As pundits, politicians and public commentators intensely debate the election results, I caution against hyperbole and overinterpretation of what was, in reality, a close race, though the margin of victory looks wider than it actually is, due to the special quirk of the electoral college system. This, together with the geographic concentration of party affiliation and just two political parties dominating American politics, has made most of the state-by-state election results mundanely predictable.

Ultimately, U.S. presidential elections are decided by a small group of “swing” voters in a handful of states. Drawing overarching conclusions from an election like this, regarding what issues are most important to Americans, is probably unwise, though everyone seems intent on doing just that!

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That said, and with all the relevant caveats in mind, what can we learn from these choices? Republicans got a new mandate this year, however small. Aside from the presidential race, several seats in both houses of Congress flipped, leading from a slight Democratic control to a slight Republican control.

What drove this? Many hot-button issues were widely discussed this year and probably had a real impact (even if the extent of it is exaggerated by talking heads feverishly pushing their pet theories). One key issue was the economy, as always. The Democrats’ verbal assertions to the contrary, most Americans, are not experiencing any economic recovery. The stock market might be hot, but prices of everyday necessities are record high, and middle-class incomes are stagnant. Many people are concerned about the Democrats’ handling of the unprecedented influx of asylum seekers. Many areas around the country, which were ravaged by widespread riots of 2020, are still struggling with crime spikes and destroyed local businesses and infrastructure. These kinds of problems usually work against incumbents.

Yet, the issue that pundits on both sides of the political divide have been pointing to (gleefully or mournfully, depending on which side the speaker is on) is “wokeness”— a popular catch-all term for liberal identity politics, which is perceived (rightly or wrongly) to have taken over the media and education systems and now dictating many aspects of law and politics. The Democrats have been accused of trying to reengineer public institutions and the national culture based on critical race theory, queer theory, and other postmodern influences. Some schools are reportedly teaching children that being white is inherently morally problematic or that America is irredeemably racist. Many industries are under legal pressure to focus on DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) in their marketing, operations, and workforce hiring and training. These practices are displacing traditional priorities such as profits and customer service, according to critics. Cultural sensitivity training and elaborate codes of “inclusive” speech and behaviour are now a regular feature of professional and academic life.

Transgender rights has been a particularly thorny issue. Ordinary Americans were startled to hear President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson using the term “pregnancy capable people” and replying to the question “what is a woman?” with “I’m not a biologist.” Vice President Harris pledged to provide taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgery to incarcerated people. Democrats generally support people’s right to change the sex designation on their birth certificate and IDs; to play sports in the divisions that aligns with one’s gender identity rather than their biological sex; and to provide gender-identity-based access to previously sex-segregated spaces and services, including college dorm rooms and rape shelters. In some Democrat-led states, prisoners are housed in the facilities for their stated gender identity, even if the declaration of trans identity came only after incarceration. Some schools keep children’s transition secret from their parents. Some clinics give minors hormones without medical evaluation or parental notification. Whatever the correct moral positions on these issues might be, many people feel bombarded by these extraordinary changes being instituted in a top-down fashion by policymakers without the organic social evolution that might have justified them.

Some Anti-wokeness commentators have worried that the arrival of mostly brown-skinned migrants is an attempt to “dilute” the white population and their culture. Many are concerned that public resources are being unaccountably diverted to supporting immigrants, LGBTQ people and racial minorities. There are concerns about public safety being compromised. Are police departments around the country underserving African American neighbourhoods lest they run afoul of a racial-sensitivity standard? Are people afraid to intervene in or even report crimes they see, if the perpetrator is Black? Daniel Penny, a visitor to New York City, is currently on trial for manslaughter and negligent homicide (for causing the death of a man he tried to stop from attacking others on a subway) is repeatedly referred to by the prosecutor as “the white man” –something that would probably be considered racially offensive and lead to a mistrial if he were Black and the victim had been white. These are certainly issues that have animated the public conversation. But how much did they affect people’s voting?

Prominent commentators—like Fareed Zakaria, Maureen Dowd and Mika Brzezinski—have singled out “wokeness” as the pivotal issue that turned many voters against Harris and the Democrats. Democrats in Washington in state governments have been strong adopters and enforcers of DEI rules and some voters may have a vague sense that these are being codified into law and regulations. Veteran political satirist Jon Stewart noted, contrary to the media’s apparent consensus, that the Democrats didn’t make social or cultural issues central to their campaign, focusing instead on things like the economy and the border.

But the point is not that the Democrats explicitly made “woke” issues part of their platform. It’s that their record on social issues, nationally and at the state level, have been what many regular folks might consider too activist. Cynically co-opting the opposite views in campaign ads doesn’t cut it, especially if you’re the incumbent and people are unhappy with where things are. DEI and “wokeness” are, to some degree, things a lot of people are unhappy with. Also, people no longer really trust established political figures in general and Democrats in particular, because of many recent scandals (proven or suspected): Covid pandemic-related censorship of social media; inept handling of law-and-order issues, including the border crisis and anti-police riots; the recent revelation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s practice of ignoring emergency rescue requests from citizens who have pro-Trump yard signs; the overzealous prosecutions of Donald Trump and the Capitol rioters of 6 January 2020; and other such behaviour. For some, the Democrats now stand for a hyper-regulated, over-surveilled, war-mongering society and against traditional American freedoms. Kamala Harris is on record casually referring to free speech as a “privilege” that should be “taken away” from social media operators she deems “irresponsible”. This is shocking to many Americans, for whom few things are as fundamentally American as the near-absolute, inviolable right of speech, free of restraint by government. Harris even went so far as to say that mass communication between people companies that don’t have “oversight or regulation” needs to be stopped. Just a generation ago, this would have been unthinkable coming from a mainstream American politician. To many Americans, it still is.

Here’s my “pet theory”: Given how predictably close the popular vote was, none of these highly contentious issues was individually dispositive. The hardliners who voted for a candidate based on these issues, were already aligned with that candidate based on party affiliation. Others may have voted based on these issues but they live and vote in an entrenched blue or red state, so their vote had no impact. The swing voters in swing states (who effectively decided the election) tend to be much more pragmatic than emotional voters. That’s why they start out undecided and vote for whoever persuades them, as ALL rational voters with common sense should. So, assuming this is an unusually rational demographic, possessing great common sense, I would say, they probably voted after weighing pros and cons of various issues.

That would make them a different kind of “woke” —the kind that has realistic expectations of a fully awake person, not some heady fantasies straight out of dreamland.

The author is a lawyer, writer and editor based in Manhattan, New York