Joseph Sabino Mistick: Political endings & beginnings in 2020

Every now and then a new year seems sure to mark significant change. And 2020 is one of those years — a presidential election year — and it is not without some meaningless controversy straight out of the gate.

Astronomer Joe Rao writes in the Farmers’ Almanac that we should all “resolve to insist that decades begin with the year ending in the numeral 1 and finish with a 0.” But the popular practice is to start the new decade at zero, just as new life begins at birth.

As with everything else these days, this issue can split us politically.

Many Republicans are likely to line up with Rao, seeing 2020 as a final victory lap after Donald Trump’s 2016 upset victory and before doing it again.

But Democrats see this new year as the beginning of the new decade, a fresh start and a chance to break with the past. For them, 2020 is the dawn of a new era.

One hundred years ago, 1920 marked the beginning of the “Roaring Twenties” and not the final year of the turmoil that preceded it. It was a year of great change that included a fresh start for returning World War I veterans, voting rights for women and the first commercial radio broadcast from Pittsburgh.

And it was a year of great political change, too, when Warren G. Harding was elected president. He ran on a platform that seems to make sense today and may be right for Democrats who believe that voters are longing for calm and a “return to normalcy.”

“America’s present need is not heroics but healing, not nostrums but normalcy, not revolution but restoration,” Harding said.

It was a winning argument with voters who had wearied of political crises, civil turmoil and the horrors of the “war to end all wars.” Harding and his running mate Calvin Coolidge won with a whopping 60% of the popular vote.

Harding’s problem was that his words often set a higher benchmark than his actions. He ran government as a business, which never works since it must ignore government’s obligation to its neediest citizens. And his emergency tariffs countered low-priced imports, but drove up prices for American consumers.

And Harding surrounded himself with false friends who cared about their own interests to the detriment of the country and their president. It is a lesson for Democratic candidates who selfishly attack each other, risking the Democrats’ undoing and forgetting that their collective goal is to win back the White House.

This phenomenon was not lost on Harding. His friends and allies were a bigger problem for him than any of his political rivals.

“I have no trouble with my enemies,” Harding said. “I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends … they’re the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights.”

Politically, whatever happens in 2020 will change us forever. And, as a voter, it doesn’t matter if you see 2020 as a beginning or the end. All that matters is that you vote.

For our country, a massive turnout, a massive expression of popular sovereignty, will start to cleanse the noise and chaos of the past few years.