Inflection Points

                                                       Inflection Points
 
            If you’re a sports fan, or a music fan, there are those moments when you see (or hear) an athlete or musician and think, “Now, that’s special.”  That moment when the athlete or artist does something that is so unique you can’t help but take note.  It may be something you remember years later.  For me it was things like  watching black and white tv and first seeing Jim Brown run with a football.  Or sitting in the back of the freshman basketball team bus with a transistor radio and a group of us doing syncopated clapping to the Beatles I Want to Hold Your Hand.  Or watching Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) dance around a boxing ring.  The same can be said about politics.  As we begin the final push in this year’s Presidential campaign it has led me to reflect on some personal inflection points, I have observed as I have watched American history unfold during my lifetime.  From a personal perspective, the events I am referring to as “inflection points” led to my believing a certain candidate would win the election.

            I was eleven years old during the 1960 Presidential campaign.  My political consciousness was embryonic, but I was familiar with  who the candidates were and at least some of the issues.  Nixon, of course, was Dwight Eisenhower’s Vice President, so I was more familiar with him.  Kennedy was the handsome, young Senator from Massachusetts and I clearly remember the Republicans claiming JFK was too young and inexperienced to handle the Presidency.  Then there was the inflection point: the first-ever televised Presidential debate – September 26, 1960.  What I remember is impressionistic and colored not only by the time that has passed but also by how many times I taught about that debate over my many years in classrooms --- not to mention being able to view it (again and again) on YouTube.  Kennedy was made for television: movie-star handsome and articulate, with that distinctive Massachusetts accent, --- the perfect tv package.  Nixon, even upon present viewing,  has excellent policy chops but as is so often reported, his five o’clock shadow and abundance of perspiration on his upper lip and chin were not made for television.  The election, as we know, was very, very close with JFK winning by a little over 112,000 votes (out of 68 million cast).  It was the election that jumpstarted my interest in politics and that tv debate was definitely the inflection point.

            Years passed, elections came and went, and it wasn’t until 1992 that my interest was truly piqued by Bill Clinton’s candidacy.  He was, like me and my friends, a Baby Boomer  running against someone from my father’s generation (George H.W. Bush).  There was deep significance in that for me.  We had been through eight years of Ronald Reagan very consciously trying to undo everything from the 1960s/early 1970s: women’s rights, Civil Rights, gay rights, environmentalism, and so on.  It seemed poetic, almost, to have someone from my Dad’s generation running against someone from mine: Sixties Redux.  It happened that I was friendly with a significant number of teachers from Arkansas at that time and, while supporting Clinton, mentioned (more than once) that he was an extremely flawed candidate.  They introduced me to the nickname, Slick Willy.  Nonetheless, Clinton was not only a Baby Boomer but a Democrat and, especially after choosing Al Gore as his running mate (another Boomer!), there was no question I would be supporting him  The question, though, was would he (and Gore) be able to muster the support to win the Presidency?  An energizing factor for the Clinton campaign was the way it very consciously courted the Youth and African American vote.  Appearing on MTV, Clinton was interviewed by young voters --- clearly putting himself in high relief with Bush (and Ross Perot, a third-party candidate who would go on to siphon votes from Bush).  It was his appearance on Arsenio Hall’s talk show that proved the inflection point  for me.  Wearing black sunglasses and playing “Heartbreak Hotel” on the saxophone, as Arsenio’s walk-on music, Clinton created an indelible impression that this was, in Kennedy’s words, a new generation of political leaders taking the torch of leadership.

            Long before the campaign of 2008, I observed my  inflection point for that election.
The Democratic Convention in 2004 was held in Boston, Massachusetts where their native son, Senator John Kerry, would be nominated to run against the incumbent, George W. Bush.  The opening night keynote address was given by a then-unknown Illinois State Senator, Barack Obama.  According to Wikipedia:
 
His unexpected landslide victory in the March 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate Democratic primary made him a rising star within the national Democratic Party overnight, and led to the reissue of his memoir, Dreams from My Father.
 
The speech was not carried by the commercial networks.  It was shown on cable news, PBS, and C-Span to an audience of about nine million people --- of which I was one.  My reaction, upon hearing Obama’s approximately 20 minute keynote, was: “Why isn’t this guy our candidate?”  The speech was brilliant and electrifying, from my point of view, and I came away from watching that DNC hoping Kerry could best Bush but pretty confident that I had already seen the future of the Democratic Party!  Of course, I had, and the follow up to my 2004 inflection point is captured in my memoir, Right Time, Right Places: One Teacher’s School Reform Journey:
 
 
                                                                                     November 4, 2008
 
It was chilly.  Brisk.  And still dark  when I got in line at P.S. 54, The Samuel Barnes School,  around the corner in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.  There was a good-sized crowd, and it was festive.  Mostly Black people, with a smattering of white folks, everyone knew we were going to be part of history.  Everyone there was going to vote for Barack Obama and by the time we all got home from work that evening we would begin to hear the network speculation.  Results dribbled in at first, but we knew there would be a flood of States called quickly and,  by nine o’clock, it was inevitable we would have a Black President of the United States.  (p. 219)
 
 
            And now, in 2024, I believe I’ve observed yet another inflection point --- and I hope I’m right.  The Democratic Convention in Chicago in late August had the same energy and excitement of the Obama campaign of 2008.  There would be a great irony in seeing Harris defeat Trump, of course.  Where Obama had defeated the disparaged (by Trump)war hero, John McCain , Harris can defeat the draft-dodging felon who made a mistake similar to McCain by choosing a Vice Presidential albatross to run with.  Like my earlier inflection points, the Harris-Walz ticket represents generational change.  Kennedy succeeding Eisenhower, Clinton succeeding H.W. Bush, Obama defeating McCain, were all instances of a desire of the American populous to move ahead  and leave an older, tired generation behind.  Trump looks older and more addled by the day --- and I believe the debate on September 10th will prove to be the tipping point.  The contrast between the two candidates, the choice the voters will have, will be in high relief and, finally, the naked Emperor will be exposed for who he is --- a lying, abusing, bullying, grifting criminal.  It will be there for all to see, and I believe it will be the final inflection point in this campaign.