November, 2020
Lincoln – Our American democratic institutions have been tested, but they held. We have conducted a free and fair presidential election. Joe Biden won the popular vote by six million; the electoral vote will turn out to have a substantial margin as well.
This does not mean our democratic norms won't be tested again, and soon. The fact that over 70 million voters chose Donald Trump, who delighted in upending our institutions, over Joe Biden, a dedicated institutionalist, signals that we have not heard the last of whatever it is that has made so many Americans down on the very foundations of our country.
We need to find out just what that is. We should hear, systematically, from Trump voters to learn more about what drives their deeply-felt opinions and grievances.
Some three and a half years ago, I suggested that Democrats were out of touch with voters, especially in the rural heartland, and that they should do an "Eat Crow Tour" to listen to why voters rejected them. Part of the problem, I thought, was simply neglect, which could be remedied by multiple heartfelt apologies. Obviously, that idea went nowhere.
It's time to resuscitate it, but make it over without any party ownership. Call it the American Unity Project or something that suggests goodwill and a genuine desire to learn what drives so many people to embrace candidates and policies that are not in the American political tradition.
Or maybe they are; it's just different traditions that are re-asserting themselves.
I suggest that several non-partisan civic organizations band together to hold hearing-like sessions around the country to take public testimony. The testimony should not seek balance; it should be invited from Trump supporters, to give them a chance, for better or worse, to be heard. The testimony should be recorded and archived, to be analyzed by scholars and non-partisan individuals who can sort it out for common threads and themes.
Who could preside over the taking of such testimony? I'm sure there are plenty of people who have the credibility and the demeanor to do so. Not everyone in the country is at everyone else's throat. I'd certainly like to hear from rural Trump voters about what shapes their political behavior. And to know if their opinions of Trump have changed any after he sought to overturn the election.
As a political scientist, I have hypotheses about what we might hear, but I am not a Trump voter. There is nothing like collecting actual evidence. There is also the cathartic effect that could be a substantial benefit from the effort.
I am not willing to trust the future of the country to a few pundits or propagandists who give us their wisdom about how to read the results of the 2020 election. We need to hear from citizens themselves to understand just what has driven them to the brink of unraveling America and to see what repairs are in order to keep it from actually happening. The repairs to our institutions might not be as difficult as we think, but if they are, we need to know that, too.
