Editor’s note: This was first published by CharterFolk.
Aside from my day job leading an education reform organization, I’m also a political junkie. I poured over polling and early vote data leading up to the presidential election and read analysis from politicos on both sides in order to paint a complete picture of the state of the race. I came to a simple conclusion: Donald Trump was in a very good position to win the election and the country was in the midst of an unmistakable political realignment.
When I shared this conclusion with my progressive friends and colleagues, most of their responses landed somewhere between surprise and shock. They told me the vibes for Vice President Harris’s campaign were great and that she had all the momentum. The data, however, told a very different story.
First, let’s level set. I’m no fan of Donald Trump. I’ve been appalled by much of his rhetoric and behavior since he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his first run for president. His attempts to overthrow his 2020 election loss were inexcusable. The riot at the Capitol—spurred on by his inability to accept defeat—was a dark day in American history. I don’t think he is a good example for my two sons who are just now becoming interested in current affairs and politics. People I care about are genuinely terrified for the next four years, and I’ve already heard from school leaders who are worried about the impact of the new administration on undocumented students.
This piece, though, will focus on what led to Trump’s decisive victory, the potentially earth-shattering political realignment happening before our eyes, and why education reformers should respond to the election with some critical self-reflection.
So here we go…
A 2002 book called The Emerging Democratic Majority was interpreted by many Democratic consultants to mean that the left-leaning “Rising American Electorate” of Hispanics, young people, women, and college-educated urban professionals would usher in a permanent Democratic majority. In other words, “demographics is destiny.” This thinking led Democrats to pursue a strategy of identity politics that further balkanized the electorate. It took two decades to fully realize it, but it is now clear that strategy has backfired.
In contrast to the conventional wisdom of Trump’s political appeal, he didn’t win this election by merely increasing his support from rural White voters. He won it because he made massive gains in traditionally deep blue areas. Trump’s biggest improvements compared to 2020 came from communities with large Hispanic populations and diverse Democratic Party bastions like New York, New Jersey, and California. In other words, Republicans are beginning to win over the very people the Democrats once thought would lead them to an unbreakable political majority.
According to exit polls, Trump and the Republicans received 46 percent of the vote from Hispanics and a 55 percent majority of the vote from Hispanic men. One-in-four Black men voted for Trump. He led Republicans to their best showing with Black voters in forty-eight years, best showing with young voters in twenty years, and best ever showing with Hispanic voters. Trump won voters who make less than $50,000 per year, while Vice President Harris won voters who make over $100,000. Trump easily won voters without a college degree and Harris easily won college-educated voters. In contrast, the Democrats increased their vote share with White college-educated voters.
The emerging Democratic coalition is increasingly affluent and college-educated, while the Republican coalition is increasingly working class and multiracial. Even religious minorities are no longer reliably voting for Democrats as evidenced by only 20 percent of Muslims voting for Vice President Harris.
The easy thing for progressive-minded CharterFolk to do would be to exclusively blame Trump’s decisive victory on racism and sexism. There’s no denying that racism and sexism are part of the equation and impact our politics, institutions, and everyday life. We should also recognize how that analysis is incomplete and can’t fully explain the results of this election and the accelerating political realignment in America and other Western democracies.
A big reason Democrats lost is they spent four years telling the majority of voters that their everyday reality wasn’t real. They insisted, for example, that inflation actually wasn’t a concern even when polling and common sense clearly said that President Biden’s standing was negatively impacted early in his presidency by high inflation (as well as the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan). His approval rating never recovered, severely impacting Vice President Harris’s chances of winning the election from the minute she announced her candidacy.
Democrats promised the American people that President Biden was up to the task of being president until he was eighty-five even when a majority of his own voters saw with their own eyes that he clearly wasn’t.
Democrats continued to eschew school choice in favor of blind support of teachers unions even when Black, Latino, and low-income voters overwhelmingly support it and public schools continue to produce subpar results, especially in the wake of the pandemic when Democratic cities kept schools closed for far too long.
Democrats insisted the border was secure even when Americans of all races and political persuasions disagreed. They also staked out unpopular culture war positions and then failed to respond when Trump cynically—but effectively—exploited them.
Democrats have inexplicably stopped understanding how to talk to everyday people. Progressives for years have insisted on using terms like “Latinx” when only 4 percent of Hispanics actually use it, and 75 percent of Hispanics who have heard of the term say it shouldn’t be used.
Even some Democratic strategists are beginning to realize that the party “has become increasingly untethered to the concerns of the average voter.” Muslim scholar and Washington Post Editorial Board member Shadi Hamid, far from a Trump supporter, pointedly hit home the problem once it became clear Trump would win the election.
So how does all of this relate to charter schools and the education reform community?
In 2019, researchers set out to measure the political persuasions of those who work within education nonprofits that receive significant funding from large national foundations like the Gates Foundation and Walton Family Foundation. They did this via analyzing the political contributions of staff who worked at Walton and Gates-supported organizations. The results were published in Harvard’s Education Next. They were eye-opening. Ninety-nine percent of political donations from staffers at education reform nonprofits supported by Gates went to Democrats. It was 87 percent at Walton-supported organizations.
This analysis confirmed what all of us already knew but were unwilling to admit: The vast majority of the education reform world is politically homogenous. By definition, we’re also almost universally college-educated. As a result, we live in a professional and cultural bubble and run the risk of not truly understanding the diverse communities we serve.
More Hispanic students attend charter schools than any other racial or ethnic group, and a large majority of charter students are low-income. Given that these are two of the demographic groups that are leaving the Democratic Party at the fastest rates, it raises the question: How well does our politically homogenous sector reflect the actual diversity and cultural values of the students and families we serve? Are we unknowingly alienating the very families that we wake up every day wanting to help?
If you’re in the education reform community, you know we’ve mastered the art of signaling that we’re part of the educated elite. We use jargon that would be unrecognizable outside of our bubble. We know what political positions to highlight to signal we’re on the right team. I know I’m guilty of it. But most charter school families don’t have time for our virtue signaling. They’re just trying to get by in a world that often seems stacked against them.
So what can education reform organizations do to break out of our political bubble? Here are a few ideas.
- Recognize that many of the country’s fastest growing charter sectors are in blue cities in red states. We must deeply understand the power map of our communities and build political coalitions that are conducive to accomplishing our goals. In many places, that means it’s critical to build strong relationships on both sides of the political aisle. This gets much harder when politically homogenous people within an advocacy organization craft messaging and policies that only appeal to one slice of one side of the political spectrum.
- Consume a balanced media diet. For all intents and purposes, the “mainstream media” is dead. Most people now get their information through highly segmented means—self-reinforcing social media algorithms, podcasts that appeal to specific demographic groups, and increasingly segregated peer interactions. Leaders at any organization should be intentional about consuming information from a variety of sources. My personal strategy is to read as much, or more, from sources with which I disagree as I do from outlets that will reinforce my existing beliefs.
- Examine hiring practices to ensure viewpoint diversity. Imagine all of the potentially qualified people who self-select out of applying for a role after reading a job description, visiting a website, or conducting other research on an organization. We should ensure our organizations are inviting places for talented and passionate people who hold a variety of political persuasions, upbringings, and viewpoints. We should also be careful not to explicitly or implicitly screen for adherence to political dogma that isn’t central to our organization’s mission.
- Encourage respectful debate on thorny issues. Our organizations should be respectful and inclusive places where healthy debate is encouraged. Are certain mission-critical topics off limits out of fear of upsetting the apple cart? Is language policing so fierce that it inhibits spontaneous and genuine discussion? Are concerns swept under the rug out of fear of retaliation? Do political or viewpoint litmus tests stifle challenging the status quo or create an unhealthy cancel culture?
- Seek feedback from students, families, and those outside our bubble to ensure our approach and language resonate. A couple years ago, I conducted an audit of our website at the urging of a few politically diverse supporters. I realized that some of my language, while well intended, primarily resonated with social-justice minded progressives that dominate nonprofits. The language was not only off-putting to reasonable folks of a variety of political stripes, but it could also be seen as out of touch with the very families we claimed to serve.
The charter movement is at a crossroads and already faced significant challenges long before the 2024 election. I offer these thoughts because we all share the same drive to strengthen our communities through creating and strengthening high-quality schools.
When it comes to education, this election was about much more than trying to figure out who will serve as the next Education Secretary or what Trump’s election will mean for charter school policy. I hope it was a wakeup call for those of us who sometimes take for granted the richly diverse communities that make up the backbone of American society.
And I hope education reformers take note of the accelerating racial and ethnic political depolarization underway in our country and what it means for the credibility and impact of our own intuitions as we strive to become a multiracial, multicultural democracy where everyone has a fair shot at the American dream.
