OPINION: What do the results of this year’s election tell us?

Having had a few weeks to contemplate the results of the election, aside from the fact that Donald Trump won the presidency, much less is clear.

It seems a truism that the country is politically divided. Trump won almost half of the popular vote, Kamala Harris slightly less. But that truism is less a fact than Trump’s victory.

Much has been written about the national division between conservative and liberal, red and blue, rural and urban, mid-country and the coasts, high school graduates and the college educated, low-income earners and the affluent. Many conservatives have taken delight in the ostensible national turn to the right and the pending limitation of government power and spending, while many liberals have felt it as a crushing blow to aspirations for a more diverse, equitable and inclusive cultural evolution.

But there are in fact numerous areas where Americans agree. According to a 2022 CBS poll, 73% believe teachers should be better paid; 61% believe landlords should be prevented from arbitrarily raising rent; 61% say job security is not a worry; 60% support more spending on public housing; 67% support medical debt forgiveness; 79% have a favorable view of Social Security and Medicare, 76% of Medicaid and 74% of food assistance (SNAP); 64% believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases; and 59% believe the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision should not have been overturned. And there’s agreement on many other fundamental issues.

Historically, presidential politics swing right and left, and what is dismantled by one administration is often reassembled by another. The loosening of eastern aristocratic political dominance by Andrew Jackson’s presidency did not lead to a diminution of executive power. Control of Congress by the enslavers was undone by the creation of the Republican Party. The McKinley tariffs were dismantled in the Progressive reshaping of government by Theodore Roosevelt. Warren Harding’s “return to normalcy,” which facilitated debilitating corporate abuses of people and the economy, generated Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Dwight Eisenhower strengthened Social Security and government regulation of banking rather than ending them. Bill Clinton’s election was in part a rejection of Reaganism while Barack Obama’s was in part a rejection of the two Bush presidents’ Reaganist policies, and Joe Biden’s election a rejection of Trump after his first term. History suggests Trump’s second-term reforms won’t all be permanent.

Results of the state election are as mixed as those nationally, not as clear as Trump’s victory here and Mary Peltola’s loss to Nick Begich III might indicate. As Iris Samuels and Sean Maguire pointed out in these pages, Anchorage voted for Harris while Alaskans elsewhere voted for Trump. In Anchorage, Harris polled a point higher than Trump while statewide Trump outpolled her by 13 points. And Anchorage has sent a delegation to the state Legislature that will work across party lines under coalition leadership in both houses.

Harris was right that America is not going back. The rise of women is permanent; they are not just in politics but in media, in courtrooms and on the bench, in big-time sports, in the cockpits of airliners and in the higher levels of military leadership. The country now has 13 women governors. Twenty-five U.S. senators are women, one-fourth. In seven states this year, voters guaranteed a new right to abortion.

And it’s not just women’s rights. Three states’ voters approved a higher minimum wage. The rise of the Black middle class is permanent, as is the recognition of the resilience and legitimacy of indigenous people and their rights.

Conservatives often emphasize that people should have enjoyment of the rewards of their industry. Liberals would agree. That right is explicitly stated in the Alaska Constitution. Conservatives argue that much taxation is an unwarranted appropriation of what one’s labor has earned. And that individuals should be empowered to manage the conditions of their lives themselves, rather than the government manipulating those conditions. Liberals argue that without government protection, many individuals are vulnerable and are often taken advantage of, both by conditions and by unscrupulous individuals. They believe that only the government has the power to guarantee a level playing field, equal protection and opportunity.

Through the warp and woof, the back-and-forth of our history, the evolution of American culture shows increasing attention to equality of opportunity for all citizens, as examples the end of slavery, suffrage for women, Indian citizenship, Brown v. Board of Education, Indian self-determination. Despite some present appearances, the arc of cultural evolution is progressive, sustaining belief in the rule of law, and moving persistently toward more diversity inclusion, protection of the disadvantaged, and government assistance to better people’s lives. That’s the teleology of American culture.

Steve Haycox is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

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