This is Democracy – Episode 14: What did the 2018 elections mean?

Speaker 1: This Is Democracy. A podcast that explores the interracial, intergenerational, and intersectional unheard voices living in the world’s most influential democracy.
Jeremi: Welcome to our post-election episode of This Is Democracy. I know all of our listeners have been up very late the last few nights. And after our discussion of the power of voting and the importance of voting in our last episode, today we’re going to talk about what it means and the outcome of this recent election.
Jeremi: We have with us two of the most detailed and insightful thinkers on this topic that I know. My colleague, Jim Henson of the Texas Politics Project. He’s the director of that. And Bryan Jones, who is a distinguished entrepreneur and one of the leaders of Stand Up Republican. Which has been one of the most important organizations in getting more people involved in politics, particularly independence.
Jeremi: So to start us off Zachary has a poem about election night. Zachary, what’s your poem titled?
Zachary: It’s “Mississippi is Close.”
Jeremi: “Mississippi is Close.” Okay Zachary, let’s hear it.
Zachary: Eight PM I watched the votes come in from Indiana flood through the gates like water. The Kentucky ballots counted but I don’t want to care. Nine PM I couldn’t believe they called it for Cruz with only 30 percent in. Didn’t think they actually meant it. Ten PM it finally sunk in, leaning against the railing staring at the projected news cast in disbelief, out of it. Ten thirty, trying to be hopeful.
Zachary: When the night is good the stars are bright but the one you wanted most to see is gone. Hugging the great column of the old hotel, sliding around it’s smooth surface in agitation. Eleven PM and I still don’t think any of it matters. The House districts coming in from Minnesota. Oklahoma cheers but it doesn’t sink in until they call Mississippi a tie. If Mississippi is close then I can sleep soundly. Eleven thirty, watching in conceive from a time zone away. Nine hours as the crow flies. Cheering inside my head, lost in the emotion I just sit staring when it’s time to go. Twelve thirty and I’m sleeping for early rise.
Jeremi: So it sounds like your poem is about the emotional swings of election night. How did you feel? How does your poem capture that?
Zachary: Well, it talks about how some candidates that you really want to win don’t win. But then some that you don’t expect to win, win. And it’s really a swing. Especially after all the stress of not knowing what’s going to happen and it finally happens and it’s hard to make sense of it for the first time.
Jeremi: Right. And they’re mixed results, right? That’s a good point for us to go to our experts here. Bryan, you were following this obviously very closely. What should we make of the results?
Bryan Jones: You know, I think one of the best lines that I read about the evening was it was kind of a choose your own adventure of the news that you wanted. Where almost whatever way you wanted to interpret the results you could spin it to your base. The Senate is going to go farther right by at least two, depending on what happens in a couple of the Senate races that are still under recount. But I think the D’s picking up 37 at this point, as much as at the beginning of the news cycle there was a lot of, “Oh, there’s not going to be a blue wave.” And even after a lot of the results were coming in people were saying, “Well this is what they were expected to do.”
Bryan Jones: Picking up 37 seats in a midterm election is almost unprecedented. Like it is as high of a turnover as you’ve seen. I think the last time was ’06 and the wave of George Bush had characterized, that was a thump. So you’ve had a situation where there is a big change.
Bryan Jones: So you saw some really interesting things happen nationwide where I think the right did end up going a little bit farther right. I think the Republican caucus is probably more Trumpian in nature now because I do think a lot of the moderate lost their elections. I’m glad that there are still some moderates but I think that with everything that’s happened recently, having the House be blue and having some congressional oversight on the executive branch, is a great thing.
Jeremi: Right. So we will actually have mixed government now.
Bryan Jones: We will. And having Adam Schiff and Eddie Johnson involved as being chair people of their committees, that’s a pretty big change as it relates to this bicameral governance.
Jeremi: Gotcha. Jim, is that accurate for thinking about Texas in particular?
Jim Henson: Well, I mean, I think Texas fits into that mosaic in an interesting way. Texas isn’t like the deeper red states and it’s hard to remember that, I think, in some ways. A place like North Dakota where Heidi Heitkamp lost in the Senate race, what we saw in many of those states was the red states getting redder and we didn’t see that in Texas. I mean in Texas we saw a different dynamic. I think because Texas is different.
Jeremi: Right.
Jim Henson: In a lot of important ways that are fairly obvious. I mean we’re bigger, most importantly we’re more urban. We do have a foundational conservative political culture that in my view, promises that we’re likely to get more competitive but never quite turn blue. I think reasonable people can disagree about that.
Jim Henson: So I think what we saw, because Texas is so big and so varied, was almost like a microcosm of what we saw in the country overall. Where Democrats extended their urban dominance in Texas out into critical areas of the suburbs. But the Republican party was able to maintain, more shakily this time, their overall dominance in the rural and exurban areas in the farther regions of the city.
Jim Henson: In an interesting way there’s all this lur about Texas being separate from the rest of the country. And I always laugh. It’s a reliable laugh line in talks to say, “I’m here to remind you Texas is part of the United States.” And in some ways, Tuesday nights, Texas looks like a microcosm of the country.
Jeremi: Right. Or even a bellwether in certain ways, right?
Jim Henson: Yeah maybe. I mean I think that’s a little more complicated. But yes.
Jeremi: Right. So Bryan was referring to sort of divided governor or mixed government. Are we going to see something more like that in Texas?
Jim Henson: Well, not right away. We were talking before the podcast started, what we saw was an erosion of the advantage that the Republican party holds. Particularly in the lower chamber of the state House where the Republican party flipped no Democratic seats. And in fact, the Democratic seats that were supposed to be … Or only one or two that were supposed to be in danger, the Democratic incumbents won large.
Jim Henson: On the other side the Democrats flipped 12 seats from Republican. So from Republican to Democrat you still have a pretty big majority in the House. But there are signs of attrition. And the statewide ballot, what you saw were lower victory margins for all of the Republicans statewide officials. Everybody escaped Democratic challenges. Obviously most prominently Ted Cruz, who beat Beto O’Rourke, but only by three points. So we’re not at the point where we’re seeing signs of institutional progress, but I’m working on a piece right now where you can kind of see a more competitive party system on the horizon.
Jeremi: Right. And Bryan, do you think that these competitive races are going to have an immediate effect on policy making?
Bryan Jones: I absolutely hope so. I think part of where I think we’ve gotten so that things have become so polarizing and so partisan and so essentially tribal when you think about issues. If you know that to get reelected the next time you’re going to have to have a more moderate view just going and playing up to the base. The red meat offerings of going extreme on an issue, I’m hopeful that comes back and people remember it’s not just that they’re trying to get a small portion of the populus to vote for them and agree with them, but it’s actually they’re representing the entirety of the voting populus that elected them. And if that’s the case and we can remember that and it does become more competitive, I think that you start to have a little bit different policy. Especially as it relates to restoring some of the norms and protecting the ideals that make United States and Texas so great.
Jeremi: And are those the kinds of Democrats who are elected?
Bryan Jones: I think so. I think if you look nationally that the hardcore side on both sides had a really rough night. I think that’s a good thing. It’ll be interesting. There’s a couple of things from a national macro perspective that’ll be really interesting to watch as well, that I don’t think are making as much of an impact today as they will in two, four years.
Bryan Jones: Michigan passed an overwhelming modification to voter rights. Florida passed a Prop Four that restored disenfranchised felons to having the right to vote.
Jeremi: Right. That’s hundreds of thousands of voters.
Bryan Jones: I think 1.3 million voters.
Jeremi: Wow.
Bryan Jones: So between those two things I think there’s some macro trends that are really interesting. And quite honestly, I hope that more states do what Michigan did and make it easier for people to vote. Listening to the last podcast about how difficult and how important it is to vote, we really should be trying to make it where … I think we had 114 million people nationwide vote. I think it was the highest percentage since 1970. I think Texas had 52.7, something like that, percent vote.
Bryan Jones: So people showed up for the first time in a big drove. But if we can make that where it was even easier to vote and get more people out there, I think hopefully that continues to see the trend of moving people towards what we see as kind of these moderate individuals that are still passionate about their issues.
Jeremi: Right.
Bryan Jones: But able to understand there is nuance and not just a binary outcome.
Jeremi: Right. Jim, do you agree? Do you see us moving in that direction?
Jim Henson: Well I mean I think progress is uneven. We were talking about the … I’ve been a professor in a wet blanket the last couple of months. I’m still-
Jeremi: You mean last couple of years.
Jim Henson: [crosstalk 00:10:56] maybe having trouble shifting gears. But no, I mean look, I think that the things that Bryan is talking about are important developments. They’re moving in the right direction. I think there’s still a bit of sorting out to do as we see how people behave and what is clearly going to continue to be a very partisan geographically divided … Tribal is the word we’re hearing a lot now. I kind of go in and out about using that.
Jim Henson: But I do think that there is a long conversation that’s been going on and is gaining momentum about making it easier to vote. About revisiting some of our institutional practices like redistricting. That maybe have gotten a little bit long in the tooth in terms of our arrangements. And that there are ways of doing that … There are arguments for that but I think it is still an argument, as we’re seeing in Georgia right now. I mean Georgia in some ways is the most rarefied example of just how hard that discussion can be, particularly in certain parts of the country and in certain parts of environments.
Jeremi: Right. And of course, as our listeners know, this is an old story. This is actually part of our history. We inherit this. This is not something new right now. Jim, what about the new kinds of voters and new kinds of people in office? Especially at the local level. Does that make a difference?
Jim Henson: Yeah I think it does. Particularly in states that have been lopsided. Whether Democratic or Republican. I think local offices where you recruit candidates and where candidates actually learn about governance and civic engagement at the ground level. I tell my mind not to single anybody out. But in an age where we’re looking for celebrities to solve our problems, I’m one of these guys … I love mayoral candidates, for example. It’s almost a bias I have to control. When I see a mayor running for office I see somebody that has run things, knows how things work, has had to make compromises and settle almost habitually by definition for things they don’t want.
Jim Henson: So yeah, I think those local channels are vital to us. Getting a little bit back on track frankly.
Jeremi: Right. And those are the spaces where people are actually doing the bipartisan problem solving.
Jim Henson: ‘Cause they have to.
Jeremi: Yeah. They have to. Bryan, do you see this having a deep effect on the presidential election coming up in 2020?
Bryan Jones: I think it is going to be really hard to say right now. I do think that there were some very positive signs that the nation is thinking about things differently. I think for the first time there’s over 100 women that are going to be in Congress. The first two Muslim women ever were elected. Texas, I think, is sending its first Latina. And I think there’s two of them that are going to Congress.
Bryan Jones: So the diversity of our representatives is increasing and I think that’s a good thing. But I think it’s also something that is going to cause some consternation among the voting populus as well. I think that there’s a very big split right now between voting for what is best for the country and voting for what is best for me. I think that’s really playing out in the way that the elections are being talked about. Where there’s a lot of change happening in the United States right now.
Bryan Jones: You are really being asked, “Do you want to protect what has always kind of been the way that it was? Or the way that we’re heading?” To sit there and say two years out gives us an insight, I think it’s a little bit early. I do think that the Midwest, where seven of the eight major races in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, went blue. I think it’s really interesting. I think Florida is always going to be interesting just in the fact that almost … I was really surprised that they passed Prop Four because every election that I’ve ever seen in Florida is 50.01, 49.99. Like they can’t vote for a majority on almost anything.
Bryan Jones: That’s where to get the electoral college becomes really interesting because you have to carry either the Midwest belt or pick up Florida. And now it’s going to be what happens over the next two years and what happens. But I do think the next two years are going to be really important. Not only for the presidential election, but going back to the gerrymandering districts. There was a lot of state Houses and Senates that flipped. And if they’re in control of gerrymandering maybe there’s an opportunity to make it where it is less partisan and more committee driven to say, “Let’s come up with something that is as fair as we could possibly get.”
Jeremi: Right.
Jim Henson: [crosstalk 00:16:08] this point about the two Latina representatives really brings a lot of things together that we’ve already talked about. Because on one hand these are Democratic seats, they’re new, but they’re new members that are replacing O’Rourke in one case, and Gene Green, a longtime liberal from the urban area. But they’re also experienced local officials. Both Verona Escobar and Sylvia Garcia came up through local government-
Jeremi: Just as he was speaking before.
Jim Henson: Exactly. So they’re both that channel. But they’re also a different kind of representative than we’re seeing dominating the new cycles and the discussion you were talking about. Some of the kind of people more progressive wing of the Democratic party. Both Escobar and Garcia will be relatively to the left of the Democratic party. But they’re really not part of this, quote-unquote, “new breed of candidate” that just jumped in because they were angry about Donald Trump or energized. No, these are people that have been engaged in politics and worked up within the system for the last decade or more.
Jeremi: And they’re likely to work well with Nancy Pelosi, in fact. Right?
Jim Henson: Yeah, they’re not going to be … They’ll be new to Congress and that’s a move up. But they’re not going to be green.
Bryan Jones: There is a very youth driven … In politics obviously “youth” in air quotes because it’s not necessarily that these are young people. But they’re new and especially what we’ve seen over the last 15 years in federal politics is that people haven’t stepped down. So the average age of our representatives has inched up. Especially on national elections, so presidential elections, the candidates have been becoming older and older. And I do think that some of the excitement that we saw for some of the candidates, Beto and others, there’s this youthful rise of saying, “Okay, the next generation of leaders is coming.” And I think that’s inspiring where it’s not just the same people. But it’s new faces, new energy coming up.
Jeremi: Absolutely. And new faces in terms of diversity and certainly in terms of youth. What a lot of students ask me, Jim, is how they can make sense of what looked like two contradictory phenomena. On the one hand there’s this positive story of new kinds of people who represent different communities. Latina, African American, women, more than 100 women in Congress now. On the other hand there’s so much more evidence of racism. It’s hard to look at the Florida race without thinking that in the end of the fact that Andrew Gillum was African American cost him, even though he was ahead in the polls.
Jeremi: To look at the race in Georgia. And those who won in Texas as well. So how do we make sense of this? How are we becoming more racist and less racist at the same time?
Jim Henson: Well I think we have to remember that there’s the underlying structure and then there’s what’s revealed in what we see in front of us. I also think that the essence of what we’re seeing frankly in the White House right now and the movement that has gathered and is most enthusiastic about Donald Trump, is a very reactive movement. It’s been pent up and it’s reactive against much of the progress that we’ve made in the country in the last 50 or 60 years.
Jim Henson: I’m very influenced and kind of persuaded by the political philosopher, Cory Robbins, understanding of what is most continuous about the heart of the most conservative of our politics. And there is a reaction against political change and the challenge to hierarchies. I think we’re in the middle of a pushback that was given voice and energized but not started by the current president. I think the president … This is one of those areas where as much as Donald Trump in the White House as an active agent now that he’s there, this is an area in which Donald Trump was not the cause of anything. He was the effect.
Jim Henson: So when students ask me about that, that’s what I say. These are things that are unresolved issues and it’s an ongoing process to… whatever figure of speech you want to use. Whether it’s the perfectibility of the constitution or the way that liberalism develops over time—
Jeremi: Its protean character. (laughs)
Jim Henson: Yes, exactly. Choose your metaphor or choose your figure of speech. That’s where those contradictions come from and those things that seem like contradictions, those tensions are what propel us. That propulsive force meets resistance and that’s where we are right now in my view.
Bryan Jones: I think the percentage of people that have fallen through that racist camp is actually relatively small. The problem that we have right now is they have been empowered to become vocal. They are taking advantage of that. I think Gillum had a great line where I’m not saying you’re racist. I’m saying the racist belief that you are. I think that was a spot on line because you see people like David Duke all the sudden coming back out from the rock that they live under and making comments and endorsing policies and encouraging their base, albeit small, to step up and become vocal and loud and cause issues. I think that does skew a lot of things.
Bryan Jones: I do think that there are big macro changes beyond racism that are causing the Republican party to try to figure out what its identity is.
Jeremi: I’m sure it’s correct, as both of you said, that this is a relatively small group that’s expressing these extreme views. But I think the concern many have is that our political structure has disproportionally empowered that. So that’s really the question I wanted us to close on. ‘Cause I think it’s the big question, right? Did the results in this election give us reason to believe that our political structure is adjusting to empower other voices rather than these minority voices that have seemed to hijack our politics for the last few years? Or should we expect ourselves to be still stuck in this space? And how should we think about that?
Jim Henson: Yes. Look, I’m on a small email list with a group of aging white liberals who all played poker together for 20 years. One of the more dour among us Wednesday morning was really down. He was just saying, “I see that there’s been some change but I still feel like I’m poised over the abyss.” What I basically said was, “The best I think I can tell you is that you are still poised over the abyss but yesterday we gained a guard. It’s a little less likely that … You’re either going to be tempted to just leap or that you’re going to accidentally fall.” That’s the way to kind of think about these results.
Jim Henson: So I think institutions, you’re a historian, tend to adjust more often than not slowly with a lag.
Jeremi: Absolutely.
Jim Henson: I would be much more worried had things shifted in such a way or our projections been so off that somehow the Democrats didn’t take hold of the House of Representatives. I say that not because I think the Democrats are going to save democracy, but because I think that institutional foothold is really critical at this time and I don’t expect it to be miraculous. But I do expect it to blunt some of the more negative things that we’ve been talking about.
Jeremi: Right. That makes sense. Bryan?
Bryan Jones: One of the board members of Stand Up Ideas, our sister organization, is Yasa Munk. And Yasa has become an expert on authoritarian government and his comment was that it’s not the first election, it’s the response. It’s the second election. Do you fall further into authoritarian government? Or do you repudiate it to some extent?
Bryan Jones: I think nationally being a plus seven plus eight for the D’s, the exit polls being 55 percent of the populus is not happy with either direction or with President Trump, I think shows that the institution, to some extent, are reacting to an authoritarian government. And saying that it’s time for change and wanting that check in the checks and balances to be there.
Bryan Jones: I think that there’s going to be … I don’t think that this is something that is going to be resolved immediately. I do think there’s going to be a lot of fights that go forward. Even yesterday with the firing of Sessions, the revoking of a CNN reporter’s White House access, you’ve already seen within 24 hours two major, almost constitutional, crises. So I think it’ll be interesting.
Bryan Jones: I think that there are going to be some things that, as we continue to look at the evolution of our democracy and how things play out, I do think the way that the primaries are set up is that we end up with polarizing individuals. I think on the last podcast one of the comments was that they felt they were choosing between the lesser of two evils. I think that’s an outcome of the way that we are designed right now. Some of the changes that California and New Hampshire and Michigan are looking at, to have choice rank ballots or to have jungle primaries, where all the sudden some of these things may change. I think that those are the things that we’re going to need to continue to look at as we evolve.
Bryan Jones: But I do think that as an ecosystem, we at least reacted to what’s happening and started to try to figure out how do we get back to where we should be.
Jeremi: I think these are such great insights. As a historian I’ll just add that historical record leads us to believe people don’t change their votes very often. What makes a difference is when new voters come in. I think what makes me very optimistic as a historian is to see all of these new voters. You both talked about this. And new kinds of candidates.
Jeremi: And of course they didn’t transform the system overnight but they certainly made a huge difference. Take a state like Wisconsin where a new governor is elected with about 30,000 votes. And a lot of that is a 93% turnout in Dane County. Which is the youngest most educated county in Wisconsin. So it does seem to me we’re on the edge of what is probably another civil rights movement of new voters coming in and making a difference.
Jeremi: Zachary, what do you think? How are your friends and-
Zachary: I agree with that but I also think it’s a little … I think there’s some people who voted for Trump and are willing to vote for Democrats for Congress. But I’m not sure if they’re going to be willing to vote against Trump in 2020. I think that’s a little worrying. But also I do agree that there’s a very small minority that are really racist and are voting for Trump because of that.
Zachary: But the problem is there are a lot of people who are willing to overlook that and overlook that support and that base just to help themselves. I’m not sure if this was as big enough of a wave against that to really be heartening.
Jeremi: But are young people … Are your friends excited and optimistic? Or pessimistic?
Zachary: I think a bit of both. I think they’re optimistic about the next two years. And really uncertain about what’s going to happen after that.
Jeremi: That probably characterizes how most of us think. Jim, Bryan, Zachary, thank you so much for your insights. Thank you for joining us on This Is Democracy.
Speaker 1: This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas of Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harrison Lemke, and you can find his music at harrisonlemke.com.
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