Editor's Note: This conversation on the 2024 election originally published on Divided We Fall. It features MWR Strategies President Michael McKenna and Rev. Dr. Teresa Smallwood of the Public Theology and Racial Justice Collaborative at Vanderbilt Divinity School. It was republished on IVN with permission from Divided We Fall. Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash.

Elections Reflect, Not Change, Public Sentiment

By Michael McKenna – President, MWR Strategies

In the United States, elections–and the governments they produce–are lagging indicators of public sentiment. Elections simply provide a quantitative measure of what the voters believe. The governments that emerge from elections merely establish order and discipline with respect to those policies and approaches that have already been emotionally and intellectually pioneered and adopted by the American people.

John Adams captured this relationship between sentiments and action when he noted that long before the first shot at Lexington: “The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the Minds and Hearts of the People.” Similarly, the country was already divided by the time the shooting started at Fort Sumter. And the majority of the people had already made up their minds about civil rights long before John F. Kennedy’s assassination effectively assured the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In practice, this means that elections themselves aren’t really that important; they simply measure existing sentiment. 

Checks and Balances Also Play a Role

Moreover, the fortunate reality in the United States is that any single election–no matter how inflated with import by the contestants and observers–is almost never definitive. Power is diffused between branches and levels of government as well as temporally, with different offices being elected (or appointed in the case of the judiciary) at different times. All of that is intentional and designed specifically to ensure that the government remains a servant (albeit a troublesome one) and not a master.

The other practical reality that flows from this byzantine arrangement is that the winning side of any election usually winds up disappointed because they don’t get everything they wanted, and the losing side winds up pleasantly surprised that things didn’t turn out as bad as they feared.

Many Elections Are Promoted as the Most Important Election

The winners and losers are always quite certain that victory, in whichever election is happening, will bring significant and enduring changes to the nation. They are usually wrong. It is important to recognize what politics and elections are and what they aren’t. They are not about the soul of the nation. They are not about healing anything. They are not some grand statements about the arc of justice. Elections are simply about how we as a society decide who gets to use the coercive power of the state to encourage some activities and discourage or outlaw other activities, and, as noted previously, are mostly just a measurement of sentiments already held by the citizens.

Each election is sold as the most important election in the history of the Republic. Obviously, all of them cannot be, and probability suggests that this one won’t be either. Political defeats are temporary, but so are political victories, and they should be treated as such.

This Election Could Fundamentally Change the Form of the U.S. Government

By Rev. Dr. Teresa Smallwood – Public Theology and Racial Justice Collaborative, Vanderbilt Divinity School

Elections are very important. The winner of the upcoming 2024 can ensure that this nation remains democratic, rather than slip further into an autocratic rule. The next president of the United States will have the power to appoint Supreme Court Justices and many other key governmental appointments. And, fundamentally, the election will either preserve or destroy the fabric of this nation and continued rule by the will of the people. 

Attempts to Limit Voting Rights Are a Sign of the Election’s Importance

Elections give the people of a nation the ability to choose their representatives in all branches of government. If the power to elect was not vitally important, why have we seen such a concerted effort to dial back voting rights? In Arizona, Oklahoma, and South Carolina people are being purged from the voting rolls. Arizona and Mississippi have legally imposed restrictive documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration. Texas imposed restrictions for people who need help voting because of limited English proficiency. Iowa’s voter suppression law increases voter purges from the rolls, limits early voting, limits the ability to vote by mail, and closes the polling places earlier on Election Day. Georgia’s law makes it illegal to give voters a bottle of water while they wait in long lines to vote, and it gives partisan officials power to seize control of local elections. We are witnessing the worst insurgence of voter suppression laws in this country since the era of Jim Crow, when legalized segregation and discrimination denied African Americans the right to vote, work, and be educated. Voting rights matter because elections matter.

Elections have the Power to Move a Nation – Forward or Backward

The attack on voting rights suggests that most people see the right to vote as important. Those who wish to limit people’s voting power are clearly afraid of what elections have the capacity to do: let the majority speak! The rule of law gives every citizen the right to participate in government. Without the right to vote, “we the people” lose our ability to weigh in and form our collective political will as a nation.

When the first shot was fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, it initiated a Civil War with the subsequent loss of many lives and limbs. Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard and his troops occupied the fort for the next four years. It was an era of unprecedented anarchy as states seceded from the Union. Elections preserve the right of the people to participate in their collective governance, instead of be lorded over by dictators and tyrants. Let’s not go back to the Civil War era, let’s move our country forward.

The Strength of the American System Far Outweighs the Power of One Election

By Michael McKenna – President, MWR Strategies

Yes, elections are indeed important; they give one of our fellow citizens powers far beyond those of mortal men for a very short time. At the same time, it is essential to recognize the strength of the system itself, which diffuses power across various institutions (courts, states, local governments, Congress, government agencies, and the presidency) and at different times, makes it impossible for any one person or group of people to “slip” us into an autocracy.

Under the system as constructed, however, it is possible that voters might take it upon themselves to reform, renew, and recalibrate the relationships between governmental institutions. To characterize these reforms, especially efforts as anodyne as making sure that those voters are eligible to vote, as sliding toward autocracy seems tendentious.

Ultimately, Voters Make the Rules

If people don’t like the laws that their state representatives passed and their governors signed, ample opportunities remain to change them, not least of which is at subsequent ballot boxes. It’s poor sportsmanship to complain that one is losing because of the duly-established rules; rules that both sides have known and lived by for generations.

Finally, U.S. elections are lagging, not leading indicators of public sentiment. By the time policy preferences appear in legislatures, they are already fully ripened and realized in the minds of voters, mostly because the system requires years of stable policy preferences to change the law or create new laws.

Even the Best System Has Room to Improve

By Rev. Dr. Teresa Smallwood – Public Theology and Racial Justice Collaborative, Vanderbilt Divinity School

Mr. McKenna and I agree that elections are important. We also agree that our system of government has recognized strengths because it is designed to spread the power differential over various institutions. The diversity of institutional commitment is what makes America a democratic nation. Having many voices participate in the decision-making of a civilized nation assures that all people have a chance to let their voices be heard. 

This Election Is an Opportunity to Defend our Democracy

But democracy does not equate to utopianism. No system is perfect, and our democratic way of being is the best in the world. But we should make every effort as citizens of this great democracy to preserve it, defend it, and cherish it. In doing so, we must recognize the right of the people to govern through participatory democracy. 

Elections are that barometer. And while electoral processes do not presently lead as indicators of public sentiment, that is an indication that we need more participation, not less. The way to increase participation is to encourage Americans to vote! The 2020 election had 17 million more people participate than the 2016 general election. That signals to me not only the importance of elections, but also that properly motivated voters take the right to vote seriously. This is how, in Mr. McKenna’s own words, “voters might take it upon themselves to reform, renew, and recalibrate the relationships between governmental institutions.” In so doing, they reaffirm that elections matter. 

About The Authors

Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times and President of MWR Strategies. He worked in the Reagan, Bush, and Trump administrations.

Rev. Dr. Teresa L. Smallwood is a Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate Director of the Public Theology and Racial Justice Collaborative at Vanderbilt Divinity School. She is licensed and ordained to public ministry in the Baptist tradition and is presently an active member at New Covenant Christian Church in Nashville, TN where she serves as Social Justice Minister. She holds a BA degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a JD from North Carolina Central University School of Law, a Master of Divinity degree from Howard University, and a PhD degree from Chicago Theological Seminary.