Perspective: Lessons learned in the 2022 election

Writing as a political scientist, there were a number of significant lessons learned from the 2022 political scene. So who won and who lost?

Sure, the Democrats gained a little in the U. S. Senate and Republicans gained a little in the House of Representatives but democracy gained the most because the black mark against the electoral system was expunged.

The American voting system has been proven clean – no fraud, no cheating, no election stealing. Because Donald Trump had such a big voice on the political scene, he convinced many followers that the 2020 election had been stolen but 2022 heard very few allegations of fraudulent voting.

Secretary of State Al Jaeger knows that the North Dakota voting system is as honest and accurate as it can be, acknowledging that an occasional fool may make a mistake. But that is so rare it is negligible.

Intensive investigations of voting were conducted in several key states – Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia - by Donald Trump’s partisans and found nothing but an occasional fool.

So the idea that elections can be stolen in our democracy is not true. This is critical because the citizenry must believe in the integrity of the voting system otherwise the people who want to overthrow the government are justified.

The re-election of an African-American in one of the former slave states has given more credibility to the role of blacks in American politics. For them, it was a major breakthrough for equality even though the Georgia legislature did what it could to make voting more difficult.

The Republican Party gained a lot when Trump’s leadership was diminished by his erratic behavior. His blessing proved ineffective in the election of his favored candidates.

Because Trump has been diminished, other leaders in the Republican Party with a clear understanding of our political mores will be encouraged to seek the nomination in 2024 in spite of him. So regular Republicans gained a lot.

Liberal partisans are stressed by the conservatism of the Republican Party but it is important o acknowledge that the United States has a very diverse society and this diversity creates competition and controversy that must be resolved in the political process. The word is compromise.

Basically, the political parties represent diverging points of view about serving their constituencies so they engage in a constant battles over their expectations. To maintain the peace, it is important that all of the expectations by negotiated down to a peaceful level.

This was possible until January 6th when a small band of malcontents decided to bypass democracy and overthrow the government by force, justifying rebellion on the false premise that elections were stolen.

The arrest and conviction of over 800 participants assured citizens that their government was still strong enough to remain a democracy. Some of the guilty persons are still looking for chinks in the armor but protectors will be on guard next time around.

A researcher at the University of Chicago interviewed 779 of the culprits after their arrests and found that most could not be lumped with the well-publicized terrorist. Many had jobs and included a fair cross section of our population.

This means that we need to keep looking for the basic causes of the unrest which will probably never be known until participants are psychoanalyzed and root causes are found. That will never happen.

Eric Hoffer, author of True Believer, argued that “true believers” do not function out of reason but out of emotion. He is right. But emotions cannot be changed until their functions are undermined and when opinions are based on emotion they are virtually impossible to understand.

So 2022 was remarkable in a number of ways but democracy won the most.