Making America Stronger Together
I did policy research for the Hillary Clinton campaign. I have twice interned for local congressman and top Trump surrogate, Chris Collins. I voted for Gary Johnson. And like almost all Americans, I am frustrated with our political system.
When I left Canandaigua, New York four years ago, I left a small-town home I love dearly for the prospect of an exciting cosmopolitan life in Washington DC. If you listen to pundits on television and those writing in national columns, they’ll tell you that country is divided across racial, economic and political lines. They’ll say places like Canandaigua fall on one side of the fault line and cities like DC fall on the other. They’ll point to the home of the Braves — where residents gave nearly 10 percent more support to Trump than they did Clinton — and to the nation’s capital — where Trump received only 4 percent of votes cast — as anecdotal evidence of their story.
I do not subscribe to such dispiriting analysis. Instead, I think our political system divided an otherwise collaborative society on election day. And I believe it will continue to divide us during election season after election season so long as we do not make innovative and substantial reforms to our governing institutions.
In processing the 2016 election, I have been thinking about three big questions:
Why was there an “upset” on election night?
No major poll predicted a Trump victory and no major national newspaper endorsed the divisive candidate. Hillary Clinton supporters, therefore, not only had to face the harsh reality that America had not elected the candidate of their choice on November 9th, but also the fact that everything they had been told about who would win was wrong.
The polls were systematically biased, under-predicting the extent to which Trump’s message resonated with uneducated white voters across the country and also under-predicting his support from all demographics in four critical swing states: Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. As the Democratic party coalition pivoted towards minorities and urban dwellers, rust-belt citizens sensed their voices were not being heard by their traditional party of choice. Ironically, they had to turn to a New York City millionaire to find a candidate opposed to free trade and the “war on coal.” Trump was sympathetic to the Midwest throughout the campaign, even hosting his last rally in Michigan at 1 AM on election day.
These polling errors, however, could have been mitigated by historically literate commentators. For one, polls have been historically inaccurate, and increasingly so. They missed the mark on the 2014 mid-terms, the UK General Election, the 2016 US primaries, the Columbian peace agreement and Brexit. Our politics would be better if the media did not judge who was “winning” a political race by only polls, but rather by who was putting forth the best policy ideas. The media also largely neglected a long term trend in American presidential politics in predicting who would win: only one time in the last 70 years has a party won 3 straight White House terms. When George H.W. Bush won in 1988, the sitting president, Ronald Raegan, had a 57 percent approval rating and the economy was growing at 7 percent.
Nevertheless, we should understand why the polls were so wrong so we do not repeat history. Polls are not inherently representative of the electorate insofar as it is hard to predict who will turn out to the polls. In an election cycle when Americans all over the spectrum were calling for disruption to the status quo, Trump was an enthusiastic candidate who boosted Republican turnout. Clinton’s message was muddled by her email-scandal and not nearly as inspiring to Democrats as Senator Obama’s message of “Hope & Change” was in 2008. Two polling firms took innovative methods to accurately predict a Trump victory (among other “surprising” election results). One mined social media posts to evaluate constituent sentiment of politicians while another asked respondents to answer who they would vote for, but also who their neighbor would vote for.
Finally, a portion of the polls’ bias is attributable to what political scientists call the “Bradley effect.” If pollsters called Trump supporters, but they failed to say they would vote for Trump fearing they would be labeled racist, it’s easy to see why election predictions may have erred. This leads me to my next question:
Are Trump’s supporters racist?
One of the most frustrating things in the wake of the election is the number of Facebook users and vocal citizens who have called any Donald Trump voter a racist or an enabler of racism. Such language only further permits the political system’s ability to divide us. I have family, friends and co-workers who voted for Trump and I consider none of them racist or misogynist.
Trump received larger vote shares among African-American and Muslim-American communities than Romney did in 2008. Despite calling for the deportation of immigrants, he won 30 percent of the Latino vote. And even after lewd comments about women, received 42 percent of their support.
So, for those voters, and even white males who cast ballots for Trump, the vote-determining factor was not racist or misogynist rhetoric and actions. Instead, these voters prioritized other issues and looked past divisive statements they disagreed with. We celebrate George Washington today not because he was a racist slave owner, but because of the “good” he did for our country. Trump enthusiasts see a potential for him to do “good” for the country.
Most analysts have focused on the economy in explaining why so many Midwesterners believed the Republican ticket would be “good” for them. It’s true, blue collar workers in manufacturing states have lost jobs to industrialization and globalization; both are trends Trump has promised to fight. But these critical swing state voters also were voting on issues like drug proliferation, life expectancy decreases, crumbling infrastructure, a weakening civil society and an education system that is failing to deliver the American Dream. And while Trump’s policies may not actually be in their interest, he at least listened to their concerns.
Calling people stupid or racist based on who they voted for may only confirm what many Trump supporters are thinking: those living in cities, those working in DC, and those talking on the tube do not actually understand what is happening in their communities.
Where do we go from here?
The first step, I believe is building a better understanding of each other. We can do this by engaging with strangers and friends alike who voted for the opposite ticket. We can also read the narratives of people who live differently than us. Immediately after the election, I ordered and read J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. The book delves in to the problems Appalachian hillbillies have battled over the last half century, as told by a 31 year-old Yale Law grad who grew up in an Ohio single mother household. It is a strongly recommended book that helped me start to understand those different from me.
We also may build understanding by strengthening non-political institutions. Churches, little leagues, and social clubs are more important today than they ever have been. Our country is both innovative and collaborative and we must not allow a frustrating political season drive us in to silos. We should take Washington’s dysfunction as a signal that government can not solve all the problems we face and a cue that rolling up our sleeves is desperately needed.
As for our political system, some believe that if we could fix only one component, then our governing system would be repaired and our polarization quelled. Installing term limits, banning gerrymandering, restructuring campaign finance, tossing out the Electoral College, fixing the primary process, and boosting voter turnout are reforms often cited as the sole remedy for American democracy. I agree that all these problems must be addressed, but I am skeptical than any one alone with lead us to a better democracy.
Instead, we need to think bigger and act braver. Both parties put forward extremely divisive candidates and neither is working to solve the major, long-term problems our nation faces. For better or worse, the parties, and candidates elected within them, are the only ones that can enact the reforms listed above.
My hope is that we can harness the imaginative power of moderate voters everywhere to break the two party duopoly, either by reforming the existing two parties or, better yet, electing more independents. A record number of Americans, 42 percent, are registered as independents, and yet only 0.001% of our 550,000 elected officials are independents. History tells us the parties, as we know them, will not survive forever.
There is plenty we can do as individuals and as communities to build a more perfect union but we must always work collaboratively if we want to make America stronger together.
