October 18, 2024: Famous Phone Calls: The 2024 Election

[75 years ago this week,operator-assisted toll dialing was introduced to make long-distance phone callsmuch easier. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy some classic phone calls inAmerican culture, leading up to a special tribute to what phones mean in my own21st century life!]

On howphone calls can symbolize the striking contrast in our 2024 electoral choice.

I haven’twritten much in this space about the2024 campaign, which is fine by me and I imagine fine by you all as well(plenty of that elsewhere, and really everywhere else, if you want it!). I dohave an election-week series on the 1924 campaign coming up in a couple weeks,and will end that series with a weekend post reflecting on the 2024 results,whatever they will be (keeping everything crossed, natch). I know it’s nosecret to any reader of this blog (or anyone who knows me, or anyone who existsin October 2024) what I fervently hope will happen on Tuesday November 5th,and not just for all the obvious and crucial political and contemporary reasons(although duh)—I also still believe, and in fact believe even more fully than Idid when I wrote that 2020 Considering History column now that I’ve learned alot more about her, that KamalaHarris’s heritage and identity make her just as foundationally American as,if not even slightly more tellingly and importantly American than, Barack Obama(whom I’vecalled “the first American President”).

So yeah,the stakes in this election are high, in AmericanStudies terms as in literallyevery other way. And I’d say that phone calls offer a clear and compelling wayto represent one of the most fundamental contrasts at the heart of ourelectoral choice. On the one hand we have the two justifiably infamous phonecalls through which then-President Donald Trump sought to undermine the 2020election (before and after it took place) as well as American democracy andideals, the rule of law, and our relationships with foreign allies among otherthings: his July2019 call to Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky; and his January 2021 call toGeorgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. There are no shortage of momentsto which we can point to make the case that Trump was the worst president inAmerican history (with all due respect toAndrew Johnson), but I don’t think it gets much clearer than thecombination of those two phone calls. Or, to put it another and even moretelling way: Trump embodied and continues to embody the worst of Americanhistory, our most divisive and destructive impulses, the frustrating butinescapable fact that our boastedcivilization is but a thin veener; and these phone calls are exhibits 1 and1A in that case.

On the otherhand we have a famous phone call that came to symbolize the actual results ofthe 2020 election: “Wedid it, Joe!” The contrast in not just content but also and I’d argueespecially tone between that November 2020 call and Trump’s pair is striking,and connects to the ways that this year’s Democratic National Convention inAugust leaned into tonesof hope and joy (in direct and potent contrast to the fearfuland resentful Republican National Convention in July). But it was also justa very meaningful and moving moment for Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, animportant stage in the arc of a definingly American family story, individual life,and political career that are all both literally and figuratively on the ballotthis November. I guess I’m not telling y’all how to vote (although if you’replanning to vote Trump, I really am not sure what you get out of this blog)—butwho on earth would vote for the guy who made those 2019 and 2021 phone callswhen they could vote for the lady who made this 2020 one?!

Tributepost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Famous cultural phones you’d highlight?