The American Transition

On January 20th, the United States began the transition away from Trumpism and back to a more rational and less capricious governing style. But the question remains: can the US return to a more consensus style of governance as was in place before extreme polarization began in 1994?

There are no easy answers. Some think that with 73 million votes for Trump on November 3rd, Trumpism is now indelibly engrained into the American psyche.

I am not so sure. In recent days I have been reminded of the Spanish transition of the 1970’s.

After a bitter civil War and 36 years of dictatorship, King Juan Carlos led the dismantling of Francoism in three short years to create the basis for a modern, democratic Spain. This, while overcoming a coup attempt in 1981 and seeing a Socialist government elected in 1982.

Juan Carlos achieved this by appealing to moderates of the right and the left to forgo a bloodbath that many had expected and, instead, by concentrating on facing new challenges and striking a consensus on basic democratic governance.

He was successful and, despite the many challenges facing Spain up until the present, the center has held, and Spanish democracy remains viable. To be sure, in keeping with international trends, the extreme right-wing Vox party won 22 parliamentary seats in the last election, but their strength is mitigated by the strength of the other parties that stand in their way.

Does this offer a model of hope for the Biden administration?

First of all, on top of having lost the platform of the Presidency, his banishment from Twitter and Facebook and a noticeable weakening of support from FOX News’ mean a loss of critical messaging mechanisms that kept him in contact with over 80 million followers. Without these platforms, Trump will find it difficult to reach his erstwhile constituency and share his daily musings.

Second, as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and others vie for the Republican candidacy in 2024, a good number of Republicans may not be terribly upset to see Trump lose his grip on the Party and allow them to create new political spaces.

However, this will likely not immediately reduce Trump’s strong base within the Party, much to the chagrin of moderate Republicans.

Thus, Joe Biden may have a good chance of appealing to non-Trump Republicans who do not wish to see the consolidation of the hijacking of their party by extremists.

A coalition of centrist Republicans along with moderate Democrats, to address the pandemic and the rebuilding of the economy afterwards, is not beyond reason.

Should such a coalition succeed in creating a series of effective, broad reaching policy proposals, the result could help to marginalize extremes on the right and the left and bring an even greater majority of Americans back to civil political discourse and the politics of consensus.

Can Biden’s proposed administration appointments underscore a moderate Democratic course that could appeal to moderate Republicans like Mitt Romney at the national level and others at state and local levels who want to reclaim control of their party from Trumpism?

This could be a result of successful bi-partisanship necessary to meet the immediate challenges   of the pandemic and its effects on the economy and society. It could also help set the stage for a renewed vision of politics capable of capturing the imaginations of U.S. voters.  

Roosevelt had his New Deal, Kennedy had his New Frontier, Johnson had his Great Society, and Reagan had his Shining City on a Hill.

In the days and weeks ahead, the Biden team should take advantage of the media and public attention to focus their communications on ongoing explanation and detail behind their electoral platform of “Build Back Better”.  

Doing so will build awareness and possibly appeal to many Republican voters who were only hearing the Trump message during the campaign.  Such a move could also help to sell an overall vision for their administration that can re-focus American passions and create a new political center.  

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Edición: Ana Ordaz