EXPERT ANALYSIS
The outcome of the presidential election has caught many by surprise and confirmed the suspicions of many others. It has led to celebrations for Republicans over the election of Donald Trump, as well as soul-searching for Democrats in light of the defeat of Kamala Harris.
Beyond the bottom-line results, several University of Michigan experts say it’s too soon to know the long-term realities and ramifications for the major political parties in terms of ideological shifts and realignments. Still, there are lessons to be learned and nothing should be taken for granted—by either party.
The following comments are excerpts from a recent postelection analysis at U-M’s Ford School of Public Policy that featured the following faculty members: Rusty Hills, Mara Ostfeld, Barbara McQuade, Vincent Hutchings, and J. Alex Halderman.
Rusty Hills
“So three quick thoughts. I’ll do Democrats, not-Trumpers and Republicans.
“On Democrats, I highly recommend this Doris Kearns Goodwin book, ‘An Unfinished Love Story.’ I’m probably the oldest person in the room here, so I can remember the 1968 campaign. And there’s a great passage. I’m just going to read one sentence where it says ‘Both industrial blue collar workers and economically oppressed Black people felt that Bobby Kennedy listened to them and recognized their problems.’
“Look, if I am the DNC chair, I would go out and buy copies of Jules Witcover’s book, ’85 Days,’ which is about Bobby Kennedy’s campaign. And I would send it to every single member because this is the formula. And believe me, I’m the last person on this panel that should be telling Democrats what to do because they should never listen to a Republican. But that’s the formula for how to get back in power.
“Now, when I say formula, one thing that’s important to remember is this is not a Disney movie. I don’t say, ‘bibbidi bobbidi boo,’ and my suit turns pink, right? You absolutely have to believe this. It’s not enough for me to read it. The politicians actually have to believe that. That’s why Kennedy was so successful. And that’s how the Democrats become successful again.
“As for ‘Not-Trump Republicans’ like me, we’re sort of a people without a country. And I don’t know where we end up.
“To the Republican point of view, there are huge problems in Michigan and nationally. And now that the Republicans have gotten this majority, people want solutions to problems. The onus now is on the Republicans to be a governing conservative party and to solve problems. And if they don’t, they’re going to get kicked out again.
“The problem is when you have this divided government now, it’s become so tribal that everybody just votes no on the other person’s point of view. And what that means is nothing gets done, which means the public just gets more frustrated. And so every election is a change election. We just throw everybody out regardless of whether they’re good or whether they’re not.
“Somehow that doom loop has to be pierced. We’ve got to lance that boil and actually get some sort of either one-party cooperation or two-party cooperation to solve problems that restore people’s faith in democracy and the political process.”
Mara Ostfeld
“First of all, nonwhite—Latinos and Asian Americans, Arab Americans—who shifted toward the Republican Party are not like white Republicans. They are more liberal on almost every issue, from affirmative action to climate change to abortion to, obviously, support for Gaza.
“So I think it’s important to remember that (among these groups) they are not necessarily shifting all of their policy positions. And in fact, a lot of people who supported Trump, the majority supported abortion. The majority supported a path to citizenship.
“Trump has not been replicated. Among all the candidates that have tried to be Trump, nobody has been effective at replicating his success. So I’m not sure this is a big realignment. I think Trump was really effective at saying he was going to be able to do amazing things that no party and no candidate can do. I think a lot of nonwhite voters are rightly frustrated that they haven’t seen the change in their communities that they are repeatedly promised.
“And so there is a reaction to that. But I don’t think it’s necessarily because anyone thought Trump was a godsend. I think it was a desire for some change, a desire for some greater form of success. But we will see.”
Barbara McQuade
“I’m not a politician, and I’m not a political scientist. I’ve had a lot of soul-searching conversations with students who … are really crushed by this. I have suggested perhaps the Democratic Party needs to rethink where it stands on issues pertaining to cultural issues, economic issues, immigration issues—the things that voters seem to be saying matter to them.
“And I’ve had students say just the opposite: Stop pretending to be the Republicans-lite, like, go all in on the left. What do we care about? What will motivate people to get out to the polls? And maybe that means more progressive than before.
“So I don’t know, but I imagine the party will have to do some reflecting and talking to people who voted against them to have a better understanding about what voters really want.”
Vincent Hutchings
“It’s obviously too early (to know) what the parties are going to do. But there is at least a hint of the possibility that just as in the previous century we had European immigrants come over and they were economically disadvantaged and aligned themselves with the Democratic Party. Then over time, as they would become more affluent, they eventually drifted into the Republican Party.
“And we thought that wasn’t going to apply to people of color to the same degree. But maybe we were wrong. At least with respect to non-Black people of color.
“So it’s too soon to know this. It’s very tentative. I reserve the right to retract everything I’m about to say, but it is possible that we’re seeing an expression of what we might call ‘Black exceptionalism’ in the sense that, of course, African Americans who become more affluent don’t become Republican. But what about Asian Americans? What about Latinos? What about Native Americans? They’re certainly starting to behave as if maybe they’re just like previous generations of European immigrants.”
J. Alex Halderman
“It felt this election cycle like both parties’ messaging inherently was just so negative and so divisive—I think for the Democrats in particular, that just didn’t resonate very well.
“Casting this election as a referendum on democracy itself, even though in some ways it may be very important for democratic institutions and their health in this country, I think misunderstands fundamentally how people on the right see Donald Trump, how they see the health of our institutions—and ultimately, what voters are going to the ballot box to vote for, which is predominantly about how they feel about the economy, not whether they want America to be more or less free or more or less democratic.
“So I would hope the Democrats can find some messaging that resonates better than suggesting half of our country is somehow anti-democratic, and is somehow only motivated by bigotry. Even though on some level, perhaps some of those claims are true, the Democrats will not build a broader coalition by turning people against each other. We need to find ways to make this country come together.”
By Jeff Karoub, University of Michigan News
