LEE CARTER: The biggest winner of this election is not who you think
Whether you’re celebrating this week's midterm elections or sniffling into your morning coffee, I have some good news.
And no, it has nothing to do with which party won.
For years, we’ve been told that America is hopelessly divided. That our politics are tribal. That our opinions are fixed, our loyalties inherited, and our minds about as open as a bank on Christmas.
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Democrats vote for Democrats. Republicans vote for Republicans. Independents insist they’re independent while somehow managing to vote for the same party every November.
Persuasion? Forget it.
Why bother making an argument when everyone has already made up their mind?
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Well, guess what?
They haven’t.
And that may be the most encouraging thing to come out of this election.
I’m a researcher and strategist. I spend my life studying what people believe, why they believe it, and what, if anything, might change their minds. I even wrote a book called" Persuasion," which lately has been beginning to sound like a work of historical fiction.
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But I’ll admit something. Watching our politics harden over the past decade, even I began to wonder just how persuadable America really was.
We seemed to have reached a point where facts were filtered through party affiliation, arguments were judged by who made them, and changing your mind was treated less like intellectual growth and more like treason.
We’ve stopped debating and started diagnosing. Anyone who disagrees with us must be stupid, evil, brainwashed, or watching the wrong cable news channel.
Then voters did something wonderfully inconvenient.
They reminded us that they are human beings, not permanent members of political teams.
Look at Michigan. Look at Texas. Look at Kansas.
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Different states. Different political traditions. Different electorates. But each offers a reason to question the assumption that political identity is destiny.
Candidates can still reach people who weren’t necessarily inclined to listen. An argument can still break through. A message that speaks to something voters genuinely care about can still make them reconsider what they thought they knew.
Of course, an election result alone doesn’t tell us precisely how many voters changed their minds and how many different voters simply showed up. As a researcher, I feel compelled to point that out, even at the risk of ruining a perfectly good argument.
But the larger lesson remains.
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Political coalitions are not permanent. And voters are not property.
That’s not a flaw in democracy. That’s democracy working.
We’ve spent so much time talking about polarization that we’ve started treating it as a permanent condition. As though Americans arrived at the voting booth with their opinions tattooed on their foreheads.
But Americans are more complicated than their party registrations.
They can be conservative about spending and liberal about health care. Frustrated with immigration and worried about government overreach. Loyal to a president and disappointed in his party. Angry at Washington and hopeful about their hometown.
They can hold two seemingly contradictory ideas at once.
Imagine that.
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And most importantly, they can change their minds.
Not necessarily because someone shouted louder. Not because a campaign spent another $50 million telling them the other guy was terrible. And certainly not because a celebrity told them what to think.
But because someone made an argument that connected with their lives.
That is what persuasion actually is.
It’s not tricking people. It’s not manipulating them. It’s not finding the magic words that make people abandon their values.
It’s finding the truth in your argument that connects with the truth in someone else’s life.
And when that happens, something remarkable becomes possible.
A voter can cross a party line. A lifelong loyalist can reconsider. Someone who has tuned out politics altogether can decide that this time, something is worth paying attention to.
None of this means America is suddenly united. Far from it.
We still disagree, often fiercely. We still retreat into our corners. We still have a remarkable talent for assuming the worst about people who vote differently from us.
And Thanksgiving dinner is still going to require a seating chart and possibly a referee.
But disagreement is not the same thing as permanence.
And division is not the same thing as hopelessness.
The Founders didn’t build a country on the assumption that everyone would agree. They built one in which disagreement could be argued, debated, challenged, and ultimately resolved, at least temporarily, by the people.
A country of ideas and ideals.
A country where arguments are supposed to matter.
Where leaders have to earn support rather than simply inherit it.
Where no party owns a voter forever.
And where the best ideas have a chance to win, provided someone can make the case for them.
That’s the part I hope we don’t miss in all the post-election analysis.
Because if minds can change, then our future isn’t predetermined by our divisions.
If voters can be persuaded, politicians have a reason to listen.
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If people are willing to reconsider what they believe, the rest of us have a reason to keep talking to one another.
And if an election can surprise us, perhaps our neighbors can, too.
So, whether your candidates won or lost, whether you’re popping champagne or reaching for the tissues, take a little comfort in this:
America isn’t as stuck as we thought.
People are still listening. Arguments still matter. Ideas can still change minds.
And in a country that has spent years being told it’s hopelessly divided, that might be the most hopeful election result of all.
As someone who wrote a book about persuasion, I have to admit I’m particularly relieved.
I really wasn’t looking forward to writing the sequel, "Nobody’s Listening."