Democracy Won
Once again, the pollsters, pundits, and press got it so wrong. They are the losers in this election. Just as they were in 2020 and 2016. It felt like all we were told leading up to this week’s election is that our candidates were in a dead heat, razor thin margins would make a winner, and it will take days to sort. There could be violence. The future of democracy is at stake.
But we Americans? We said bah. We are smarter than that. What happened this week isn’t about the outcome and who won and why.
Today, there is plenty of back-seat quarterbacking, 20–20 hindsight and deep forensics to keep us reading for a year about what happened. The campaign, election and all the drama surrounding it will be Harvard case study fodder for years. We were faced with myriad good candidates until it came down to two poor ones.
The cards were dealt, and we had to play our hands. We did it in 2016, 2020, and now 2024 and every election before then. This isn’t about Trump or Harris or Biden or candidates that came before. It is about the ability for Americans to take in information of any kind from any source, feel what we feel, experience what we experience, think and believe what we think and believe. And then we go get a job done. We vote.
Throughout 12 + years of hand-wringing the American public had to put up with misinformation, disinformation, fake news, deep fakes, propaganda, bad actors manipulating Facebook, X and whatever else they could get their hands on. Americans were called deplorables, fascists, progressives, flaming liberals, obamacons, or dismissed as inhabitants of fly-over states. The American public was down-played and played down — perceived by the pundits, pollsters, and press as too dumb for our own good and in need of saving from ourselves and each other.
Yes, there are hard right. There are hard left. But down that huge swath of space in a bell-shaped curve, is a majority of people in this great country who want to earn a good living, have a roof over their heads, food on the table, safety, a good education for their families and neighborhoods, and who value right and wrong. And whether 2024, 20, 16 or every election beforehand — they answer with their vote.
This came to me yesterday when I looked at how my own state voted, one in which I’m a second generation native, and that I love dearly. And what you see in Cali — a state I say is so far left we are falling into the ocean — is the true story of what makes this state and country great. Red and blue. Blue and red.
My colleagues were surprised yesterday to see how much red is actually here, something not commonly talked about. When the state goes blue on an electoral map after ballots are tolled, the truth runs deeper. There are those on the extreme right who wish to succeed to the Jefferson state (yes, they are here!) to those in the huge farm belt that feeds our great state and so many in our country and world.
I love this map. Because what it says to me is that Americans are smarter than people give us credit for. With every election we hand-wring, worry about hanging chads, take huge swacks at the integrity of the system — so badly it nearly killed us in 2020 — and get it done. We are red or blue or whatever in between and we are smarter than given credit for.
This time it wasn’t about the misinformation, disinformation, fake news, deep fakes or need to save us from ourselves. The American public once again just did what comes natural to us in this great democracy. We get up in the morning, pull on our boots, trudge out to the polls, or sit with a cup of coffee and a good black marker and make our voices heard one ballot at a time.
What warms my heart about this week’s results is that democracy won. We Americans have a mind of our own and we know how to get it done whatever the year. We’re not all going to get a trophy and we’re not all going to win. Americans understand that. It’s how we roll. The real winner Tuesday night was the system we are so blessed to live within. One small step for the winner. One giant leap for democracy.