Bridging the Political Divide

In 2001, I first gained the right to vote. Since, I have watched as the United States political climate has grown increasingly partisan - and our country seemingly ever more divided. 

My generation, Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996), have come of age in a world far different than any before. We are currently the most diverse adult generation in United States history, yet only a stepping stone to the generation to follow: Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012). 

The reality is that as time marches on, our world - and our nation - is only becoming a more globally connected and diverse collection of people and ideas. Yet politically, we seem more entrenched than ever. Destined to be labeled in the United States in a mostly binary fashion:

Democrat OR Republican

Liberal OR Conservative

Left OR Right

With that attitude in mind, every four years we watch and wait on election day as votes are counted across the country and our UNITED STATES slowly divides. Each state, each county, is painted RED or BLUE. But, how true is that representation of our nation?

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Let's start by looking back at the most decisive election victory in recent history - the 2008 nomination of President Barack Obama. President Obama won the popular vote by a 7.27% margin, and the electoral college 365 (Obama) to 173 (McCain). The electoral map of our country was displayed traditionally as it always has been:

And on election night, the world watched as our country was dissected: slowly broken into smaller and smaller segments, until what unifies us was overwhelmed by highlighting what divides us. 

However, illustrating the electorate in either of these ways is not only divisive - pitting Red against Blue - but also misleading. As someone who specializes in data and analytics, I want to use data*  to paint a picture and encourage us all to look at our political maps in new ways:

*all visuals created by the author using actual voter data courtesy of the MIT Election Lab, not polling data.

1. People vote, not land. 

The conventional map (above) infers that each county has an equal weight on the outcome of the election. However, we know this is not true. This is not intended to spark a rural vs urban vote debate (more on that in a coming blog), but to recognize that the number of votes, not the physical size of the county or state, decides elections.  Election maps would be more informative if they reflected this and visualized the voting population as well as the local result. 

For example, in the 2008 election if we placed a dot on each county that correlated (a) size of the dot to the number of votes cast, and (b) color to how far democratic or republican the result was leaning on a scale from dark blue to dark red:

This more informative map is a much more complex representation of the data. It may better reflect the decisive nature of the vote. However, we cannot divorce our natural emotional response to a visual from the data: size can infer importance. This may lead some voters, some regions, to feel even more marginalized. We must be cautious and cognizant of that fact, for in reality every single vote is equally important (stay tuned for a future article on the electoral college and why you should care). 

2. While election outcomes are binary (win or lose), the true vote is a spectrum. 

Election maps would be less divisive if they reflected the attitude of the people, not just the absolute result. While the election process is "winner takes all", the process of governing after the election is anything but. The traditional binary representation simply does not have the capacity to reflect how Americans vote on a spectrum. If we instead color our map by how wide the margin of victory was in each county, we see that there is far less dark blue (high margin Democratic victory) or dark red (high margin republican victory). Instead, even in the most decisive victory in recent history, we see far more light blue or light red than either extreme: 

This result can be interpreted in one of two ways:

The country is far more divided than united: in most areas of the country it was a close race and therefore there is no overwhelming consensus on who, how or where to lead.

OR 

The country is a melting pot: we are not discrete geographic blocks of  Democrats and Republicans. Rather, Liberals and Conservatives live and work side by side throughout our country and we must govern accordingly.

The reality is that while we may see a growing geographic divide, our country and our ideals lie on a spectrum - a tendency to be more united, than divided. And if we allow ourselves to visualize this, that can bring both winners and losers a further sense of belonging:

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So why does this matter? Visuals are powerful! 

The visual we all see on election night helps set the tone for the next four years. While the democratic process is fueled by competition, democracy requires balance and participation. We can choose either to balance one another by ratcheting up rhetoric and offsetting through extremes, or we can move towards compromise as we learn from one another. We can choose to exercise our right to vote, or have the loudest voice by silencing others. The choice is ours, and we exercise our right to choose by voting.

In 2008 and 2012, the country chose a candidate of hope. 

In 2016, a candidate of change.

In those elections, what we showed clearly was that we all agree that the status quo is not acceptable. What we do not agree on is what needs to change. It is no secret that the current political process has left many in our electorate (the people entitled to vote in our country) to feel increasingly unheard and frustrated. Viewing our country by the traditional lens of RED or BLUE, or more often RED vs BLUE, and not by a spectrum is part of the problem. 

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In the 2020 election, the people have now chosen to elect a candidate who campaigned on a message of unity and bipartisanship. A candidate who wants to represent the entire spectrum. With the largest voter turnout in recent history, our country voted for a period of healing and unification.The work to bring that vision to reality - to unite our country - rests not only on the president elect: it rests equally on our shoulders. The "hard work" that lies ahead is equally up to the government as it is to the people. It is equally the responsibility of each and every individual in this country. It is now our choice to make: do we the people work together to bridge our divides and unite our country? 

We must all as individuals be once again willing to listen to our neighbors near and far, be willing to promote civility and engage in civil discourse, and be willing to come together to help our country heal - moving not only forward, but upward. 

We must stop seeing one another as simply RED or BLUE, but rather all as fellow Americans.

Do not leave the job of uniting the country solely up to elected politicians: start doing your part at home today. The election may be over, but the "hard work" is just beginning...