By Robert Hornak

Tomorrow is election day but when you read this the election will be over and we will likely know who the winner is. One of the longest and most contentious elections in modern history will be over, so the obvious question many will be asking is, what next?

Regardless of who wins, approximately half the country will believe that this is the beginning of the end for our nation. But the truth is our country has always been very divided and our politics always very contentious.

We can go all the way back to our nation’s infancy, to the election of 1800, between two of our founding fathers, Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson and Federalist John Adams. About the worst thing you could call someone then was a monarchist, with the U.S having just won its independence from the British crown. And that’s what Jefferson’s supporters called Adams, which was akin to calling someone a communist today. 

Meanwhile, Adams supporters called Jefferson an atheist. A blatant lie meant to portray Jefferson as immoral, but there were no “fact checkers” back then. Jefferson won that election with 73 electoral votes to Adams 54 and 60.6% of the vote to Adams 39.4%. 

Fast forward a little over 200 years and we have seen numerous campaigns that were nasty and filled with name calling and dirty tricks. And many of those elections were very close and bitterly divided. 

But there is a difference in today’s politics. The political has become very personal, with many people and politicians attacking not just the opposition candidate, but all the followers of that candidate and party. And far too many people describe their feelings for the other side as hate. That’s a pretty strong emotion to have for someone you don’t know and doesn’t know you. 

What we really hate is that person’s success in pushing an agenda we strongly disagree with. Nobody demonstrates this more than Trump. Every Republican has taken nasty slings and arrows from the opposition, but Trump stepped into an arena he wasn’t supposed to win in, and showed incredible success both against the other party, but also coalescing the very large number of disaffected party faithful in his own party who for years have been complaining about the legislative effectiveness of the Republican leadership. 

We have all heard Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refer to Republicans as “MAGA extremists.” And just the other day Kathy Hochul said that anyone in New York who votes for Republicans, any Republicans – which is just about every Republican – is “voting for someone who supports Donald Trump and you’re anti-women, you’re anti-abortion, and basically, you’re anti-American.”

This is no way to bring the country together. Of course this isn’t new. In 2014, Andrew Cuomo said during his re-election that Republicans with conservative views “have no place in the state of New York.” 

What’s interesting is that Trump has actually been one of the most moderate Republicans to become a major leader in the party. As the Democrats seem to be aligning more and more with the most radical elements of their party, Trump actually had the Republican Platform modified to be more moderate on both abortion and same sex marriage, two of the most hot-button social issues the nation has been grappling with for decades. 

And MAGA is really just an extension of the Reagan Revolution. Even the slogan was used by Reagan, who had “Let’s Make America Great Again” as a main campaign theme. 

So, where do we go from here? Can we cool off the rhetoric, which comes from both sides, and find ways to have some respect for the people trying to lead us forward but who we disagree with? And find some way to work together, and find common ground upon which we can deliver for the people of our city, state, and country? That, really is the big question we need to decide after this election, and will determine our political future in the months and years to come.

 

Robert Hornak is a professional political consultant who has previously served as the Deputy Director of the Republican Assembly Leader’s NYC office and as Executive Director of the Queens Republican Party. He can be reached at rahornak@gmail.com.