Do not cede power at a scale that has not been earned
Insisting the left spend the next four years trying to become more appealing to Trump voters only benefits those who profit from less progressive policies.
To date, Trump has received 74.6 million votes. Harris has received 70.9 million votes. A couple million votes are still being counted across a few different states but the ratio will likely hold up. However, the total pool of eligible voters for 2024 was approximately 244 million voters. For the purpose of this essay, I’m looking exclusively at the top of the ticket.
That means there are approximately 100,000,000 people who were eligible to vote for president but did not. Obviously, there will be some that can’t and never will vote for various reasons. And of course, there will be some overlap with previously activated voters who voted last time and sat this one out. But that is not all of that 100 million, I would wager not even a majority. It would take only 5% of that group to have changed the outcome of this election. (Such an addition would also have extraordinary impact down ballot where races can be won or lost by only thousands of votes.)
I’ll note here, that I know there’s always some level of get-out-vote effort to reach non-participating eligible voters but the bulk of it tends to come real late in the election cycle.
It’s not half
Trump’s voters do not represent half of the country. They are quite literally, only 30% of eligible voters. More than that, he did not receive more votes this time than in his last election. (74,224,319 in 2020 and 62,985,106 in 2016). He won because Harris got fewer votes than Biden did in 2020 (81.3 million). Trump did not activate new voters. He barely kept the ones he had last time and managed to come out on top with the numbers that crossed over between the two parties. Until we get meaningful numbers about who voted in 2020 but did not show up in 2024 and why, we won’t truly understand the extent of this.
But despite the realities of these numbers, he has 30% of the eligible vote. I keep seeing references to “half the country wanted him.” No.
It’s not half the country. It’s half of the voters who showed up. That is a critical distinction for what lies ahead.
It’s not the majority
In the few days since the election, there has been non-stop commentary about how half the country thinks this or feels that or hates this way or excludes that way and that’s not truly accurate. More importantly, it is essential to not cede ground that has not been won. No one has any true claim on what half the country truly thinks or believes, because no one got half the country to the polls. While the overall vote is a significant sample size, a lack of participation is an indicator of obstacles or inaction but not of specific causes and not of agreement.
(Please note, I'm not disagreeing with the sentiment that half or more of the country is racist and that was a factor. Even if a person isn't acting with purpose on their racists views—either internalized or overt—being willing to tolerate racism is racism. But, I don't think it's accurate to conflate that racism, or sexism, with always being in agreement with specific policy efforts. People can and do override their prejudices in favor of goals and vice-versa. If they didn't, we'd already be living in a very different country.)
If you’re going to claim half the country hates what Harris’s campaign stood for, you also have to equally acknowledged that approximately half also hates what Trump’s campaign stood for, because the difference is literally less than 2% between the two yet the results are not presented that way because there is a “winner”.
On the flip side, with regard to voters who didn’t participate: If the theoretical half that was left not showing up to vote doesn’t count for any signifiers of what is important to them, then the half that is theoretically right that didn’t show up doesn’t get to count either.
While people may be confused and undereducated about what the proper terms are for their political desires (or their political fears), we already know that progressive positions on things like abortion, healthcare, social security, etc are broadly supported so it’s not arguable that half of non-voters are definitely conservative while the other half is not progressive.
Over the coming years as every line we thought existed is tested or broken it is essential that we all remember they are not the majority.
They desperately need and want everyone to believe they are because it discourages dissent and defiance. They. Are. Not. The. Majority. They acquire and hold power through systems stacked in their favor but they do not outnumber everyone else. Do not give in to the perception of it being most people, it is only to their benefit and it is not true. Why on earth should the country give more authority than they have actually earned? Remind them at every turn. Push back at every violation of democratic principles. They are not most of America.
Why does it matter?
In the few days since the election we’re already under the deluge of think pieces about what Democrats need to do to appeal to the other half of America and by other half of America, the purveyors of these think pieces mean Trump voters. The prevailing message of the initial responses to Trump’s election is that the left needs to learn how to appeal to the people who voted for Trump.
What an oddly victim-blaming like feat of mental gymnastics. “The country had to elect the person who caused harm last time because you didn’t do enough to convince them not to.” How is energy better spent on trying to appeal to an already activated group of voters that are prone to disinformation, manipulation, and undesirable affinities and values given their decision to go with Trump when there’s a subset of that 100,000,000 other people we could be investing that labor in? How is energy not better spent on the repair of systems that prevented more people from voting? Structural changes are likely out of reach given House and Senate control, but the on-ground systems are not.
I’m not accepting the chastisement about not “appealing enough to working class voters” as an authentic request to focus more on potentially progressive inactive voters. Most of the people saying “working class voter” are really saying “working class white voter” and forgetting the sheer volume of working class people of color and white people who did vote blue. It becomes even less authentic when you remember that the candidate they say did truly appeal to working class voters is one of the most elite, wealthy people to have ever run for office and was also backed by a cadre of wealthy men. Then there's that whole little truth thing in that Trump appealed to his voters not through the strength of his policy specifics but by lying to them about what he intends to do and how it will affect them.
Of course it’s harder to get something in motion than to change the direction of something already in motion. But, it’s not easy to court Trump voters and arguably that it’s not worth the effort nor the compromise in values and priorities to appeal to them. We must also consider who benefits from pushing the narrative that the left has to become even more center or right-of-center, rather than pushing for more progressive policies. Hint: it’s not working-class voters.
Abandoning Those Who Fought
What’s being glossed over in the lecturing about the Democratic Party and it’s ostensible need to appeal more to Trump voters is who the Democratic Party would be de-prioritizing. Such a starboard shift is a betrayal of the people who have worked so hard to participate, to organize, to engage by asking them to make space for those who either condone or pursue their oppression.
If the Democratic Party turns around and tells the millions of Black women who put everything out there in this election that they need to be okay with getting under the same tent with the voters who have opted for candidates who can and will hurt those same Black women then the Democratic Party is not serving those Black women. If the Democratic Party turns around and tells millions of women that they need to be okay with getting under the same tent with the voters who are chanting “your body, our choice” and “women are property” then the Democratic Party isn’t serving those women. If the Democratic Party turns around and tells the tens of millions of people who contributed to record-breaking fundraising dollars that they need to be okay with getting under the same tent with the voters who were fine with setting human rights and democracy back a century in the name of economic security, then the Democratic Party isn’t serving those supporters. If the Democratic Party drops all mention of LGBTQIA+ rights, then the Democratic Party isn’t serving those supporters. If the party cannot serve, protect, elevate, or advocate for its core constituents and its values, what is its purpose?
You cannot betray those who gave you everything in order to court those who condone, if not outright pursue, your oppression as long as it gets them what they want.
Moving farther right will only abandon the base, and worse, it will demonstrate that both the party’s principles and human rights are negotiable. The Democratic Party is barely left of center these days and the country should have a genuinely progressive option, not one that keeps following the Overton window like a lost puppy, compromising itself to appeal to people that are never gonna like it anyway.
Meanwhile, activating currently disengaged voters and converting them into participatory ones means accomplishing not only the goal of broadening the base but also engaging more participants in our election systems. That’s the ideal outcome right? A more participatory and engaged country?
The Effort
Is sincere effort to focus on the progressively inclined within that 100,000,000 going to be harder? Absolutely, but the country will be far better off spending the next four years broadening the base than four years of in-fighting about just how far right the Democrats need to move to court voters who were willing to vote for Donald Trump in 2024 despite knowing everything we know about him.
Because here’s the thing, we already know that the Trump administration is not going to meet a lot of their expectations. Without any effort on behalf of the left, the far-right is going to lose voters over the next four years because of the impact of what this administration is going to do to the country. White people gave Donald Trump this power. However, many of those same white people are also about to be betrayed by him. There will be people who thought they were signing up for a better economy, reduced government and security who are going to be hurt. They will be harmed and they will not show up for the right again.
Meanwhile, those 100,000,000 people? They aren’t going to be in stasis over the next four years either. They are going to be impacted by this presidency. Some of them will self-activate by the next election. With thoughtful work, sustained effort and ceasing with the damn infighting, there’s no reason to think that even more of them can’t be activated by the mid-terms and fully engaged by the presidential election I hope our democracy still exists for in 2028.
Imagine what changes about how we treat our elections and our efforts to build coalitions when we reframe from voters = the people who were able and allowed to cast a vote to voters = the people who should be able to vote.
This is a big change (that will be resisted) for legacy media, the pollsters, the punditry, and for the political class because it’s far less dynamic, combative or lucrative to try to reach new people rather than fighting over the ones already in the room. It takes labor. It takes resources. It takes sustained service. It’s not the kind of work that comes with ratings and drama. It requires real outreach. Real effort. Real listening. Real acknowledgement and recalibrations of platforms and policies. There have been people and organizations doing this all along, but they have been neglected; under-resourced, under-supported and under-acknowledged. That is what has to change.
What we have been doing for the past 10 years? It’s not working. So if we’re at rock bottom and finally ready to try something new, that something new isn’t convincing people who have made it clear they will compromise on every possible value and principle in the name of their goals, it’s showing everyone else that there is something for them here that’s worth fighting for.
While this work is happening, it is essential to not give in to the perception that Donald Trump's administration represents half of America. Do not grant them the influence of more authority and more consent than they actually have.