This election does not come
down to a choice between two candidates. It comes down to a choice between two forms of government, blah, blah, blah...
That's how I originally began this post, but the more I thought
about it, the more I realized it's really about a far more fundamental decision: a choice between two perceptions of reality: One based on facts and the other based on something else.
Yes,
that can probably be said to some degree about almost any election. But this one is different, because our perceptions are so polarized, and because so many of us believe in something else.
I've been struggling to understand why so many people I know to be smart, well-intentioned, patriotic Americans would buy into something that for me a reality that is so transparently
un-American.
It's something I've brought up in recent posts, including one in which I asked
readers to help me understand why. I didn't get much of a response, but one reader did reach out to me saying, "We get it – you despise Trump. Enough."
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So I asked him a
follow-up question: "Why don't you despise Trump?"
I didn't get a response.
If you're still reading this post, fear not, I'm not going to spend the rest of it trashing Trump and try to
persuade you that Harris is the right choice. I'm pretty sure any reader of this blog has already made up their mind and there is nothing I could do or say at this point that would change that.
The rest of this post is about the "why."
The history of human endeavor has been written by lots of people who ignored or defied facts and went with their gut to do something that may have
seemed illogical and counter-intuitive, but somehow manifested in success, evolution and ultimately got us to where we are right now.
One of the things that makes us human is our ability to
sometimes tap into irrational things that motivate us to do something we would not have otherwise been able to do. For good, or for bad.
In another recent post, I reported on findings of new research from Ipsos' political tracking team revealing that
voters who got fact-based questions wrong about the main issues in the election leaned markedly in favor of Trump vs. those who got the facts correct, who leaned in favor of Harris.
The second
part of that post reported Ipsos' data correlating that with the media voters used as their primary source for information about the election, and the fact that those who primarily got their
information from conservative news outlets like Fox News Channel, and/or social media, were much more likely to believe the wrong facts.
It's not the first time the Ipsos political tracking
team presented data like that, and I recall in the run-up to the last election, Ipsos' Chris Jackson showed similar data, concluding that American voters were not just divided along factual lines, but
in reality-based ones.
“This is really important to understand,” Jackson said about this same point four years ago, adding, “we’re not even
necessarily talking about the same reality. In a lot of ways, some of us are talking about Mars and others are talking about Venus.”
After more than a decade tuning into the Ipsos'
monthly election updates, I asked the team a somewhat personal question: "Given how close you've been to this, how are you feeling anxiety-wise? Are you experiencing any PTSD?"
To my surprise,
they actually answered it.
"I think we're all hanging in there," said Sarah Feldman, editorial director-U.S. public affairs at Ipsos, adding: "You know, going on our little mental health walks
and getting our little treats to get us through the day, but yes, anxiety is definitely high. It's been a long, long couple of years.
"And a long couple of months. When Chris mentioned that
Harris came on the ticket three months ago, I was like, 'Three months ago? That felt like three years ago at this point.'
"I think we're excited to see what happens. Excited to get the work
done, but it's certainly anxiety-producing for sure."
I asked the question because the Ipsos team has been so relatively dispassionate in presenting what I've regarded as highly professional
research and insights, I was curious given what they know, how they actually felt about it.
Their response caused me to recall my own feelings -- and more importantly, the feelings of others
-- following Trump's original election win in 2016.
Personally, I had a realistic sense that Trump could win, so I wasn't actually surprised when he did, but I immediately began experiencing
feelings of unease in a way I never felt before, because it felt not just like an unfavorable candidate or party won, but because something about our reality had shifted with it.
I remember
immediately hearing similar anecdotes from others, including violent, involuntary physiological reactions like spontaneous vomiting, panic attacks, even hospitalizations. Some weeks later, when I ran
into a professional psychologist, I asked if she was hearing similar things from her patients.
"It's off the charts," she said. "I've never seen anything like it."
The funny thing is,
I know that people on the other side of that reality were probably experiencing opposite feelings: probably feelings of elation, power and "reality" finally being set right for them.
And I
suspect these alternate versions of reality played out to some extent in to 2020's violent insurrection, and fear that they could play out once again this election, regardless of who wins.
Adding to that unease is the sense from pros that it's unlikely the election will even be called on November 5, or maybe not even for days, which will likely have us all twisted in a knot.
I've come to understand and accept that America is a composite of many different versions of reality and that if we really have an exceptionalism, it's that we've managed to coexist for so long --
a Civil War and violent insurrection aside.
So yes, I am endorsing a candidate, her party, and the form of government I want to lead America in the next term, but I'm also endorsing a version
of reality based on the facts supporting that.