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Area on The National Mall and Memorial Parks, District of Columbia, late October 2024. Photo Credit: Joan DeMartin

“For more than 200 years, the National Mall has symbolized our nation and its democratic values, which have inspired the world. The National Mall - the great swath of green in the middle of our capital city and stretching from the foot of the United States Capitol to the Potomac River - is the premiere civic and symbolic space in our nation.” National Park Service

I recently visited the beautiful state of Maryland and had the pleasure to walk part of the National Mall in D.C.— I finally saw the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial and the Reflecting Pool, and read the words of President Lincoln with his presence towering over me. The Gettysburg Address and President Lincoln’s second inaugural address, carved into the stone walls on either side of his memorial, describe remarkable parallels to the great divides our country is facing today. Although almost anyone’s words will resonate through the ages if carved in stone…Lincoln’s second inaugural address speaks directly to Americans today—speaks to right and wrong, and what our country is willing to fight for to preserve its integrity. At the moment I read Lincoln’s words, I felt hopeful that our choices in the upcoming election would unite us again.

Now what confounds me, maybe even more than the outcome of the election, is how voters came to the decision to vote for former President Trump, because according to post-election discussions with voters, a good number of those who voted for President Biden last time or had even voted for former President Obama, swung to Trump this election. Take this Pennsylvania woman, who graciously took the time to explain her reasoning to Gary Tuchman, a reporter for CNN who has been interviewing voters across battleground states for the last year:

Please click on the still below and it will take you to the video on Instagram. Video from Anderson Cooper 360, November 12, 2024

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A post shared by @andersoncooper360

The only problem with her reasoning is that she had no reasoning based on facts, she just “felt” Trump would be better, she felt that “Trump is honest”, that she “trusts him”. When asked why she trusts him, her reply was: “It’s just a feeling I have.”

It’s great to go with your gut when you’re choosing the ripest August melon, for example, but even then you give it a good sniff and press on the ends to feel if there is any give. But choosing a president is an honor the Constitution grants its citizens only every four years; if you’re going to vote, why not gather some facts about each candidate and their positions on major issues. And review the major party platforms to see where each party stands on the issues, knowing that it is unlikely that an official who has run and been elected with the help of his or her party will deviate from the party platform.

Besides, how could any one person vote for Joe Biden in one election and Donald Trump the next? Their specific policies and the way they view how our government should function are diametrically opposed. This begs the question: what difference would it have made if Vice President Harris had provided more detail about her policy proposals as both democratic and republican pundits demanded, when many people vote not on the specifics of any policies, but on their gut feelings?

Trusting your gut is the opposite of critical thinking which is supposed to be incorporated throughout the K—12 curriculum in the United States. In fact, I wrote about the importance of critical thinking skills as part of our collective effort to make positive change:

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Heather Cox Richardson wrote a brilliant post after the election, in which she likened our current political situation and the thinking of some of our voters and elected officials to the Civil War period and its economic aftermath. She also focused on the shocking lack of knowledge of voters about particular issues, like the effect of tariffs and mass deportation and where each of the candidates stood on these issues.

Social media has been flooded today with stories of Trump voters who are shocked to learn that tariffs will raise consumer prices as reporters are covering that information…There are also stories that voters who chose Trump to lower household expenses are unhappy to discover that their undocumented relatives are in danger of deportation…

In Salon today, Amanda Marcotte noted that in states all across the country where voters backed Trump, they also voted for abortion rights, higher minimum wage, paid sick and family leave, and even to ban employers from forcing their employees to sit through right-wing or anti-union meetings. She points out that 12% of voters in Missouri voted both for abortion rights and for Trump. [link to Salon article added for ease of reference].

It seems a good hunk of voters are completely unaware that the policy positions they favor, like reproductive freedom, lower prices and a more fair economy, as a few examples, are in fact the policies of Vice President Harris, not former president Trump.

Professor Richardson also points to a Washington Post survey of 8,019 U.S. registered voters conducted September 18 — October 3 and published on October 22, 2024, confirming that the vast majority of voters favored Vice President Harris’ policies over former president Trump’s policies when the participants were not told which candidate supported which policies:

The Washington Post survey showed before the election that voters overwhelmingly preferred Harris’s policies to Trump’s if they didn’t know which candidate proposed them.  An Ipsos/Reuters poll from October showed that voters who were misinformed about immigration, crime, and the economy tended to vote Republican, while those who knew the facts preferred Democrats.

Note: Professor Richardson provides citations for her summaries at the end of each post.

The focus of this newsletter has been from its beginning, to share information I’ve gathered over the last decade or so about poverty in America, and provide analysis of the data, laws, and policy choices made by our elected officials. I thought I might have a unique perspective because I both practiced law and lived through poverty for an extended period, so I have analyzed our government’s approach to poverty through both a legal lens and as a consumer of its philosophy and poverty programs. Let me say our government’s approach could be a lot better.

Now it looks like the the bigger, underlying issue is a failure of a good portion of the electorate to understand the basics of how our government works and to filter through the disinformation at least enough to discern facts from lies. If we can’t muster this much, we will never be able to solve the major issues our country faces, including poverty, inequality and climate change, among so many others.

Here is a link to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, speaking post election, about the dangers of disinformation: https://x.com/BarbMcQuade/status/1858213995809026176

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What does an “informed electorate” mean? Does the United States have one? If not, how do we achieve a majority of voters who generally understand key policy issues and what each candidate’s position is on these issues?

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