The Other Big Lie

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There is another Big Lie circulating in the country — other than the one about somebody “stealing” the 2020 presidential election — that is just as corrosive to American politics. And this one comes not from the Trumpian right, but from everybody else. Bill Maher gave it voice the other night on his HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher.” Now I like Bill Maher, watch him regularly, and agree with most of what he says. But this is what he said the other night:

“You can hate Trump, but you can’t hate Trump supporters, because they are half the country.”  

The idea that “the country” is equally divided between Trump supporters and Trump detractors is the other Big Lie I’m talking about. It is seldom stated overtly as Maher did the other night, it is so deeply embedded in the conventional wisdom that it is simply an assumption underlying just about every conversation about politics today. But it is not true.

We have a two party system in this country, which means that many ballots end up with two party nominees who get most of the votes cast. The casual observer of this could be forgiven for concluding that most Americans are in either one party or the other, and since most elections are relatively close, that they are evenly and bitterly divided. 

But while we have a two party system, we have a three-part electorate. People not familiar with the workings of politics are alway skeptical when I tell them this, but in every jurisdiction where I have practiced politics over many decades, the registered voters have consisted of one-third Democrats, one-third Republicans and one-third Independents. Yes there are variations of up to several percentage points, but in general the template is accurate. 

It is, in fact, the picture in America as a whole today: in the 2020 election, the registered voters were 33% Democrats, 29% Republicans and 34% Independents. So why do we not see more Independent candidates on national ballots? Two reasons: it is hideously difficult, expensive, time-consuming and complicated to get on the ballot in all 50 states (the process is different in each one) if you are not nominated by one of the two major parties; and Independents are not a block of voters who  share certain basic values and approaches, but a grab bag of people ranging from white-power advocates to environmentalists to people who just don’t give much of a damn. 

 Keep in mind, as well, that the registered voters comprise a hair over 60% of the adult population that is eligible to vote. Thus almost “half the country,” to use Bill Maher’s phrase, is incapable of voting for Trump or anyone else. 

Let us put all these numbers in a row. Let’s assume, for the sake of illustration, that the number of adult Americans eligible to vote is 1000. So 600 of them are registered to vote, 180 as Republicans. Hard support for Trump — people who believe he should be re-elected president, not the people who in general “approve” of him — is running around 55% of Republicans. That would be 110 people.

That’s 10 percent of the country, a very long way from  half. That’s fewer people than claim to have had recent personal contact with Elvis, or have been abducted by space aliens. And those 110 people have scared the crap out of 980 people, convincing them that they — the 110 — are going to bring down democracy, dismantle the government, start a civil war and establish QAnon as the national religion.

Please.

Meanwhile, 600 to 800 of the grownups in the country have been saying they want Medicare for All, a reasonable minimum wage, lower prices for essential medicines, rationa regulation of firearms, access to safe and legal abortions, paid leave for family emergencies, improved access to child care, etcetera.

The country is not bitterly divided on these issues. The oligarchs are.