It must have been in some long-ago class devoted to social studies that I first became aware of such a thing as the Continental Divide. Probably in elementary school, I should think, and probably skewed in favor of the divide as it exists in the United States. Of course, it runs through both American continents, from the Bering Strait to the Strait of Magellan, neither of which I could find on a map on my own.
Even then, I thought the Continental Divide was just off-center. It was just a little too far to the left, even though I understood it existed as a result of the Rocky Mountains and followed their path. Somehow it seemed unfair that the water draining off to the Pacific had a shorter path than the water that fell on the other side of the divide that had to travel across more than half the continent to get to the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico.
It may have been one of my first observations that dividing anything almost certainly creates something that is inherently unequal. Just like cutting the last bit of cake into two pieces, it almost never produces equivalent portions.
Nowadays, we talk about the deep political divisions within the country. How polarized we are, how far apart we are in our thinking, and how intractable we are in our positions. The delicate balance swings a bit this way in one election and a bit the other way in the next, proving to some folks that our heels are mostly dug into one ideological side or the other, giving the trump card (so to speak) to the flip-floppers in the middle. There’s some truth to that, but there may be some overlooked nuances.
The last time an American president got his win (and they’re still only “hims”) by more than 5% of the popular vote was Obama in 2008 by 7.2% over McCain. That was the only really strong victory in the 21st century. This current streak of the last four such elections being won by numbers in the low single digits is the anomaly rather than the norm. Such a streak has not occurred in presidential elections since the late 19th century.
When the electorate is focused on left versus right divisions—culture wars is the shorthand for that—Republicans tend to win by small majorities. But when the electorate is concentrating on up versus down divisions—so-called kitchen-table issues—Democrats will usually get the upper hand. Exceptions to these predictable outcomes are available. Ronald Reagan’s outsized victory in 1980 allowed him to blame the incumbent, Jimmy Carter, for the flagging economy and win the culture war at the same time.
But this is not a presidential election year, but still that left/right division versus the up/down division is where exactly this coming election should be focused. We’re not really in the thick of it yet, so now might be a good time to take a look at what it might behoove us voters to take be looking for in the coming months.
While the campaigns and their consultants are trying to craft a message and a successful strategy for delivering it to the voting masses, those of us in the cheap seats can think about what we need to see, hear, and expect from a candidate who is trying to win our vote. If they want our money, too, that bar should be higher. If they want our time, then they need to boost the ante above that.
I continue to observe in some cases and in some races that campaigns assume they can count on the reliable voter. They see those folks who are going to vote for the Democrat or the Republican because that’s just what they do every couple of years as a given, so they build a strategy on getting votes from the ones who are “persuadable.” In my home state of Texas, Democrats focus on trying to persuade Republican voters to vote for them, while Republicans, with their long history of winning here, seem to think they can keep doing just that because they have a higher number of reliable voters than do the Democrats.
But there’s a great big yellow caution light flashing up ahead on the road to the general election, and it’s not just in Texas. Democrats and Republicans across this state and across this country have reliable voters who are feeling disaffected by much of what is going on these days. Some folks better mind their knitting.
Otherwise, we may find ourselves talking about a whole other kind of division after the midterms.
