After over a year of anxiety, ads, and political posturing, we finally have a declared winner of the 2020 presidential election. Former vice-president Joe Biden is now set to become the president-elect (which is made official once the Electoral College votes). As expected, President Trump has not conceded the election, claiming widespread voter fraud without any significant evidence. It’s true that the media does not crown a winner of the race, but with nearly all votes now counted throughout the major swing states, there is no reasonable path to re-election for Trump. His lawsuits are quickly being thrown out of court (often by judges he appointed) because they simply have no basis in fact. It’s one thing to pursue legal avenues to ensure a fair election, but it’s entirely unacceptable to claim with no evidence that an election was rigged simply because it did not go your way. While much of America celebrates the news of Trump’s defeat, much of America also mourns it. In the meantime, the United States remains deeply divided. In this post, let’s look at the ways in which we can step back from the brink and try to truly become a more perfect union once again.
Reminder: American Elections Are Basically Impossible To Rig
First, a quick reminder: It is nearly impossible to rig an American election on any meaningful scale. This may be unwelcome news to supporters of the president, but the decentralized and transparent nature of our elections make it nearly impossible for widespread fraud to occur. We’ve talked about the safeguards in place to prevent vote by mail fraud on previous posts, but I have witnessed this firsthand as a poll worker this past Election Day. By law, polling places must be staffed with members of all major parties and allow monitors from all major parties to oversee every aspect of the voting process. From registration, to placing a ballot in the voting machine, to reviewing the final counts, everything is closely inspected by both sides to ensure the count is accurate and fair. It’s certainly true that individual incidents can happen every election year, but to think that they are widespread enough to sway tens of thousands of votes across multiple states (without anyone confessing to a sinister plot) is simply unrealistic. So now that we have established the authenticity of the results, what can we assume from them?
Some places literally livestreamed their ballot processing centers for the whole world to see!
Don’t Assume That Everything Is Doomed/Saved
Whether you like President Trump or despise him, the circumstances that led to his election will remain long after his term expires. The Democratic party is not likely to control the Senate, so a president Biden will mostly be limited to executive level changes rather than major legislative projects. Even if Democrats were to somehow control the Senate after Georgia’s special elections in January, the federal court system (and especially the Supreme Court) have been packed with conservative judges in recent years to the extent that anything too sweeping and dramatic would likely be thrown out. We are likely to remain just as divided (if not more so) than we were in the years before and during Trump, meaning no systemic changes are likely. But we shouldn’t get mad at Congress for this impasse. After all, they are simply a reflection of the will of the voters. To see the guilty party, you need only look into a mirror. So what can we do to help break down this impasse?
Actively Work to understand opposing viewpoints
It’s probably meaningless and cliche to say it, but the only real way to help heal this divide is for everyday Americans to actually try to understand opposing viewpoints again. This doesn’t mean agreeing with those viewpoints, but it does mean we must at least learn about them. Most liberal people I talk to don’t really want “socialism” (as the right would define it) and most conservatives don’t actually want “fascism” (as the left would define it). Generally, liberal people want equality, justice, and opportunity for all, while conservatives tend to want to maintain their structural status quo advantages (like the Electoral College which disproportionately helps them). But this difference shouldn’t be a roadblock to every policy promoted by the other side. The complete absence of trust prevents Americans of different political persuasions from seeing the common goals we share. We all want things like lower prescription drug prices, better opportunities for small towns, and an end to opioid abuse, but nobody trusts the other side to do those things. Remove party labels from the conversations you have with people and you will be surprised to find how much there is in common. But all of this only works if we have a shared basis of facts and truth. What will we all need to do in order to get back to that basis?
Don’t give in to Truthiness!
Remove Yourself From Information Bubbles
As warm and fuzzy as the last section was, we shouldn’t make the mistake that both sides of the American political spectrum are the same here. Those in leadership positions throughout the Trump administration have been credibly accused numerous times of rampant fraud and violations of numerous laws. This isn’t “fake news” or political bias, this is verifiable fact that is corroborated by people within the administration itself. And yet, tens of millions of Americans voted for another four years of this behavior. Why? Not because they are evil. Many on the political right in America are severely misinformed by information bubbles like Facebook, Fox News, and One America News Network. This propaganda machine includes local TV stations courtesy of Sinclair broadcasting and websites that allow for political operatives to pay journalists to create “news” articles.
This machine has been fine tuned and perfected in the United States to ignore problems on the right and amplify problems on the left. It’s not that most conservatives support the Trump administration’s blatant grifting, it’s that they either don’t know about it or don’t believe the stories outside of their information bubble. (Or worse, they just believe everyone does it so nobody should care.) Yes, the liberal side of America has a problem with this too. But it has nowhere near the reach or efficiency that the right-wing media bubble enjoys. Real journalism still exists in most legacy media and it’s way better than the “journalism” of random websites, pundits, and blogs (yes even including this one). We can no longer afford to pretend that political entertainment sites masquerading as “news” should enjoy the ability to tell obvious lies to millions of people with no consequences. Remove yourself from these media bubbles and diversify your news sources. You’ll find yourself much more informed if you do.
The Bottom Line
Go reach out to your friends, families, and neighbors who voted for an opposing candidate. Remove yourself from political labels and information bubbles to find common ground about issues that matter most to you. I know it seems impossible, but the United States has overcome political polarization before (not to mention a Civil War). We owe it to our future generations to at least try to understand one another.