How many issues were floating around in voters’ heads the weeks before Nov. 3?
Many: COVID-19, the economy, jobs, the environment, presidential leadership, relations with our allies, relations with Russia, North Korea, Iran and China, religious freedom, abortion, the Proud Boys, foreign election interference, mail-in voting, police treatment of minorities (especially African Americans), the southern border, refugees, separating the children of refugee seekers from their families, The Wall, to name a few. I say “a few,” because many voters seem to have their own personal set of issues, large and small, that make up the world as they see it, and it is unique to them. But that can get very complicated, and many other voters simplify the process by picking one big issue to focus on.
Let’s say you pick jobs as your issue. Hang with me on this. You would have been happy last summer because Congress passed a huge jobs bill that enabled thousands of small businesses to survive and supported laid off workers until they could be rehired. Jobs were saved. Your job was saved.
But in August when that money ran out and Congress could not agree on another such bill through September and October, you would have been extremely frustrated by Nov. 3. You might not have voted at all, being equally angry with Democrats and Republicans. Or you might have voted for either party, depending on who you blamed for the congressional stalemate. Let’s say you blamed the Democrats and voted Republican: Trump, Hyde-Smith, and anyone else with an R beside their name.
You satisfied your anger. OK, I guess that’s one thing elections are for: venting. But how will that vote address your issue of jobs? It won’t. The Republicans are dead set against another large bill to help small businesses stay afloat because that will further swell the federal budget deficit. Democrats do want such a bill, but you detest Nancy Pelosi.
Meanwhile, all those other issues did not go away while you were focusing on jobs. Your brother and sister-in-law live in Minneapolis and saw first-hand the fallout from the George Floyd killing and the legitimate need for police reform. Your sister lives in Washington and works for a CIA contractor and has told you how low morale is there since the president publicly announced that he took Putin’s word over the assessments of the intelligence community regarding Russian election interference. And finally, closer to home, your mother has tested positive for COVID-19 and is in the hospital. You note the climbing rates of infection in the state and the acute shortage of ICU rooms due to so many serious cases. You wonder, “Why are cases and hospitalizations spiking? Things were looking better last summer.”
A closer look at our hypothetical single-issue voter, who was understandably frustrated, suggests that she actually had more priorities than the issue of jobs. For example, as a black mother, she has a stake in police reform. She and her husband have a teenage son who could, this very night, make a wrong move (having been stopped for “driving while Black”) and not come home at all. In addition, she respects the knowledge and expertise of her sister in DC and understands her stake in the hard work of the intelligence community in keeping the nation safe. As the loving daughter of a loving mother, she is concerned over the administration’s lack of urgency and competence in bringing the virus under control.
Many times, single-issue voters do not vote in their self-interest, but rather vote in the interest of a political party or a lobbying group or an individual champion. If more Mississippians voted their actual self-interest, they would not support huge tax breaks for corporations, but would vote to invest that money: in public schools, where 95% of the state’s school children go; In improved infrastructure across the state (bridges, roads, parks, high-speed internet); in increased funding for the state Health Department, Department of Mental Health and Department of Human Services; and in expanded Medicaid which would bring quality health care to an additional 200,000 citizens and infuse millions of dollars into the state’s hospitals, many of which are struggling financially.
Ideal citizens look both ways before they cross the street to vote. They look to their own self-interest, and they look to the health and welfare of their community, their neighbors. Voting is a both/and Proposition: what do I need, to make a good life for myself AND what do my community and state and nation need to help us all thrive?
It’s not too soon to be looking toward the election of 2022. Don’t be seduced by one single issue. Vote your self-interest, of course, but also vote, in the words of the Constitution, to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, [and] promote the general welfare.”
Dick Conville is a longtime resident of Hattiesburg and a retired college professor.
