SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: Election 2024

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

 The political campaign signs along Suffolk County roads declared: “Suffolk is Trump Country.” And, indeed in last week’s election, Suffolk was Trump country—as was much of the United States. His vote here for president heading the Republican ticket was substantial: 402,924 compared to 323,473 for Democrat Kamala Harris, or 55% to 44%. That’s an increase from 2020 when he exceeded the vote for Democrat Joe Biden by 232 votes and 2016 when he won by 46,619 votes in Suffolk over Democrat Hillary Clinton. 

I’ve written about outcomes of elections on Long Island for decades, and for many years on television anchored Election Night coverage on various TV outlets, and a plurality in Suffolk for a GOP candidate for president isn’t new. During the Nixon years, Suffolk County provided the largest plurality for any county in the U.S. for Nixon for president. 

What has amazed me this time was the high level of intensity of views.

And this will likely continue.

Nancy Green in her “Moving Forward” column in the Shelter Island Reporter, this one headed “Will we ever talk to each other again?” and on its front page a week before the election, wrote: “Thanksgiving is coming on the heels of the presidential election. A lot of families are nervous about how to make civilized conversation when the results will cause one side jubilation and another side despair. Over the years, many American families have tacitly agreed not to ‘talk politics’” at holiday dinners. “These families have become a microcosm for the country.”

Consider a pre-election two-sentence letter-to-the editor from former Suffolk County Legislator Bill Jones, a Southampton Republican, in the Express News Group newspapers here: “I will be voting to save our democracy. I will be voting for Donald Trump.”

Then there is the other view.

George Conway, a founder of the Lincoln Project, wrote a post-election piece in The Atlantic magazine which appeared online and was headed: “American Did This to Itself.” The subhead: “And now we all must suffer through it.”

It began: “This time, the nation was on notice. Back in 2016, those of us who supported Donald Trump at least had the excuse of not knowing how sociopathy can present itself, and we at least had the conceit of believing that the presidency was not just a man, but an institution greater than the man, with legal and traditional mechanisms to make sure he’d never go off the rails. By 2020, after the chaos, the derangement, and the incompetence, we knew a lot better. And most other Americans did too, voting him out of office that fall. And when his criminal attempt to steal the election culminated in the violence of January 6, their judgment was vindicated. So, there was no excuse this year. We knew all we needed to know, even without the mendacious raging about Ohioans eating pets, the fantasizing about shooting journalists and arresting political opponents as ‘enemies of the people,’ even apart from the evidence presented in courts and the convictions in one that demonstrated his abject criminality.”

“Every American knew, or should have known,” he wrote, that Trump “is a depraved and brazen pathological liar, a shameless con man, a sociopathic criminal, a man who has no moral or social conscience, empathy, or remorse. He has no respect for the Constitution and laws he will swear to uphold…”

“Maybe there are voters who have convinced themselves that the price of eggs is somehow something that Trump will actually be able to fix and restore back to what it was five years ago,” Conway said on MSNBC. “But they’re going to be sorely disappointed.”

The marriage of Conway and his wife, former Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, ended in divorce with their sharp differences over Trump a key reason.

Now a contributor on Fox News, she stated on it as the Trump win was declared: “I think Trump’s a metaphor for the country.” She praised his saying “don’t surrender, fight, fight, fight, we get back up.” She went on: “We all get second chances in this life. Rarely do we get a second chance as big as this one,” and Trump in returning to the presidency will “use that as a platform for good and undo some of these bad policies.”

The intensity of differences on Trump between the Conways is a metaphor for the nation.

Why did Trump win?

“Voters strongly rebuke Democrats by electing Trump. But will progressives listen?” was the headline of an analysis in USA Today by columnist Nicole Russell. Its subhead: “Americans not only rejected progressive ideas but also rejected a Democratic Party that views them…with disdain and full-throated contempt.” 

Barrons published a piece by Matt Peterson focusing on economic issues headlined: “Harris Tried to Sell an ‘Opportunity Economy.’ Here’s Why Voters Didn’t Buy It.” The article started with how Harris “promised voters an ‘opportunity economy.’ In the end, Americans opted to take their chances elsewhere.”

“Let’s be honest about this, okay?” began David Axelrod, a CNN political analyst. “Let’s be absolutely blunt about it. There were appeals to racism in his [Trump’s} campaign, and there is racial bias in this country, and there is sexism in this country, and anybody who thinks that did not in any way impact on the outcome of this race is wrong.” Axelrod was senior advisor to President Barack Obama. Also, MSNBC political analyst Basil Smikle cited “deep-rooted issues” of “sexism and racism” in the U.S. So, some voted against Harris becoming the first woman to be president of the country and also first woman of color to become president.

Meanwhile, a piece on Reuters by a group of four journalists was headed: “After Harris’ loss, angry Democrats blame her boss, Biden.” It said: “The sharpest criticism contained accusations that the party had lied to its supporters about President Joe Biden’s mental fitness until a disastrous TV debate with Trump in June raised alarm bells and ultimately led to the president exiting the race…A Democratic official blamed ‘malpractice by Biden’s inner circle. ‘No one would tell him ‘no,’ the official said….One Harris aide said the vice president’s campaign was doomed from the start by her loyalty to the unpopular president. Democrats could have won with someone who broke from him, offered different policies, and presented as a candidate of change.”

The dissections of the election will long go on.

Strong views also came from overseas. Le Monde, the largest French newspaper, ran an editorial headed “The end of an American world.” It said Trump’s election “marks the end of an American era, that of an open superpower committed to the world, eager to set itself up as a democratic model” which “had been challenged over the past two decades. Now Trump’s return is putting a nail in its coffin….The rest of the world will suffer.” 

In Suffolk County, although there was a big vote for Trump, there was also a crossing of party lines by voters—something I’ve noted through the decades.  

For example, in the contest to replace retiring State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr., a Sag Harbor Democrat, a large number of voters in the lst Assembly District left the GOP line on which Republican Nick LaLota of Amityville was running for re-election in the lst Congressional District and won, and then went to the Democratic line above it and marked their ballots for Democrat Tommy John Schiavoni of North Haven, a member of the Southampton Town Board and a retired social studies teacher in Center Moriches. The lst Assembly District includes the five East End towns of Suffolk County and the lst Congressional District takes those in, too, along with the northern portion of Brookhaven and the towns of Smithtown and Huntington.

On a personal note, several more boxes along the ballot in Southampton Town, our son, Adam Grossman, was voted in for a full four-year term as a town justice. Adam, a schoolmate of Schiavoni’s in Sag Harbor and an attorney, was appointed to the judgeship last year. He ran on the Democratic and Conservative lines and was not opposed. There was no division over Adam.