What the film-maker Michael Moore understands, writes Chris Trotter, is that, while there may no longer be enough good men to save the American Republic, there are more than enough good women

By Chris Trotter*

Ten days ago, I was enjoying a few end-of-the-working-week drinks with friends. We were talking about the US mid-term elections. The general consensus in my living-room was pretty much the same as the consensus around the planet. The hapless Democrats were heading for what Barack Obama called a “shellacking”, or, what we Kiwis, more modestly, would describe as a “hiding”.

History was definitely on the side of the pessimists, since it is almost a given of US politics that the incumbent party is bound to lose anything between 20 and 60 House of Representatives seats in the mid-terms. Obama, himself, lost 63 House and 6 Senate seats in 2010. Certainly, the expectation at my house was that the much bally-hooed “Red Wave” of Republican Party voters would sweep away President Joe Biden’s majority in both houses of the United States’ Congress.

The political commentator in me agreed with my companions. Indeed, as a promoter of what I like to call “The Devil’s Imagination”, I had, earlier in the year, floated the truly apocalyptic scenario of a Red Wave sweeping the very worst of Trump’s hand-picked candidates into both houses of congress. Hailing the result as a total vindication of his contention that the 2020 Presidential Election had been “stolen”, and confident that “his” Supreme Court justices would not gainsay him, what was there to prevent Trump from simply demanding that the new Republican majorities in House and Senate proclaim him the “true” winner of the 2020 Presidential Election and insist that he be restored to the White House immediately?

But, it was not the Devil’s imagination that prompted my response to all this gloom and doom. From somewhere else, altogether, I heard my own voice asking (uncharacteristically) softly: “But what if a majority of the American electorate, exhausted by the hate and rancour of the last six years, does something else? What if they use their ballot papers to call a halt to Trump’s madness? What if, answering the still, small voice of conscience, they cast their votes for dignity, decency, and democracy? Isn’t that also possible?”

My companions smiled indulgently. “Anything’s possible, Chris,” said one, “But is your scenario likely?”

“No.” Came my crestfallen reply. “Probably not.”

Oh, me of little faith. Because, as at the time of writing, it was clear that there would be no “Red Wave”. Indeed, on Sunday afternoon, MSNBC was projecting that the Democrats would hold the Senate, and that the Republicans’ majority in the House of Representatives could be as narrow as two seats. To find a mid-term result that comes close to 2022, one has to go back 20 years to the congressional elections of 2002 when, in the wake of September 11, the incumbent Republican administration of George W. Bush picked up seats in both the House and the Senate.

But, this year’s mid-terms were very different from those of 2002. Twenty years ago America had been brutally assaulted by Islamic terrorists and Americans were rallying around both the flag and the avenging American President carrying it aloft. In 2022, by contrast, the American polity is distinguished not by how tightly it is holding together, but by how rapidly it is drifting apart. Had Trumpism triumphed at the polls, many Americans would have raised the spectre of a second civil war.

The Supreme Court’s striking-down of Roe v. Wade only served to confirm liberal American women’s worst fears. The Handmaid’s Tale, once considered science-fiction, now sounded uncomfortably like the Six O’clock News. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes put the Abortion issue at the top of his three reasons why the Democrats did so well – Chastising his colleagues for assuming that such an all-out assault on women’s reproductive freedom would somehow be forgotten on account of the rising cost of milk.

But Hayes was being clever after the event. The true winner of the Cassandra Award for correctly predicting the future, but not being believed, has to be Michael Moore. Just as he had in 2016, the maverick film-maker did the unthinkable and, giving the bars and restaurants of New York, Washington DC, and Atlanta where the pundits gather to re-confirm their prejudices a wide berth, headed out to those parts of America more often flown over than visited by the Non-Deplorables.

It was in those places that Moore discovered that Joe Biden’s efforts at re-building America had actually been well-received by ordinary Americans, and that Democratic Party candidates found themselves running on a popular (almost populist) programme of political success.

But, there was darkness, as well as light, in the heartland. Even among conservative voters, Moore detected a growing concern that America’s 240 year-old experiment in democratic government was faltering. Biden’s message: “democracy is on the ballot”; and his warning that the very “soul of America” stood imperilled; had struck a resonant chord.

But it was among America’s women that Moore detected the unmistakable drumbeat of revolt. The Supreme Court’s decision had hit them with all the force of an abusive husband’s fist. But, after 50 years of feminism, American women were not cowering in fear, they were getting ready to fight back. Moore grasped what the punditocracy did not: that while there may no longer be enough good men to save the Republic, there are more than enough good women. His insights were confirmed 100%. In all five states where abortion was on the ballot, women’s reproductive freedom won hands down.

Moore’s faith in the ordinary American voter, and the ordinary American voter’s faith in the animating spirit of their republic, simply would not countenance the catastrophe that so many pundits were predicting. Somewhere, in the rambling dwelling-place of their consciousness, human-beings “just know” that there is something “out there” that beats catastrophe. J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, called it “eucatastrophe”.

Ruth Noel, in her book “The Mythology of Middle Earth” explains:

Eucatastrophe is Tolkien’s word for the anti-catastrophic ‘turn’ (strophe in Greek) that characterises fairy stories. The turning occurs when imminent evil is unexpectedly averted and great good succeeds. To Tolkien, tragedy was the purest form of drama, while eucatastrophe, the antithesis of tragedy, was the purest form of fairy story. In [Tolkien’s scholarly article] “On Fairy-Stories”, Tolkien gives the purpose and effect of eucatastrophe: “It does not deny the existence … of sorrow and failure … it denies universal final defeat … giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”

It is a mistake to place too much stock in “The Devil’s Imagination”. All too often, expecting the worst is the first step towards inviting it across the threshold. Still and small though the voice of conscience – and hope – may be, it has a way of being heard where least expected. Be it in Kherson, Ukraine, or Las Vegas, Nevada, it is never wise to give up on the possibility of a happy ending.

*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.