Doing better

Separating truth from lies is difficult. It will become even more problematic over the next few years. During the last Trump presidency media outlets tracked the daily lies flowing from the oval office. In four years, reporters documented 30,573 false claims. Today much of that media is in greater disarray. And we have just experienced an election where people voted on a vision of the country that had no basis in fact. 

Developing a shared social reality is essential for effective political action. That is why the recent series of articles unpacking the voting behavior of this last election are welcome.

Donald Trump has claimed “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” To be sure, with control of all branches of government, and undeniable gains in many previously democratic leaning precincts, the Trump win is another indication of our country’s drift toward fascism. 

At the same time, as the votes from the western part of the country are finally being counted, it is clear that more people voted for someone other than Trump. His victory over Harris is the smallest since 1888, amounting to less than 2 million people.

Phillip Bump of the Washington Post gives a careful analysis of the numbers and makes an important distinction saying, “It is important to differentiate between Trump doing better than he did in 2020 and Trump having a broad mandate from the (minority of) voters who supported him.” Trump actually received only 2 million more votes than he did in 2020.

Those of us thinking about the future should look closely at what the voting patterns reveal about young people. Here Trump fared better with voters under 30 than he did in 2020. But the majority of young people voted for Harris.  

Analysts suggest that Trump got about the same number of votes from people under 30 as he did four years ago. The difference is that the numbers of young people voting fell dramatically.

Voting is a small part of political action. Many young people simply decided neither political party is able to bring about the kind of changes we need to secure a just a peaceful future.

But we all need to be concerned about those who actually did vote for Trump. These young people reflect a deep sense of social isolation.

Trump excelled “at tapping into the information ecosystems — social media, memes and the cultish language of overlapping digital communities — where minority and young voters express their identity. That is a meaningful difference. Trump’s rhetoric and agenda may appeal to some voters based on racial identity, but the bigger story of Trumpism is how economic polarization is scrambling and complicating identity politics, especially in online spaces.”

In a recent interview with sociologist Robert Putnam, author of the groundbreaking work, Bowling Alone, he reflects on today’s political landscape as “a turning point”  where isolation from each other has intensified. He says, “It’s really bad for the country, because people who are isolated, and especially young men who are isolated, are vulnerable to the appeals of some false community. I can cite chapter and verse on this: Eager recruits to the Nazi Party in the 1930s were lonely young German men, and it’s not an accident that the people who are attracted today to white nationalist groups are lonely young white men. Loneliness. It’s bad for your health, but it’s also bad for the health of the people around you.

Putnam explains that in a culture of individualism and inequality we have lost a sense of moral connection. This enables the worst in us to dominate the public sphere. Trump intensifies this. 

Putnam calls for consciously creating connections so people can learn not only to trust each other but to become trustworthy and to recognize that we have “an obligation to care for other people.”

Putnam concludes with a reflection on his more than 80 years of life saying,
“I have actually seen an America that was better. So, I know it doesn’t have to be this way...We’ve trusted one another, we’ve loved one another, we’ve been equal to one another…I know that we can do better, and I know that we’ve turned corners in the past.”