Our politics rely heavily on presumption. We presume how people might vote and what they think based on certain characteristics. We thereby make assumptions about the positions people hold, what they prioritize among those positions, and how they will then act as part of broader electoral groups.
Last Tuesday confirmed some of these presumptions. A gender gap remained that placed men more in the GOP camp and women more with the Democrats. The diploma divide also continues as those with more degrees increasingly vote progressive and working-class voters go for Republicans. Finally, the gap between rural voters and those in cities and suburbs remains, as vote totals in states such as Georgia attest.
However, we also saw certain presumptions explode. Young people moved to the right. Hispanics and Latino voters supported President-elect Donald Trump by margins that exceeded the GOP’s previous high water mark in 2004. Black men propelled Trump to what appears to be the best showing for a Republican presidential candidate in nearly 50 years.
These results would seem unthinkable to someone holding to conventional wisdom. Hopefully, this will change how both parties approach voters in the coming years.
First, both parties should stop presuming certain voters are safe or beyond reach. Republicans, in particular, should heighten efforts to broaden their coalition with working-class black and Latino voters.
This point holds a geographic element, too. Rather than write off cities, unexpected strength there last week should encourage serious investment of resources and candidates to contest for urban-centered offices. Democrats can no longer take these voters for granted, nor can they assume young people will automatically lean their way.
Second, both parties should reconsider what they understand voters to believe and prioritize. We not only assumed black and Latino voters would vote for Democrats, but we also thought they held certain views. Many assumed, for example, that black voters oppose school choice as racially biased, while Latinos hold more progressive views on immigration policy.
Young voters, too, are assumed to hold the most progressive of policy positions on matters of gender, sexuality, and economics. However, we seem to be seeing a partial pushback there, one that requires not painting these voters with such a broad brush.
In other words, we need to lessen our assumptions about voters based on these and other identifying markers. We need to start looking at them differently. We need to see these voters as fellow human beings and citizens, considering the priorities of security, prosperity, and decency that we hold in common with so many.
More narrowly, we must see people as individuals who do not strictly conform to stereotypes. As our founders understood, Americans hold a variety of views and priorities that make the coalitions comprising our political parties fluid. Any perusal of historical election maps will show safe and toss-up states shift over time with underlying changes in voter preferences fueling those developments.
These realizations should push our politics to be less zero-sum and entrenched. Significant portions of our fellow citizens, perhaps even including ourselves, are persuadable. We should engage with each other in a spirit of common citizenship, never compromising our principles but always willing to find common ground.
As bitter as this election was, we might look at it in the future as a move away from the level of rancor that has so consumed our discourse, elections, and political action. That would be a good thing. With last Tuesday’s results, we also know it is a possible thing.
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Adam Carrington is an associate professor at Ashland University.