Sleep Tight

It is always a bit of an out-of-body experience to observe elections from a distance. When you live somewhere and drive to and from work and play, see the election signs, hear the rhetoric at the grocery store, overhear the frustrations on the subway platform, and steep yourself in the culture, it is just a part of the patina of that daily life. However, when you are farther away, and get only a glimpse over the wall, you never really know what is going on, even with the glimpses and jumping up and down trying to understand it.

Today is Election Day in the United States—one of my mother’s favorite days of the year. She majored in Political Science in college and never ceased to be interested in those elections—she never kept them at a distance. However, I live thousands of miles away, and even though I jump up and try see over the wall of miles, it is a strange peering.

There was an editorial the other day in The Jordan Times that saddened me about the writer’s peek over the wall into my homeland. The writer noted that “Much of America is in a nasty mood, and the language of compassion has more or less been abandoned.” How my heart sank as I read this assessment. When I left the United States on August 30 the midterm elections were still 9 weeks away, but it was obvious then that this would be a fire-breathing year. I remember driving up and down Montana Avenue, a street I have known since my birth, since an era when America harbored the idea of ending poverty at home and abroad, and I noted the strange war of yard signs. House by house it went Democratic sign, Republican sign, in a pretty, but eerie red-blue-red-blue-red-blue almost civil war. Yesterday David Brooks wrote of the America of the fall of 2010 in an editorial: “Everyone is writing about anger…and not inspiration.” The commentators in my paper here, all trying again to peer over that wall in that out-of-body experience attempting to experience somebody else’s election, all comment about “America’s deepening moral crisis.” One writer noted wearily, “An already bad situation marked by deadlock and vitriol is likely to worsen, and the world should not expect much leadership from a bitterly divided United States.”

Sigh. But let’s hear it for Election Day. Let’s take a moment away from the “nasty mood,” and give Election Day its due.

Tomorrow when I peer over the wall into my homeland (via the internet and the news agencies) I don’t know if I will be able to see the “moral crisis” others see. But I know what I won’t see: I won’t see violence and bloodshed over the election.

Two weeks ago when I went to Nepal and tried to learn everything I could about this country in a few days, I read with interest and sadness editorials in the newspapers excoriating the Nepalese government. One writer bluntly posed, “Is Nepal a failed state?” I learned that there are actually 12 social, economic, and military indicators used by The Fund For Peace to determine if a state is a failed state. The editorialist, a man named Bishwambher Pyakuryal wrote, “In responding to this question, I presume, based on the review of the characteristics that qualifies a country to be deemed as a failed state, Nepal is not yet a failed state, but can become one at any time, any day.” He crunched numbers but concluded that Nepal did not know how to “handle fragility.” Mr. BP concludes, “The task of policymakers has been to make unrealistic growth estimates and blow their trumpet while denouncing any warnings on the possibility of state failure…” Hmmm…

Next week is Election Day in Jordan. The Parliament will be elected and each voter must return to his or her hometown to vote. In order to encourage voter participation, it is a national holiday. Our Jordanian faculty will journey home for the registration and voting. This Thursday the Prime Minister will speak to us here at KA about the elections so we can better understand the issues, the processes, and the prospects. I am curious to ask what the voter participation rate is in Jordan. I read the other day that the United States ranks #139th in the world for its voter participation rates. Let’s just drink that in for a moment…of the democracies in the world, my homeland comes in a dismal number 139 for its percentage of eligible voters who actually go out and vote.

But let me, from my distance, just appreciate the certainty I have about today, tonight, and tomorrow in my homeland. While there is division and vitriol, while there is less statesmanship and more paranoia (Can we afford to elect so and so????) my travels have shaken me out of my complacence about Election Day in the USA and about the beauty of Election Night. When I traveled to Kenya in 2008 on the cusp of their elections I was heartened by their democratic process and then saddened when over 80 people perished in riots following Election Day.

The first big test of this little democratic experiment came in 1800 when power transferred peacefully from John Adams’ Federalist Party to Thomas Jefferson’s Republican Party. Maybe Americans held their breath in 1800 over what might happen, but as the new day dawned, there was no bloodshed over the nasty campaigning and change of power.

We do this right. While campaigns are enervating, the suspense agonizing, we do Election Night well. It is simple. It is right. When I learn of the results tomorrow I will read about upsets and Tea Party this and Tea Party that. But Americans will have celebrated our project once again without bloodshed.

It’s time for bed and the slumber of certainty.