Tim Steller's column: 'Festival of democracy' withers as voters' fears rise

Remember when election day really felt like a festival of democracy?

There was a buzz of excitement at polling places. There was a feeling that, win or lose, we were all taking part in something important and affirming together.

The days of the festival of democracy are over.

And it isn’t just mail-in balloting that sapped the excitement.

It’s the deep suspicion, fear and rage that characterize American politics now. Mail-in voting reduced the significance of Election Day, and fraternal hatred has killed the thrill.

I thought of that while Star photographer Mamta Popat and I visited three Tucson-area polling places early Tuesday. Voters drifted in and out, mostly dropping off early ballots they had received in the mail, but also using the county’s new voting-center system that allows a voter’s individual ballot to be printed at the polling site.

People were happy to talk, and among the dozen or so we spoke with, they reported no significant problems with voting. But they were worried about each other — specifically, about their rivals on the other side of our great political divide.

Some Democrats feared Republicans would try to intimidate voters.

At Donaldson Elementary School, near North La Cholla and West Ina roads, Democrat John Mallie said: “I was a little nervous coming here. I didn’t know who might approach.”

He told me he remembers the more festive election days.

“I don’t feel that anymore.”

At Church of the Painted Hills, on far West Speedway, Popat was standing outside the 75-foot limit with her camera hanging around her neck when Rodolfo and Cecilia Gallego pulled up. Rodolfo Gallego yelled something about feeling intimidated by her. She was mystified.

Later, I spoke with them and got context for Gallego’s comment, which his wife said was a joke.

Asked about his feelings this election, Gallego said: “It’s more of an angry feeling with the Republican Party. I’m unhappy with the fact that there’s an effort to discredit the American voting system.”

Back at Donaldson Elementary, I heard a good bit about how the Democratic Party is supposedly facilitating a communist takeover of the United States.

Jerry and Sandy Trout, Republicans in their 80s, told me that their votes were not counted in the 2020 election and neither were the votes of other Trump supporters they knew. They said they learned this from someone they met who worked at Pima County.

Sandy Trout said she was hoping for “a big red wave” this year.

Added Jerry Trout, “If we don’t get a change in this country, we’re headed for becoming a socialist country.”

When I asked how that would happen, the mechanics were vague, but it definitely involved electing members of the Democratic party, which he termed a “socialist/Communist party.”

Bob Rosenberg, who was waving a sign supporting Jim Lamon for U.S. Senate outside Donaldson school, felt similarly worried about the United States being destroyed by “communists.”

“The country has gone totally the wrong way,” he said. “If we (Republicans) can get the Senate back, we can do a lot to put a lid on Biden’s wrong-thinking governance.”

I encountered cooler heads, too, at the polls — people less worried about the stakes of this and the coming general election.

When I asked Eva Peña why she felt this election was important, she attributed it to growing deeper into adulthood and seeing the effects of her vote, not necessarily her perceptions of the opposition.

“Maybe because I’m older now, I see the impact,” she said outside the west-side church.

And Heather Charles, a voter outside the Knights of Columbus Hall at 601 S. Tucson Blvd., said that her concerns were as much with the perceived ineptitude of the Democratic Party — her party — in promoting its candidates, as with fear of the more extreme Republicans winning the primary.

“At the end of the day,” she said, “I wouldn’t be worried about Karrin Taylor Robson” if that Republican won the governorship. She said it would likely be more of the same we have now.

But overall, the feeling was one of unease with the other side — certainly not excitement and affirmation as it used to be.

We are too scared of what our fellow Americans in the rival camp might do to take much pleasure in the process these days.