We Won. Now What?

Congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden and to Kamala Harris for being the first woman of color VP-elect.

Now the question becomes: where do we go from here? To best answer this question, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking of how we got here.

After Trump’s shocking victory in 2016, the media and academia largely focused on the cultural divide between Trump and Clinton supporters as the primary explanation for why this happened. This view was validated by the Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter movements as they were largely cultural movements that fell along political lines between the two groups. However, there is one clear and undeniable divide between these voters that received very little attention, yet is very important and potentially crucial moving forward in healing as a country: the economic divide.

Over the past forty years the jobs, capital, and opportunities have been leaving the middle of the country. This problem was exacerbated by the 2008 financial crisis, as the recovery under Obama’s leadership was mostly seen by urban areas while rural America saw virtually none of it [1]. This was going on while tens of millions of lower income Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. It wasn’t until Donald Trump ran for President in 2016 that this economic divide became a political one: Hillary Clinton won 472 counties which represented 64% of aggregate GDP, whereas Donald Trump won 2584 counties which represented only 36% [2]. This kind of economic divide among voters is unprecedented in American politics.

We can’t forget this. The status quo of recent decades neglected rural Americans and left them high and dry. Neither party was speaking to this issue until Donald Trump came along in 2016 and promised to rebuild their communities as they remembered them 40 years ago. It turns out Trump was a fraud as he wrongly scapegoated immigrants as the cause. Nonetheless, he inspired many disenfranchised rural Americans to get involved in politics and show up at the polls.

Now we find ourselves here, today. Trump has been defeated yet his supporters still remain. Back to our original question: where do we go from here?

Under the economic explanation of the Trump phenomenon, Trump supporters are reacting to the economic conditions in their local communities and have been misled by Trump into thinking he can fix them. Whereas under the cultural explanation, Trump supporters are all inherent racists and xenophobes to one degree or another. The truth may lie in the middle or one explanation could be fueling the other.

So far, the only response I’ve seen from the Democratic party is to completely ignore the economic explanation and solely focus on the cultural one. The Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter movements indeed demonstrated that there are vast cultural differences. However, if we choose to believe that Trump supporters are inherent racists that cannot be changed while completely ignoring the economic divide — or considering the possibility that the economic divide could be contributing to increased racism [3] — it only leads us to believing the worst possible version of the other side without acknowledging, let alone addressing, any of the underlying conditions that may have led them to support Trump in the first place.

The Democrats don’t have to completely ignore the cultural divide to acknowledge the economic one. Both could be acknowledged. The Democrats could acknowledge the long but slow decline of rural America, admit their past mistakes in making the issue worse (NAFTA, financial deregulation, response to the Great Recession, etc.), and come up with plans to refund and rebuild these communities while making it a core part of their messaging. After all, the neglected working-class voter is the exact demographic the Democratic Party historically claims to represent and fight for. They can do this while also making it clear that Black Lives Matter and supporting LGBTQ+ rights. However, apparently this isn’t in the cards for Democrats as its taboo for them to mention anything that even remotely acknowledges any of the grievances of Trump supporters, instead choosing to believe they are all hopeless, deplorable racists.

Joe Biden claims to be The Unity Candidate to Heal America, but I worry that doubling down on the cultural differences while continuing to ignore the economic divide will only divide us further. While it may have worked as a campaign strategy to fuel negative partisanship and increase voter turnout [4], I worry it in the long run it will only increase polarization and leave the underlying issues unresolved. Since the economic divide will inevitably get worse, I worry ignoring it will allow a more powerful version of Trump to emerge in 2024 (picture something like Tucker Carlson 2024, or maybe even Trump himself [5]).

Is this the direction we want to go? Do we want to continue believing the worst possible narrative for an entire block of voters, calling them “Deplorables”, and shaming them in hopes that they become demoralized and leave politics behind for good? Or can we give them the benefit of the doubt, show them that they were misled by Trump and inspire them to work with us to build an economy that you don’t have to be on the coastlines to see the benefit of?

As Democrats take time to celebrate Joe Biden’s victory, I simply ask to also take a moment of self-reflection as to what it will honestly take to heal the divide in this country.

[1] https://www.vox.com/2016/5/29/11805060/big-small-county-growth
[2] https://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/11/23/13715276/clinton-trump-booming-economy
[3] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/hillary-clinton-democatic-primary-sanders-netroots/
[4] https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/07/media/negative-partisanship-reliable-sources/index.html
[5] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-will-absolutely-run-for-president-again-in-2024-if-he-loses-to-biden-says-mick-mulvaney/ar-BB1aL0HH