After election day, democracy will depend on all of us

Time passed slowly for Linwood Holland. Daylight saving time didn’t help; he laments the extra hour that he will now have to wait to find out the results of the 2024 election. This morning, he and his wife were first and second in line at the polls in Philadelphia’s 35th Ward.

In a city where republicans i am outnumbered by a 7-1 marginHolland — a 64-year-old GOP ward leader in this Democratic-majority city — is a rarity.

Yet every election day — no matter how slim the prospects of victory for his party’s nominee — he dutifully engages in what he knows some might consider a quixotic odyssey: providing support to Republican campaign workers in communities where the effective number of GOP. voters can be extremely small.

I rose before dawn to meet Holland outside his house on a sycamore-shaded block in Lawncrest. A neighbor lazily raked the leaves. I rode shotgun in his white Mercedes, zigzagging down Rising Sun Avenue as Holland dropped off envelopes at four different polling places in the 35th Precinct for poll watchers for the Republican Party.

Inside each manila envelope was a certificate. Most dramatic thing I’ve picked: In 2020, an election worker ate a Republican observer’s certificate. Holland recalled the incident and laughed. “We had to go to the commissioner’s office and get another one.”

At every stop, a steady stream of voters passed through the doors of the gymnasium and church. “Nothing compared to the crowds in 2008, 2012,” Holland said, referring to the city’s response to Barack Obama’s candidacy in those years. The smaller crowds he attributes to the proliferation of mail-in ballots rather than a lack of enthusiasm for the vice president Kamala Harris.

In the 35th Ward, where he works on behalf of the GOP, relations are cordial between Democratic and Republican voters. While the results of the election may still be uncertain for several days, one thing seems certain: The future of our democracy depends not just on absolving our bipartisanship, but on actively having conversations across the political divide.

When we dare to do so, it can be strangely nourishing: an antidote to despair, malaise, and whatever else meets us on the other side of this election.

I have no party affiliation, but I would describe my own politics as center-left, and in the four hours we spent together, I was struck by the unexpected common ground between us.

21st century problems need 21st century solutions – on that we agree. Holland wishes there were younger Republicans on the ballot instead of Donald Trump. “I would vote for a younger person in a heartbeat, because why would you take rules from someone who is pretty much set in their ways and doesn’t see the world as changing?” he asked. I too am exhausted by Trump’s style of leadership.

We do not agree on abortion. “Roe v. Wade it was put in place, in my opinion, to settle a score, just to make everyone equal,” he said. “I think everybody has their own uniqueness,” Holland added, “so now that it’s in the hands of the states, people don’t realize how much power they have… You have the power to look at your elected officials and you make sure they do it the way you want in your state.”

Hearing this, I couldn’t help but think of Josseli Barnica, who died in 2021 in a Texas hospital after being told he would be a crime to intervene in miscarriage. She does not have the power to call her chosen ones from the grave. Nor can it Amber Thurman and Candi Miller in Georgia. Pregnancy is dangerous, too the future of access for life-saving reproductive health care is on the ballot. (However, even on abortion, a topic I care deeply about, it was helpful to hear another perspective.)

I may be in the minority of liberals here, but I really enjoy listening to people I disagree with. It helps me test my own arguments and interrogate my own beliefs. It allows me to question not just what I believe, but why I believe it.

Holland, who retired from the Philadelphia Parking Authority in 2018, has lived in the 35th District for a quarter century. He told me that until about 10 years ago it was a predominantly Republican neighborhood.

At one point during our visit, Holland leaned in close and whispered that he thinks Tuesday’s result will be a landslide … for Trump.

“A lot of people are quiet about voting for him because of the cancellation culture and because he works downtown,” he said. When people look at Holland, a black man, they’re quick to assume he’s a Democrat. He got used to it. Many of the people he works with at the Philadelphia Federal Credit Union do not know their party affiliation and he does not bother to correct them.

Some of Holland’s early voting friends spent Election Day at Topgolf perfecting their swing. He cannot join them, he said sadly, but civic duty is more important. He is motivated by “the need to help people. If we can help people, then that means helping ourselves.”

It’s easy to think that if the chosen candidate loses, the world as we know it will end. Yes, everyone is anxious. Yes, we won’t know the results of this chaotic election for days. But now is as good a time as ever to practice showing up for our neighbors, no matter how they vote.