Lee Hamilton: Most Americans Aren’t Obsessed with Politics

The 2024 election is over, but the arguments about what it means are continuing. Did Donald Trump and the Republican Party win a mandate to govern as they wish? Did Democrats try too hard to appeal to their political base? Or not hard enough?

But drawing conclusions about the meaning of an election, especially about what it says about the American people, is difficult. Most voters simply aren’t that focused on politics. They aren’t obsessed with the latest news from Washington or what the candidates are saying.

As Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear writes in a recent New York Times column, “When most Americans wake up in the morning, they are not thinking about politics.” They are thinking about their jobs, their finances, their next doctor’s appointment. They are thinking about feeding their families and getting their children off to school. They want to know their communities are safe.

“If you are staring at the cost of your child’s prescription and wondering how you are going to pay for both it and your family’s dinner,” Beshear writes, “the offense of the day in Washington, D.C. or the latest crazy thing a politician said just isn’t as important.”

I couldn’t agree more. Those of us who write about government and public affairs often forget that we’re in the minority. For most people, they may follow the news, and most of them will vote; but politics, especially national politics, isn’t at the top of their daily concerns.

One of the first lessons I learned when I was in Congress was that people care deeply about local matters. They pay a lot less attention to national issues. They are even less worried about international affairs. Their concerns are much closer to home. In my district, the experience was the same whether I was visiting with constituents in cafes, speaking to service clubs or meeting with reporters and editors at local newspapers. People, whether they were Democrats or Republicans, were focused on their communities. They wanted to talk about a new factory, a planned road project or the local school system.

People do pay attention to the national economy, because it affects their lives. They may not know the latest inflation or unemployment numbers, but they know when costs go up for gas, groceries and housing. They care about crime, but their focus is on community safety.

It’s true, of course, that Donald Trump has upended our politics, putting himself at the center of every issue. The decline of local newspapers, coupled with the rise of talk radio, cable TV news and social media, has nationalized our politics. Tune in CNN or Fox News, and you might think every national issue is a matter of life and death. Politicians often amplify this thinking as they compete to turn highly motivated voters in a tight election. But that’s not most Americans. Most care deeply about their families, their neighbors and their communities. They want the government to share those concerns.

Beshear is a Democrat who has twice been elected governor of a state that just voted 65-35 for Trump. He recommends a focus on kitchen-table issues as a way forward for his party. “The focus of the Democratic Party must return to creating better jobs, more affordable and accessible health care, safer roads and bridges, the best education for our children and communities where people aren’t just safer but also feel safer,” he writes.

In fact, that should be a good agenda for any politician, Democrat or Republican. Meeting the people where they live and trying to improve their day-to-day lives isn’t just good politics. It’s good governing. We’ll all be better off if our elected officials remember that.

** Lee Hamilton is a distinguished scholar at the IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies and senior advisor for the Indiana University Center on Representative Government. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years.