On The Ground: 2024 Election Day
Notes from a battleground county in Pennsylvania
The gentle autumn breeze offers a note of providence. Voters in line are wearing light jackets and scarves, college hoodies, even some sandals and shorts. Some are in chatty groups, mothers with kids, while others crane ahead apprehensively. Their jittery anticipation is akin to concert-goers eager to get into the venue. They’ve waited four years for this show.
“God save America!” shouts a grizzled old man who looks like an emaciated Santa Claus.
He’s in full regalia, with MAGA red cape and Skoal stained beard. Prowling the other side of the street, he’s trying to provoke a reaction from the line, which is set with Harris/Walz signs and such memorabilia. But it’s not working. His “Don-ald Trump” solo chant is a bit pathetic, not so much a political loss as a personal one. He’s the last kid on the playground left to toss a football up to himself.
Everyone’s too weary to fight anymore. All the zingers and hot takes and pwns and quote tweets have been exhausted. No one is convincing anyone of anything. 2024 politics feels like when Homer Simpson challenged Bart to a pen clicking race. Eventually one side just says, “This is stupid,” and the other declares victory.
For sure the Democrats thought this pen clicking contest was in the bag. The pundits who promised a Harris landslide must now dance and pivot to stay on their feet. “Trump is toast!” Michael Moore claimed two days before the election. That’s true - he gets burned and keeps popping right back up.
A team of librarian-type women with clipboards prepare the voters in line. Phones and IDs are out ready to be scanned. The mood is bright, given the turnout. “When we vote, we win,” was this year’s incarnation of the Democratic voter initiative effort. They wisely abandoned the “Rock The Vote” bit, associated as it was with the likes of P Diddy. Instead we were given Liz Cheney as a surrogate for her father, whom even voters too young to remember the horrors of the W Bush era know is a very bad man. Just look at him.
With this ennui hanging low on Election Day morning, I follow past the firehouse to the small downtown area of Averton, Pennsylvania. Industry once boomed here, evident by all the empty factories before the hills of rusted forests. Averton was the headquarters of SportsCo Games, which made those horribly rudimentary handheld baseball and football “games” that were really just bits of greyscale animation cycling through a few frames irrespective of the user’s button presses. You swung the bat at a blinking dot and hoped for the best. That was entertainment before smart phones, just as those will someday look like caveman rocks to future generations.
In a diner I order coffee with eggs and toast. A few grizzled regulars spin around for a look. Clearly they’re sick of outsiders, all the pollsters and operatives and various media who’ve descended on this “battleground” county. The outsiders stay up at the Sheraton near the highway, and arrive in van caravans with their own food trucks of upscale fusion fare. “How bad are you struggling in this economy?” they ask the locals. And then leave behind overflowing dumpsters and matted patches of grass once they have enough raw footage for TV anchors to rhapsodize on.
The waitress is a single mother of two whose cheery disposition transcends such cynicism. “It’s exciting,” she says. “Last time we got this much action around here was the ghost hunters.” The ghost hunting industry loves these ruined Averton factories for their video shoots. Though lately it’s been the political pollsters, who vacuum up morsels of information to deposit on the American electorate. “One of them asked me the color of my underwear, which I don’t understand how that matters how I’m gonna vote.”
It’s fair to say this town is repulsed by the whole thing. They vote, as they feel is their duty. But they harbor no illusions. Next week there’s a dune buggy race in the mountains, and after that Pet Sounds, the all canine Beach Boys tribute band, plays at the VFW. Then it’ll be time for Thanksgiving turkeys and strung up Christmas lights. Life goes on.
Back at my car, I notice the MAGA Santa Claus guy walking back toward the highway. I think about giving him a ride for the sake of the story. But no - it’s easier just to make up my own. That’s what pollsters do, and also campaigns, and pundits, and zealots on either side. We’re making a lot of this up as we go along. This is our right as Americans, not just on Election Day but every day. Our shared reality is just a creation - let’s not allow politicians, or their surrogates, or the amateur pundits, to define it for us.