What the Election Tells us About Who America Is

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On Tuesday, we found out who we are as a nation. We were faced with a choice between rivals who could not have been more unlike. Which one did we pick?

One of our choices was a 78-year-old man, born of wealth, who doesn’t care much for human niceties. His skill is an ear for the roar of the crowd, and he will follow that roar anywhere and say anything to hear it. He lives by the late Roy Cohn’s three rules: “Attack, attack, attack; admit nothing and deny everything; claim victory and never admit defeat.” Trump promised to improve the economy, close the border and lower taxes.

The alternative was a 60-year-old woman, a second-generation American and self-made politician. She promised to be president for all Americans, to make lives better, to listen to others – even those who disagree – and to fight for the country we love.

The choices were easily sorted: some voters liked the idea of turning the page to a new, hopeful generation; others believed that MAGA would take us back to a time when women’s rights didn’t matter much and immigrants were turned away from our shores.

As we now know, it was Trump the majority of Americans chose. We will return to the days of yesteryear; we will reward misogyny and racism and we will prepare for self-destructive moves. The environment will suffer and our democratic traditions will be tarnished. But the people – “the bastards” as they say – have spoken and we must deal with the consequences.

If there is a good way forward – and for now it’s difficult to identify – it is in relying on our Constitution, on the Bill of Rights, and on those public servants who can resist taking us backward. This nation already survived four years of that authoritarian leader. And while he may be better armed this time, we must have hope that we can endure and emerge stronger. Now is a time to regroup, to find strong leaders and to resolve that we can, we must, overcome.

Jean Godden
Jean Godden
Jean Godden wrote columns first for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and late for the Seattle Times. In 2002, she quit to run for City Council where she served for 12 years. Since then she published a book of city stories titled “Citizen Jean.” She is now co-host of The Bridge aired on community station KMGP at 101.1 FM. You can email tips and comments to Jean at jgodden@blarg.net.

30 COMMENTS

  1. Jean,
    Your view of the voting public as “ the bastards” implies an even deeper misunderstanding of what just occurred in American politics. While you and I normally agree, I find this piece to be elitist, simplistic and divisive at a time when none of these qualities are helpful.

  2. Jean, I thought your commentary was spot-on, and while I can’t comprehend anyone voting for a candidate who accused Haitians of eating cats and dogs, who is obviously in severe mental decline, even to the extent of making obscene gestures to a microphone during a public appearance, while he berating the volunteers backstage for poor sound quality (that’s all it took to send him into a rage!), and a man who regularly insults women and has been convicted multiple times….
    this is who Americans wanted. But it’s not my America.
    Under the circumstances, I think your piece was remarkably calm and insightful. Well done, as usual.

  3. Jean
    Wrong.
    The correct lesson is that the Democrats need to reconsider their core fundamental beliefs on race, and listen to voters as opposed to listen to professors in cosseted critical thinking dens.

    The most striking example is the vote a few years ago on, broadly speaking, affirmative action…Prop 16… soundly, defeated, and yet supported by the entire Democratic political establishment… And that’s in the same year — 2020 — that the voters decisively went for Biden and Harris… If you don’t understand what’s going on then you are indeed Mrs.Jones.
    With attitudes like yours, the Democrats are going to be a permanent minority party, which would be very sad.

    • So your point is that the Democrats should cave to racism, because that’s where the votes are? Sorry, but that’s a garbage take. That’s the Stephen Douglas position. We’re not going back to that.

  4. I won’t criticize the comment about ‘the bastards,’ given that the president-elect used worse language throughout the campaign, called his opponent ‘stupid’ and used vulgarities and all that received little notice since it’s likely he’s ‘normalized’ such behavior, at least for himself.

    I think analyses of this campaign and election results reveal a deep-seated, unrecognized, and unacknowledged misogyny in this country. It’s covered by the phrase, ‘not ready for a woman president.’ I don’t like writing that, but I’ve come to that conclusion after much thought.

    Those of us who still believe this country can be better than the results of this presidential election indicate can, and I think must, have hope. There’s work to do to preserve what’s good about this country and to make it better for all of us.

  5. Jean –

    Thank you for your article. To me, it’s amazing how one-half of the US accuses views/one side of being “elitist’ and not understanding fellow Americans with opposing views but ignores their own responsibilities, facts, and a political leader who makes truly outlandish statements. As an American living in Canada, I can’t tell you how much we (and presumably the world) collectively are shaking our heads.

    Something FDR said over the radio 80 years ago the night before the 1944 general election come to mind: “But when the ballots are cast, your responsibilities do not cease. The public servants you elect cannot fulfill their trust unless you, the people, watch and advise them, raise your voices in protest when you believe your public servants to be wrong, back them up when you believe them to be right.”

  6. As we look for clues for how to proceed from here, it is worth considering what is happening in our 3rd district House contest between a Blue Dog Democrat and a Trump anointed Republican. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D) is leading Joe Kent 52 pct. to 48 in a district that leans slightly red. With fewer than one fourth of the tally left, she will have earned her second term. How did she do it? Her focus was always on issues of immediate concern to constituents. In other words — local, local, local. She has always supported abortion rights, but did not go beating the drum on an issue that would always have support by a wide margin in our state. She also put a strong constituent service program in place. In other words, she came to know her district as though it was her own back yard. Democrats have always been right on the big issues, in my opinion. But they have come, by and large, less attentive to all those micro-issues that can stir the “little people” in their districts. I’d suggest that the national Democrats pay attention to what our 3rd district House representative has pulled off to win her second term.

  7. I left a comment about deep-seated misogyny in this country. It has not been published. I stand by it. I agree with Ms. Godden. I think her comments are measured and correct. I am dismayed at what analyses of voters reveal about this country.

    • All of the hand-wringing about Kamala Harris, and how her candidacy was ‘elitist’ are ignoring the fact that many Latino men and Black men simply refused to support her..and went for Trump, despite his appalling racist and sneering misogynstic comments. (Of course, White men withheld their support in even greater numbers.) The NY Times has an excellent article about the dismaying message Black women say they have been given.

  8. Democrats have a tendency to over-analyze everything. To place this election into perspective, every incumbent administration across the world that was in-place after the COVID pandemic has lost the next election as a result of inflation due to supply constraints. In fact, the incumbent losses by the Democratic Party in the United States were the least of any other country. If this was a wave election, we’d be seeing bigger swings in both House and Senate majorities. That isn’t happening. The Senate is swinging a couple of seats to the Republican side in a year which already favored Republicans.

    The majority of the electorate is not tuned into policy and statistics, and we shouldn’t expect them to understand nuance of unemployment rates, job growth, and wage rates. Similarly, the majority of the electorate is tuned out to Trump’s felony convictions and his failure to return classified documents.

    Voters were just mad at high prices. They don’t care about the rate of inflation. They just know that a eggs and milk and hamburger cost more. And they blamed Biden. Harris could do little to counter that.

    • “We shouldn’t expect them to understand nuance of unemployment rates, job growth, and wage rates.”
      Why not?
      “The majority of the electorate is tuned out to Trump’s felony convictions.”
      Maybe so, but can you imagine the howls of outrage if Kamala Harris had 34 felony convictions which, by the way, many argue should have kept Trump off the ballot?
      She would never have received the nomination, with that record. Never.

    • Jeffry – You made so many good points but especially the “Democrats have a tendency to over-analyze everything”. Like to say after the election more voters were concerned about the price of bread, gasoline than those worried about our democracy, institutions if Trump is elected.

  9. It boils down to this for me: Harris’s campaign centered on positivity, coalition-building, moving beyond the politics of divisiveness, anger.. and Americans, especially men, preferred hatefulness. They treated her like a joke. And predictably, all of this is Harris’s fault, we are told.

  10. Slavery and religion have created a deep festering wound, in a nation with high ideals but a sort of exploitive frontier mentality. Lots more gets mixed in, but that’s where it starts.

    The federal government has been basically progressive for most of a century, meaning that it has gone on ahead of societal consensus, starting with Brown v. Board of Education. Presidential candidates left that pretty much alone that I remember until George Wallace – and then a much better managed Reagan campaign and administration, that set the tone for Republican politics thereafter. And here we are, the festering wound boiling up in a major way, aided by Elon Musk, Russia, etc. In this environment, a dishonest TV personality and business failure is going to be loved if he’s angry and anointed by gad, and no, a woman candidate isn’t going to get a fair chance.

  11. If the majority of the commenters here reflect Democrats in general, God help us because the Republicans are going to be in power for quite a while.

  12. Before anyone tries to get too scientific here, let’s wait just a little. Low turnout always hurts you-know-who.
    Then consider 2 items:
    1. About 44% of one particular party still thinks Biden stole his election. Think about that.
    2. An overwhelming % of “religious” voters somehow thought the male candidate was the better religious one and fully deserving of their votes. Drumpfh selected by God. Tens of millions have to have known better.

    Oops–one more: Right on schedule, the vacuous and inevitable complaint(s) about elitism shows up.

  13. It’s clear to me that the results of this election reflect societal conditions that electoral politics in particular, and partisan politics in general, are inadequate to address. Misogyny, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, attacks on science and rational thought based on ignorance, superstition, and, yes, religion, are more deep-seated, over a longer period of time, than any one election cycle, or many election cycles, have much chance to make better.

    Dick Clever’s remarks on Marie Perez’ record in the 3rd CD are spot on and to the point. Her approach to representation is to “make shit work.” In only one term, she has demonstrated to her constituents that government exists to serve people and make their lives tangibly, demonstrably better. Just her position on the I-5 bridge, as opposed to Kent’s, is one reason why her 12K-vote margin has held up in each day’s count. This, at least, is where governance begins. It doesn’t necessarily address the deeper societal issues, but its value is considerably greater than zero.

    • Thank you, Ivan. What MGP shows is that effective governance works best when the priorities begin at the grass roots. Plus, she has worked harder than any House rep I’ve ever seen to build on what she started in 2022. A Reed College grad working in an auto repair shop? Those ragged jeans and cowboy boots? It is going to be fun watching her work in the coming congressional session. We know pretty much what to expect of Trumpican Senate and House in 2025. Whatever Trump’s billionaire backers want. Elon Musk in charge of government efficiency? Good God. He will find a way for the U.S. government to entirely fund his mission to Mars.

    • Thank you, Ivan. What MGP shows is that effective governance works best when the priorities begin at the grass roots. It’s a pretty simple lession if our Dem leaders are paying attention. I wonder.

    • Yes – Gluesenkamp Perez was such an outstanding candidate, that she managed to squeak past Joe “Something Loose Upstairs” Kent. Why didn’t she win big, like she obviously should have?

      • Pretty snotty and uninformed about the nature of the 3rd District. MGP pulled off a miracle in 2022 and another in 2024. If you bothered to look at the county-by-county stats, with Lewis all in for Trump, bigly. Do your effin homework. MGP held off a Trumpian charge in her district that swept over much of the country for reasons baffling to all of us, except for MGP.

        • Sure, it was obviously going to be close, but again that’s my point. If a candidate has to be really superb to prevail over a wacko, that’s better than nothing, but I’m not ready to beat up the Democratic party over it.

  14. Democrats will start doing well when it’s not considered essential to job survival to put your pronouns on your business card. I’m looking at you, City of Seattle.

  15. Jean.

    Geez, thanks for your reactionary, embittered response.

    I never voted for Trump as I’ve found him to be loathsome, irrational and yes misogynistic. But to suggest that just because Trump is a misogynist therefore those who voted for him are also misogynist is just a lazy, sanctimonious, and ridiculous leap of logic. The blanket labelling, impugning and vilifying those who disagree with you (something the “progressives” excel at) is always a losing proposition and will never create the dialogue required to help heal the divide our country – which is critical given the enormous challenges we face as a nation.

    I decided to take a more rational approach and compare (by race and gender) Kalama Harris with past performance of another democrat. If you believe the election result was result of misogyny, comparing Harris’ performance with Joe Biden would be unfair. I used CNN’s exit polling from 2024 and 2016 to compare Harris’ performance by race/gender with Hillary Clinton to negate the supposed “misogyny effect.”

    As shown in the below, Harris performed slightly better than Clinton with white men and women, but underperformed HRC – a self-described misanthrope one of the most unlikable politicians in recent memory – in every other race/gender breakdown. So, where’s the misogyny? To blame Latinos/Latinas for abandoning her (and the DNP) is simply progressive subterfuge.

    Cohort Harris 2024 Clinton 2016 Harris Gain (Loss)
    White men 37% 31% 6%
    White women 45% 43% 2%
    Black men 77% 82% -5%
    Black women 91% 94% -3%
    Latino men 43% 63% -20%
    Latina women 60% 69% -9%
    All other races 48% 61% -13%

    According to Pew Research, the most important issue for Latinos by far (85%) was the economy and accompanying that inflation and (by inference) the huge rate increases we’ve experienced in the past few years – much of which can be attributed to Biden’s never ending stimulus programs. Approximately 1 in 5 Latino men work in the construction – an industry that gets eviscerated as rates rise. Latinos have the same economic concerns as every other voting group, and to suggest that Latino misogyny is to blame for Harris’ loss is stereotypical and simply racist.

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