It’s become a cliche to point out how polarized the US has become, so I’m not going to waste time on that (especially since it sort of isn’t true). Instead, I’m going to talk about an observation and a conversation that came from it. Then I’ll talk about my own political views.

The goal of the first section is to provide a potential way to talk to someone you care about who voted differently than you. I can’t promise it’ll go well, but it went well for me.

The second section is responding to a question I got about why I voted the way I did.

Party Sorting is what’s ruining America, and I just barely learned that term!

A single-issue voter is someone who is motivated largely by one concern, and they vote for whatever candidate aligns with them, regardless of party. Although most people aren’t “single-issue” voters, I think if you examine your own thinking you’ll find you’re maybe a “five-issue” voter — we tend to have a few things we really care about, and we vote based on those things. And then we ignore everything else because, when you think about it, we care mainly about the stuff the affects us directly and ignore the rest.

The problem with even a “five-issue” voter is that we use a two party system, and thus parties must encompass … basically everything. A party platform isn’t one issue or five or even ten. Here’s the Democratic Party 2024 master Platform document. It’s 92 pages long. The republican version is 16 pages long (interestingly, they have the same number of chapters and main points, the Democratic version just has a lot more details, although the democratic version is nothing compared to what might actually be considered the republican platform for 2024, which is “Project 2025,” weighing in at a hefty 922 pages).

What that means is that when someone votes, they are voting based on a handful of concerns, but in the bargain they get hundreds of other positions — positions they may or may not agree with. In fact, one study found that over 60% of Americans don’t feel that either party represents them. This is largely because of this process of “party sorting,” where both parties take completely opposing views on most issues.

(you can see for yourself how much you agree with each party. I Side With has a great quiz that asks for how you feel about specific issues, then indicates which party you most agree with. I highly recommend using the “other stances” button on question to see more nuanced policies)

As Morris Fiorina points out, most people don’t agree 100% with either party. But there are a few key people who DO tend to agree 100% with their party. These are politicians, and those in the media. What this means is that politicians don’t represent most Americans — they represent a collection of beliefs largely defined by a few key things they believe, and a lot of things they must oppose because they other folks believe them.

That is a very strange way to create a belief system. Imagine if you asked someone what they believe and they said “Here’s five things that are really important to me. Oh yeah! And I am firmly against EVERYTHING THAT PERSON OVER THERE SAYS.”

For example, (from Dr. Fiorina again), Environmental protection wasn’t considered a partisan issue until the late 1970s (Nixon, a republican, created the Environmental Protection Agency 1970, and before then environmental protection had broad, bipartisan support).

So what do people vote for?

To reiterate, because we’ve meandered a little from the original point, most people don’t behave like political parties. If you asked me to write 16 pages about what is important to me, politically, I would probably have a hard time. Don’t even get me started on 92 pages. Or 922.

There are a few things that are really important for me, as there probably are for you. Then there are a lot of things that don’t affect you directly, and you don’t think about much. EVERYONE is like this.

We demonize people who vote for the opposing party because we assume that they are voting for everything that party (or politician) has ever said, and, if they voted for the opposing party, much of the political platform is literally just defined as “the opposite of what you like.”

That is a recipe for resentment. But people aren’t really like that. They voted for a handful of things they care about, and ignored the rest. Is that ideal? No. It has some pretty significant and harmful consequences. But that’s a blog for another day.

So what’s important to the people you love?

I called a relative of mine who voted for Trump and asked her a question. I asked “If Trump only accomplishes 2 or 3 of the things he said he’d do, the policies he said he’d enact while president, what would you hope he accomplishes?”

She thought for a minute and then gave me three changes — the top three reasons she voted for Trump.

1. She hopes that he’ll be able to bring the cost of living down, and specifically make homes more affordable
2. She hopes that he’ll bring accountability to federal spending
3. She hopes that he’ll make the US energy independent

I sympathize with both number 1 and 2, and I think most people would. Whether or not you agree that Donald Trump is the person who can accomplish those things, most people agree that those would be good outcomes.

As we talked she mentioned that she is dismayed at the hard-line stance Trump has taken on deportations — particularly that he’s willing to enter schools, churches and hospitals, and that they’re deporting children, or just parents and leaving children here without support.

She didn’t vote for that. She voted for cheaper stuff, a cheaper home for some of her relatives. She didn’t vote for “allow ICE to enter schools, churches and hospitals.”

I’ve been sitting here struggling to bring this point home. I keep writing this paragraph and then deleting it. So I’m just going to give it a shot and we’ll see how it goes.

You’re probably looking at people you care about who voted for “the other team” and going “How could they vote for X?” But, most of the time, they didn’t vote for X. I don’t know if this makes it better, but they voted for A, B and C, and just didn’t care that much about X. And that’s probably because they haven’t had to deal with X. If they had your experience with X they would probably care about it. But they haven’t. They’ve had experiences with A, B and C. So that’s what they voted for.

Does that make it better for you? To know that they weren’t voting against what is important to you. That what is important to you just … isn’t as important to them. Maybe that hurts a little, but we all have unique experiences.

That’s not always true — some people really do oppose the things that are important to you. Maybe some people that you love, and that’s hard. I’m sorry. But for the most part it’s not opposition, it’s ambivalence.

I think that’s a little better, at least.

Try this at home, kids

I encourage you to talk to someone you love who voted for someone you don’t support. Talk to them with one goal only: to understand. Not to debate. Not to correct. Not to joke, or scoff, or dunk. Enter the conversation with 100% curiosity and nothing else.

Then ask them “If your candidate only accomplishes 2-3 of the policies they ran on, what do you hope they do?”

And listen to what they say.

It will not be easy! You will want to retort. You will want to dunk. You will want to debate.

That’s not what this conversation is for! You are here to listen and to understand. Not to change. To see what is truly important to them. Try to understand WHY those things are important to them. You can even ask them that! Hear about their life experiences that made them believe what they do.

What you will probably find is that they care about things that you care about. What they hope happens are things you would also like to happen. Maybe you don’t think their candidate can deliver. But that’s not what we’re talking about here! We’re trying to just find out what is important to them.

When I had this conversation with my relative I really enjoyed it. Even though I don’t agree with her on a lot of stuff, it was good to talk about politics without … anger.

I hope that your conversation goes well too. It might not! In which case, just drop it and move on to something else. But I think you’ll be surprised at how the conversation goes.

During our conversation she asked what I voted for. I paused, and then told her I’d have to put some thought into it and I’d answer her question in a blog post. So here it is! The answer to her question.

What do I vote for?

The reason I had a hard time answering this person is that the immediate answer was “I voted against Trump.”

And that’s true. I believe Trump is going to cause lasting damage to our government. I mean … that’s kind of the point. Many people voted for him because they view the federal government as an enemy, and they would love to see if brought down a peg or two.

I think our government is flawed, but also provides immeasurable benefits for citizens of the US. I think we can do better, but I don’t think burning it down is the answer.

Putting Trump aside, though, I wanted to find out what is important to me. I thought back to previous elections. 2008 and 2012 both pitted Barack Obama against republicans who, although I disagreed on policy issues, I thought were respectable people (John McCain and Mitt Romney) who would do their best to lead the country as a whole.

There’s a wikipedia page that lists the different stances they took on various issues which is FASCINATING reading today. But to answer the original question, the top things I hoped Obama accomplished:

1. Universal healthcare — I’m a Christian, and caring for the sick is something I really connect with, especially for those who don’t have the means to afford healthcare. I think the ACA was, like so many things, a flawed attempt that nevertheless has helped tens of millions of people who wouldn’t have had recourse
2. Addressing climate change — ironically, Barack Obama campaigned on energy independence! But using renewable energy.

As I went through the differences in the candidates there were a lot more things that stood out to me, but I distinctly remember those two issues as motivating for me. If we put them in terms of what I hoped would happen, I’d phrase it like this:

1. I hope everyone in the US can access the medical care they need, when they need it, without a risk of going bankrupt.
2. I hope that our country can have clean air, water and land, and that we can provide for our energy needs and technological development without causing harm to our kids or grandkids

When I put it like that, I imagine most people would agree with me.