This Thanksgiving, give thanks for the anger

Skip the lofty sentiment about saving democracy; on Nov. 8, a bare-knuckle show of force by women saved the day

By Mark Horan

On the morning after the November 8th election, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski closed their “Morning Joe” show with Wyclef Jean and Jewell performing Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song,” with its stirring chorus that begins “Won’t you help to sing, these songs of freedom.”

Never mind that Marley wrote this last song while facing a terminal diagnosis and is talking about “emancipation from mental slavery,” MSNBC had appropriated it to celebrate a banner Democratic night and a brutal beating for Donald Trump.

The voters, having boned up on the ancient Greeks, Jefferson, and Lincoln, had repelled the Red Wave and reclaimed their democracy and its institutions.

Or so the Washington punditocracy proclaimed. Only 11 hours after the last polls had closed, the Beltway had already jumped the shark.

It was a hell of a party; time to sober up

Now two weeks later, it’s time for Democrats and those who aim to stop Trumpism to recognize the results for what they were: an exercise in self-interest, voters venting frustrations about the Supreme Court’s audacious overturning of Roe v. Wade and Trump’s mendacious meddling in our politics.

In the end, it was the anger, stupid.

That’s not a bad thing. It’s the way politics is supposed to work. But it’s essential to see it clearly so it can inform us about future elections.

For elites and the Democratic Party, which, for better or worse, is increasingly made up of elites, the idea that an ugly emotion like anger could be responsible for this triumph is unfathomable. Anger is what Donald Trump trades in. Resentments? That’s what binds the Proud Boys and animates the right’s racist core. Democrats win due to cogent arguments and careful policy design, not temper fits.

Stop being so prissy, Democrats; embrace your inner anger.

Sure, Trump dwells on grievances, some legitimate — immigration and trade policy, perhaps — but most not. He began his campaign ranting about immigrants who steal and rape and he ended his presidency fuming about a stolen election.

On the other hand, women of all stripes have a wholly legitimate gripe, i.e., six judges, including five men, awoke on June 24 and stripped them of a constitutional right they’ve held for 50 years.

When political anger takes the form of a violent, murderous attack on the Capitol, it is justifiably reviled. But that is not it’s only expression, as evidenced by the Kansas vote in August, an orderly procession to the voting booths to reject a constitutional amendment designed to make a statewide abortion ban possible.

Fifty-nine percent — a landslide — voted no. Kansas isn’t as right-wing as the press would have you think, but it’s conservative enough that this shellacking was rather shocking. It showed that women were highly motivated, particularly those living in highly educated, affluent suburbs (turnout was highest in the state’s two most populous counties, located outside Kansas City). Abortion, once the most divisive of issues, was suddenly a unifying force, bringing together the most ardent abortion advocates with those who had more ambivalent feelings but were opposed to eliminating Roe.

How much anger? Quite a bit, it turns out

In the final weeks leading to the midterms, pundits began to downplay the importance of abortion, surmising that the June decision’s sting of had faded over time. National and battleground-state polls showed the economy surging as the number one issue, closing in on 50 percent in most polls. The Democrats rushed to make their best case on the economy.

Sometimes amid the daily clamor of poll results, common sense is obscured. Anger was nearby but not visible — it was burning inside women and their allies.

On election day, CNN’s exit poll framed the question pointedly, asking voters about their “feelings about Roe v. Wade being overturned” and giving them four choices: enthusiastic, satisfied, dissatisfied, and angry. In each of the contested Senate elections, “angry” was the number one choice of women. Half the women in Pennsylvania chose it. Below are the results in the four most important contested states:

It’s too early to know how many women voted and what effect their turnout had. Still, Democrats won three of these states, thus securing their hold on the Senate, and are in a runoff for the fourth, Georgia; it’s reasonable to surmise Democrats, especially women, turned out in high numbers.

Another source of angst: GOP-generated chaos

Of course, the election was about more than just abortion.

On Sept. 1, Joe Biden traveled to Philadelphia’s Independence Hall to warn Americans about “MAGA extremists” and their continuing threat to America. Few thought Biden could reframe the election this way but “the state of our democracy” persisted as a top issue for about 15 percent of the electorate, about the same as abortion. Combine those two issues with an additional, if lesser, concern about gun policy, and you had the makings of a formidable bloc — the “What the hell is wrong with this country?” voters.

Once again, though, this may have been less civic-minded than practical. After all the tumult Americans had endured — a deadly and highly contagious virus, record layoffs, an election result denied, an attack on the Capitol, social strife over mandates and school closings — they once again faced elections amidst social and political turmoil. There seemed no rest for the weary.

One of the perks of being an American in the post-war era was never having to worry much about democracy. Civil strife, political violence, authoritarian takeovers — that was for other less developed countries. Some theorized that low turnout in American elections was attributable to our stable democracy, in which voting seemed hardly necessary.

No more. Vigilance is now required, the Dobbs decision being a sharp reminder. Women, at least, must always be on guard.

More than most, independent voters — a portion of whom pride themselves on eschewing political involvement — probably find the constant political discord burdensome.

Despite favoring Republicans for most of the campaign, exit polls in the Senate battleground states showed they voted for Democrats by roughly ten percentage points.

The swing could have been due to pollsters underestimating the number of Democratic-leaning (primarily women) independents who would vote.

Or it could have been an actual shift, as the undeclared moved away from Republicans due to Trump ramping up his poisonous commentary in the final days before the election.

Anger about abortion and concern about democracy are two sides of the same coin

In late October, Tresa Undem, a veteran public opinion researcher specializing in gender equity, tweeted a thought-provoking chart showing the relationship between the Dobbs decision and voters’ broader concerns about the direction of our society. In her polling (shown below), majorities of voters said the ruling made them think about things like “the state of our democracy” and “our society going backward.” Among abortin supporters, the numbers reached super-majority levels.

Source: PerryUndem

For now, the economy is no longer the defining electoral issue

“It’s the economy, stupid,” the political adage first written on a white board by James Carville in 1992 to focus his Clinton campaign colleagues, may have outlived its relevance. We can now appreciate that the late ’90s were marked by extraordinary American stability. The Cold War had ended, terrorism — foreign or domestic — was isolated and barely noticed, and the country was less polarized. In a sense, we had little to worry about except the economy and, sure enough, amidst a relatively mild recession, Bill Clinton defeated incumbent George H.W. Bush.

Today, we endure pervasive instability, barely staying afloat amid a toxic stew of right-wing extremism and Donald Trump’s malevolence. This past year, the Republicans made themselves the co-incumbent party by being the primary authors of the chaos, and voters said enough to their overreach, not the incumbent president’s. While Joe Biden kept a steady hand on the wheel, the Republicans lit themselves on fire.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade, combined with a sense that “our society [was] going backward,” prevailed over the economy. Women didn’t necessarily set out to save democracy, but by venting their anger, they helped us achieve that loftier goal, at least for now. It’s up to the Democrats and Never Trumpers to figure out how to keep it afloat again in 2024.