Travelling to and around America is always fascinating. The fake reality created by the media and Hollywood quickly dissipates as you discover that Oscar Wilde was more right than you could possibly have imagined when he said: “Britain and America are two countries divided by a common language”. In my experience, because Brits speak the same language and consume American cultural products by the screenload, we assume that we understand Americans. We don’t. We also don’t speak the same language in materially important ways–but more on that another time.
In recent years, I’ve had the great privilege of seeing parts of America that even most Americans have never been to: places like Oklahoma City, El Paso, Fort Worth, Tulsa, Utah, Colorado and Virginia. I also regularly visit the ones even most Brits could find on a map like Florida, Washington, New York, Austin and Los Angeles. One day I will write a detailed breakdown of all the differences I see between our cultures but now with an election looming I thought it would be worth focusing on the smallest demographic in American politics today: the undecideds.
There are several reasons this group is fascinating. First, while they are not the only factor in the election–with voter turnout for each party also being crucial–they have a massively disproportionate impact. The election will be decided in a handful of battleground states, each of which will go to Trump or Harris by a margin sometimes as low as a few thousand votes. Second, the undecideds are a microcosm of the broader election. In many ways, they reflect the central arguments America is having with itself, with a degree of honesty that more partisan discussions deliberately conceal.
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Before we address their key arguments, however, we should acknowledge something else happening on both sides of the aisle: the big traitor-heroes and what they represent. For example, former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, who is supporting Harris, and former Democrats Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. who are both part of the Trump team. Gabbard told me only a few months ago that she is an “independent” but has in the last few days announced that she is joining the Republican Party. Heroes to their new side and traitors to the old, they and others like them represent a fundamental realignment of both parties.
As American journalist Batya Ungar-Sargon explains in one of our amazing upcoming interviews, the Democrats of yesteryear–whose base consisted of working-class Americans—are now the party of the well-educated and the non-working poor. The transformation of the Republican Party has been just as extraordinary and has happened in a much shorter period of time. Few now remember that many of the people who are currently enthusiastically supporting President Trump were not just holding their noses and keeping their support private when he first broke onto the scene; many did not vote for him in 2016! Eight years later, all room for such doubt and equivocation has been squeezed out: you’re either all in for Trump or you’re a Democrat. The Republican Party is Trump’s to do with as he pleases. Whether you think that’s good or bad will, of course, depend on whether you think Trump is good or bad.
In any event, the overwhelming majority of the American electorate has made up its mind. Many have already voted. But there are some who are still undecided, and from my many hushed conversations with them fascinating revelations emerge.
As far as I can surmise, for the undecideds it’s a risk thing. Partisans on both sides refuse to admit this but both candidates bring with them a set of risks. Importantly, the types and probability of risk are not the same. And the risk package you prefer depends largely on a combination of your personality type, material circumstances, and view of America.
The best way to summarise it is to say that many undecideds see Kamala as having a high probability of relatively low-impact negative events, while Trump carries a very low probability of a high-impact negative event. This also explains why many people who have picked a team picked the one they picked. More on that shortly.
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