The Many Shades of Red
From deep red to light pink, post-election maps of America tell you how vast stretches of the country vote. But the maps don’t tell you how they think.
Tiffany Rouse, a conservative Christian from the rural South, would have called herself evangelical, but feels the term has been “stolen” by supporters of President Donald Trump. A fiscally conservative, pro-life, devout Christian, she fits the archetype of a Republican voter. Except that she did not vote Republican.
Her opposition to Trump’s immigration policy stems from her Christian faith. Separating families at the border is not what Christianity looks like to her. As for the support the policy received from leading evangelicals, Rouse doesn’t know whether a majority of Christians support the policy, or just the loudest ones, but she’s very sure this is not what Jesus would want.
“Even if you take Christianity out of the argument, immigration makes economic sense. Immigrants have always been good for our economy,” says Rouse.
Texas rancher Kelly Whatley, who lives two hours from the U.S.-Mexico border, in a region with a large Hispanic population, is particularly sensitive to the plight of immigrants, and doesn’t want asylum seekers to be thrown in jail. A Methodist who generally identifies Republican, she finds herself disagreeing with the direction in which the Republican party is headed.
As the Republican Party shifts to the right, some conservatives find themselves at odds with the party. Some grudgingly voted for Trump and now regret the decision. Some grudgingly voted for Hillary Clinton because she was not Trump. And some, like Rouse, voted for neither party.
From deep red to light pink, shaded maps of America may accurately indicate how vast swathes of the country vote. But the maps, of course, don’t capture the nuance of people’s beliefs and views.
These sorts of nuances in ideology often missed in mainstream discourse are being captured and explored in a unique online conversation that started in February and so far involves nearly 400 women from across the United States and representing a range of political thought. The conversations take place in a moderated Facebook group called The Many: A Conversation Across Divides, launched and run by Spaceship Media, which uses a method they call dialogue journalism to reduce polarization, build communities and restore trust in media. The discussions in The Many showcase a wide variety of conservative thought.
Nowhere is this more evident than the abortion debate. At one end of the spectrum are pro-lifers like Vanessa Kooper, a 20-year-old church-goer from small-town Louisiana, who believes abortion is murder, and would never vote for the Democrats. And then there are those like 26-year-old Ashley Cecere from Virginia, who are personally pro-life, but don’t believe in interfering with another woman’s choice. Cecere is aware of the fact that women who are not given safe access to an abortion have often resorted to desperate measures that could endanger their lives. She points to hypocrisy in conservative opinion, which is often both pro-life and pro the death penalty. Others like Rouse, though, are pro-life from womb to tomb, opposing abortion and death penalty.
Barbara McDonald from Alabama started out pro-choice, but her feelings changed when an ultrasound in the early stages of her second pregnancy showed her a heartbeat. Her views on politics followed the reverse trajectory. While McDonald voted Republican for much of her life, she has been voting for a few more democratic candidates, the older she grows.
Some young women, though, remain staunchly conservative. Kooper, for instance, believes very deeply in the Bible and says she is not a feminist. She believes in a traditional family, where marriage is between a man and a woman, and the man is the “head provider.”
Meanwhile Alice Lowry, 55, who grew up in a Catholic family in Illinois, went to Catholic school and knew very few Democrats at the time, grew less conservative when she was exposed to different people and different ideas.
A turning point in her view of gay rights was the day she watched an episode of the Phil Donahue show in the late 1980’s, about a lesbian couple who wanted to adopt children. “When I began watching the show, I was convinced they should not be allowed to adopt. By the end of the show, I had completely changed my mind. Those women talked of raising a child in exactly the way I’d raise mine,” says Lowry.
Cecere, too, is beginning to find herself less conservative than she thought she was. She and her husband have worked in the security field and can’t imagine not owning a gun.
“While I’m a responsible gun-owner, I can now see that the world outside my home doesn’t necessarily look that way,” says Cecere, who is increasingly in favor of gun regulations.
Holly Ashley, an evangelical conservative in Alabama, wants both secure borders for America, and a humane immigration policy. She does not want children separated from parents, and hopes the country can find a way forward for Dreamers.
Cindy Boehnlein, a Catholic from Ohio, extends her conservatism to the environment. While she agrees with much the Republican party stands for, she is critical of their plans to drill for more oil. “Free markets should not mean the freedom to harm the environment,” she says.
For some, it’s the candidate that counts, while others vote for a party. Kelli Myrick, a conservative evangelical who lives on the outskirts of Syracuse, is deeply moved by the poverty she sees around her and wants a candidate who will work towards improving the standard of education in poor neighbourhoods, giving underprivileged children a chance to succeed. In the presidential election, she did not vote for Trump or Clinton as she didn’t like either candidate.
Though Trump’s behaviour makes McDonald cringe, she reluctantly voted for him because she wanted a conservative Supreme Court, for which she knew she’d have to vote Republican.
Her thoughts, though, don’t always fit the conservative narrative. While the United Methodists, to which she belongs, is split down the middle over the subject of homosexuality, McDonald herself is torn. The one thing she’s certain of is that her gay friends are very dear to her, and that’s something neither religion nor politics will ever change.
In a world where everyone is supposed to have an opinion on everything, McDonald willingly admits that her thoughts on homosexuality are evolving. The Many itself exemplifies an evolution of thought. It isn’t about women convincing other women to think the way they do. It’s about holding hands and moving forward together, one step at a time, in an uncertain world.
At a time when those occupying the blue spaces on the map are afraid of being drowned out by a surge of red, a closer examination of the many shades of conservative thought may reveal a country that isn’t quite as divided as it looks on paper.
