Election 2020: Breaking Through the Pine-Board Ceiling
Roger LeBlanc (author of The Punter’s Tale)
Georgia! Wisconsin! Pennsylvania! Multistate recounts! Who cares? The most important story of the 2020 election took place in the solidly red state of North Dakota.
Rancher-turned-politician David Andahl ran as a Trump Republican and won a seat in the state’s eighth congressional district. He defeated career politicians and upstarts from both parties. But Mr. Andahl won’t be giving any rousing victory speeches. He died of Covid-19 a month prior to the election.
Maybe you think a politician dying of Covid-19 while riding the coattails of a Covid-coddling President is the big news here. Or the decision by North Dakota voters to choose a man with no functioning brain cells over all other options.
Most Democrats who stumble upon this story will accuse North Dakota voters of making a mockery of democracy. But don’t Democrats stand just inches from crossing that flat-lining line themselves by electing Joe Biden?
Biden might be sworn in as the most cognitively impaired U.S. President ever. Maybe Ronald Reagan was more senile when elected in 1984, but no candidate among the many septuagenarians running this year could challenge Biden’s chronic incoherence and proximity to dementia.
In the course of his campaign, Biden chalked up the following WTF moments:
- Claimed to be running for the U.S. Senate
- Told a New Hampshire crowd he was pleased to be back in Vermont
- Warned us about the potential damage of four more years of George Bush
- Said he was proud to have been part of the O’Biden Bama administration
In short he forgot his name, his opponent’s name, the position he was running for and where he was. And that’s a very abbreviated list.
Democratic primary voters ultimately rejected the eloquence and mental acuity of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and even Michael Bloomberg, despite the sharp contrast they provided while standing next to Biden on several debate stages. No, thanks. We prefer the babbling idiot.
As shortsighted as the Biden nomination might be, it’s not as bad as electing a dead guy, right? Then again, maybe casting ballots for the deceased is a bold new form of tactical voting we can use to replace the standard “lesser of evils” approach, which just leaves democracy circling the drain a little bit longer.
In the final analysis there’s a silver lining to North Dakotans voting a dead man into office:
The pine-board ceiling nailed above the heads of dead Americans has finally been broken.
Let’s take a moment to celebrate that!
We no longer need to limit our choices to lively money-laundering criminals, fast-talking con artists, ladder-climbing corporate puppets or the burnt-out remnants of each group. David Andahl has shown that the dead can have an enthusiastic voter base too.
How could we have not seen this possibility sooner? We, the living, can reach into the grave to elect candidates much more qualified than those being offered:
- You want a real New Deal? Put Franklin Roosevelt on the ballot!
- Shall we close the gender gap that results in women receiving lower pay and fewer promotions? Write-in Susan B. Anthony!
- Time for a new revolution? Nominate Thomas Paine or Nat Turner for the top spot.
So “Bravo!” to Joe Biden for going so far with so little left in the tank. For attracting Black Lives Matter voters by promising to increase funding for the police. For attracting votes from Covid sufferers (who’ve lost their healthcare along with their jobs) by promising to kill Medicare For All. But, with the dead now in the running, the competition for votes might be tougher in 2024.
Mother Jones.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thurgood Marshall.
Eugene Debs.
Who can reasonably argue that the current Democratic leadership will fight harder for working class Americans than long-deceased progressive populists of the past? Or that — through NAFTA, GATT, WTO, the imprisonment of whistleblowers and journalists, perpetual war and spying on us all — they’ll accomplish more for workers than the fighters for justice I’ve mentioned? If the dead and their legacies offer more to us than the policies of the living, they probably deserve our vote.
Thank you, North Dakota. You might’ve just saved our democracy!
