Accountability for who?: rage and struggle in the uneasy American project

Contributed by Connor McClelland, senior, history, political science

From Jan. 11-15, I had the honor of attending The Washington Center’s 2021 Inauguration Academic Seminar, an opportunity afforded to me by the gracious support of the ETSU Honor’s College, where I am currently serving in the capacity of a student fellow to their first iteration of Citizenship and Democracy in America project. The virtual seminar brought together an array of professionals in politics – policy wonks, think tank representatives, journalists, partisan media commentators, lobbyists, etc. – with notable appearances from the incoming Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki and former Republican National Convention chairman Michael Steele. The theme of the seminar was political accountability.

A central question arose for me, however: accountability for who? That question will serve as my primary sounding board in reflecting on my experience and what I took away from it.

Is it accountability for the Republicans who cleared the way for and enabled one of the most repugnant and contentious American presidents in our history to rampage from the bully pulpit without any sense of direction? Representative members of the Republican/Conservative intelligentsia spoke at the seminar, most notably, the “Never-Trump” icons Kurt Bardella of the Lincoln Project and Peter Wehner of the Ethics and Public Policy Center about their personal loathing of Trump, but enumerated in so many ways how their colleagues and the party was somehow held hostage by an insurgent leader who expanded the Grand Old Party electorate and received more votes in 2020 than any Republican presidential candidate in the history of the United States. These types of speakers certainly wanted accountability for Trump and his base, just not for themselves, even though they were the people who helped shape the Republican Party for the past 20 plus years. The Lincoln Project, for example, enriched their glorified social media campaign to the tune of tens of millions, while they secured for themselves a position at the “winners table” and on nightly MSNBC broadcasts , all the while dismissing and demonizing a massive base of angry and committed Trump Republicans as fringe or unrepresentative.

Is it accountability for the Democrats who squandered an eight-year Obama presidency (that started with an immutable supermajority) and generated enough malaise and animosity towards themselves to suppress voter turnout and engagement to the extent they let a generally unpopular candidate win in 2016? Many speakers who focused on the transition and prospects for the incoming Biden Presidency applauded his aesthetic juxtaposition to Donald Trump but largely were silent on what his administration will do to actively ameliorate the types of conditions in this country that inflamed the original Trump base and made democratic voters lose faith in the first place.

Some speakers accurately noted that in the same way the Republican Party is undergoing an identity crisis, the Democratic establishment is going to war with its expanding progressive and leftist wing, of which myself and many other young people would consider themselves members. Biden, who has made a spectacle of his desire to be the “President for all Americans” needs to take bold action to ensure that we move forward towards the future, not merely remain in our familiar political stasis with him presiding as the reactionary anti-Trump placeholder. I believe this should be obvious, but the fact that Biden did not in fact win by a landslide and the Democratic Party lost power in the House of Representatives, barely securing a paper-thin majority in the Senate would suggest that victory laps are not in order. The Democratic Party has a duty – an obligation, even – to concisely divulge an actual vision for the country and motivate lawmakers and the people to get behind it.

Finally, is it accountability for our institutions, which have become so unresponsive and regressive that they are becoming disdained by mass portions of the American public? Throughout 2020, we saw abuse of our power structures for political gain and total incompetence in managing a pandemic and economic crisis. In the sphere of social issues, the country swelled with righteous anger during summer at the murders of innocent Black folk across the country by the hands of the police. Riot and destruction emerged on different occasions and served as the roaring howl of pain and rage at societal structures which contribute to and ignore the plight and oppression of countless Americans. On Jan. 6, Trump supporters sieged the U.S. Capitol in an unrighteous but comparably enraged fashion. These examples are not given to equate these movements in their justifications or actions. Rather, it serves to demonstrate that Americans of all kinds are undeniably filled with intense rage.

We can waste our time arguing who has a right to be angry or whether we believe it’s harmful, but I think we should instead focus on and really think about how we bring real accountability, just like the seminar intended. To do that, we need a government that works for all of us. Not just the establishment. Not just the wealthy and the corporations. Not just specifically motivated, rabid voter bases. We need a bold, transformative vision which will confront the failures of American political leadership and institutions which have reified misery for so many Americans, whether they live in red states or blue states. Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, College for All, racial justice, an expanded social safety net – these ideas and goals will bring us forward and heal our country because they materially improve lives and are offered universally to all. Not only that, they are also necessary step in preventing the past four years from repeating, because while the tumultuous Trump Presidency may be coming to an end, the bleak American political, social and economic realities that thrust him to power remain.

I was often confounded at different TWC seminar speakers. Personally, many seemed like nice people, whether I agreed with them or not. It wasn’t about them as individuals, but rather as actors and purveyors in a system of power and ideology that needs to be radically upended. My solace, however, was the young up-and-comers and my fellow participants. They presented the fresh voice and critical perspective we desperately need in this era of chaos, rage and crisis. So, if there is anything I can share in my reflections with any real sense of optimism, it’s that I see that the young people of our generation have the capacity to change the world. The accountability we seek probably won’t come today, nor will it come tomorrow with Joe Biden, even if that’s what we desperately want. It comes from us. Let’s channel the anger we have grown and turn it into something beautiful and universal. Our generation can chart a new course for the American project, which in this precarious moment is at risk at being lost to the uneasy seas of democracy in danger. I pray we will.