the road… we can choose one of two paths, you know? We can go down the right or the left and one side is full of hate and darkness for a lot of Americans and the other side is full of hope and prosperity and a chance for change…
Maddie: We also talked about some of the fears we had as what would happen right after the election results came in
Buckley: You really can’t even walk outside without almost feeling it, like, the stress and almost the division…and it definitely just picks up around this time like, compared to the beginning of the year, it’s definitely a lot more tense right now and there’s a lot you can just feel it in the air so.. I’m also just worried for the political climate on campus after this. I live in the dorms and already there’s a lot of tension, I can feel it. So, I can definitely see this shaping the environment that I’m living in, for sure.
Maddie: And finally, on the night before the election, I asked them whether they were hopeful for the future of our democracy
Zuk: To be honest, I want to be hopeful. There’s this little flame, like, flickering inside of me of hope…but at the same time I’m scared to have hope because if, you know, just a slight turn of events could change everything… and the fact that we may not know who won until the end of the week is chilling to say the least.
Buckley: It’s just such an uncertain time because no one knows what’s going to happen, like, I personally couldn’t even tell you right now if I had to guess what would happened, like I couldn’t tell you and that’s what’s scary ‘cause I thought I knew last time…. I thought I knew it was going to happen, and I was wrong. So, I’m not even trying to guess this time, just trying to prepare myself
Maddie: As I spoke to Shelby and Emily the night before the election, it’s clear that emotions are high. There is a lot of anxiety surrounding the days to come, and as much as I tried to keep the conversation about our feelings in this particular moment of history…. We kept drifting towards the future. I think that shows how this election has been framed as a fight for the direction of our country. Will we continue down that path that Levitsky warned us against? Or will we forge a new one? Less than 24 hours later, we were one step closer to finding out.
CNN anchor: It’s Election Night in America and a Nation in crisis is at a crossroads
Maddie: And just like that, it was Election Night. I asked my friends to check in with me periodically throughout the night
Buckley: it’s 6 p.m. on Election Night and tension is still picking up that’s my update so far, um
Zuk: Just an update – it is 7:18 p.m. and some of the states have started counting their votes and the polls are closing in some places. Currently, they’ve called Vermont for Biden and Kentucky for Trump.
Maddie: As they sent me updates, I also sat down with my housemates to watch the election results come in live
(indistinct chatter)
Housemate #1: 9:13 p.m.
Housemate #2: You know I said I hated Dallas, but after this election, I might love Dallas
Zuk: 9:40 p.m. – hope is still dwindling, very surprised about Texas and Ohio right now but they’re just hanging on their blue colors by a thread, so I won’t be surprised if they flip
Buckley: and it’s a very very very close race as of right now ,and I’m feeling the pressure – starting to feel it
Maddie: I just, like, can’t take this seriously or I’ll cry, so
Housemate #1: I know
Maddie: So just to be clear, I am taking this seriously
Housemate #1: Yeah, like, I am very actually scared, but if I laugh, who knows why I’m crying?
Zuk: 10 o’clock and I think I’ve now lost all hope. There’s this really red map….I’m just very disappointed.
Buckley: As always anxious and nervous is what I’m feeling right now, but we’ll see what comes of it
Zuk: It’s now 11 p.m. on Election night, but at the same time I know they’re still millions and millions of ballots be counted – we won’t know tonight which is frustrating, but at this point I’m just going to call it a night for myself and hope for the best
Maddie: And with that, Election Night ended, and some of us tried to get some restless sleep, if they got any sleep at all. We spend the next few days holding our breaths… until November 7th
CNN anchor: After 4 long, tense days, we’ve reached an historic moment in this election
NBC anchor: We can now project that former Vice President has been elected President of the United States
Maddie: These were Shelby and Emily’s reactions right after hearing the news
Zuk: I truly have no words and I’m just feeling very emotional. I had to wait to record this after I stopped crying… I just couldn’t help but burst out in tears. I hugged my partner and we just kind of sat there and stared at the TV for probably 15 minutes overwhelmed with joy and just a sense of relief. It’s almost like this weight was lifted off of my shoulders.
Buckley: I don’t want to be too quick to say relieved, but in the moment it’s immediate relief…I was like jumping up with joy basically
Maddie: My reaction matched theirs and after a couple of emotional phone calls with my family, I took to the streets to see how the city of Ann Arbor is handling the news.
(Traffic and Star Spangled Banner playing from a bell)
Maddie: That’s the sound of the Kerrytown Chime playing The Star Spangled Banner just minutes after the news was announced… and people honking in appreciation as they drove by
(honking, traffic, and tune Star Spangled Banner)
Maddie: As we got closer and closer to central campus, the city only got more and more alive
(More honking, traffic, indistinct shouting)
Maddie: That’s the sound of people honking their horns, waving their hands out the windows, and holding up signs as they drove by…celebrating in the safest and best way they knew how in the moment.
(traffic fades, Star Spangled Banner comes to an end, clapping)
Fox News anchor: Donald Trump the 45th President of the United States has vowed not to concede at this point, legal challenges will ensue over the course of Monday and beyond
Trump: If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.
Maddie: As Ann Arbor celebrated Joe Biden’s win, the election didn’t stop there. The Trump Administration made it clear that they were going to continue to fight to win by undermining the legitimacy of this election
Trump: It was a rigged election 100%
Rudy Giuliani: As you know from the very beginning, the mail-in ballots were source of some degree of skepticism, if not a lot of skepticism as being innately prone to fraud
Maddie: But despite these challenges to our democratic system, we seem to be holding up and weathering these difficult times without crumbling. And Biden’s election is being framed as a new, more hopeful day for democracy
Harris: And when our very democracy was on the ballot in this election, the very soul of America at stake, and with the world watching, you ushered in a new day for America
Maddie: Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is making history and giving hope and confidence to young women and people of color across the Nation
Harris: But while I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last
Maddie: While these election results bring feelings of optimism for some, they also are only the beginning. This election allowed us to confront our fears in the face of unprecedented circumstances, but the fight for democracy does not end here
Zuk: Now I’m here to fully be able to criticize everything he does to make sure that he does a good job because we really haven’t been able to openly criticize anybody for 4 years
Buckley: I think we’re ready to keep fighting for whatever…We’re just going to have to keep going in that direction, and I’m hoping that it will pay off
Maddie: The Trump Administration has left its mark
Trump: In a few moments, we will proudly swear in the newest member of the United States Supreme Court – Justice Amy Coney Barrett
Maddie: and we still have a lot of work to do to get back to any sense of normal
CNN anchor: It’s been the worst month yet for the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States – a record number of new cases and worries at Thanksgiving travel could turn out to have been a super-spreader event
(music fades in)
Maddie: The 2020 election was framed as a turning point in our democracy…to right itself and escape the claws of death…as a result we were left at the mercy of an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish….but the ride isn’t over yet. We may have eliminated one of the threats to democracy that Ziblatt and Levitsky have warned against….but the other still exist and must be overcome…I hope that this episode serves a relic that captures the context and emotions surrounding this election cycle, but it does not end here if we want to preserve the future and fate of our democractic system. we have to keep moving forward, as Vice President- elect Kamala Harris said it best…
Harris: …because now is when the real work begins
(music fades and transitions to theme song)
Maddie: Thank you so much to Emily and Shelby with me for this episode of ‘Democracy Unmuted.’ This episode has been brought to you by me, Maddie Hernandez, and our lovely radio professional, T Hetzel. Thank you for choosing us and get ready for next episode where my friend Nick Silk will talk more about what the results of the 2020 election mean for the future and fate of our democracy.
(theme music fades out)
