Caffeinated Politics

The 2026 midterms are yet another reason to firmly state that elections are not boring. The stunning coast-to-coast rebuke of Republicans made for one of the most riveting election nights of my life. There are stunning stories to relive from Maine to Texas, but there are also gritty issues that must be addressed, and I want to do that in this column.

A person from the rural town where I grew up and was on my school bus route for years wrote on social media shortly before the midterms a troubling thought. “Screw you over-educated egg heads that never took a stand about things you, your family and home town folks stood for, just to fit in or get a grade. Tired of being accepting of incompetence.” It would be easy to dismiss the post and move on, but I think it deserves a closer examination in light of the midterms, and the extreme anti-Muslim bigotry echoed in the Michigan Senate race and some of the racsim about David Crowley, the Democratic nominee for Wisconsin governor. I think many conservatives across the state and nation echo his words and their implications.

The short statement meant that education, rather than a source of enlightenment, has become a mechanism for social betrayal. The accusation is not simply that educated people are wrong. It is that they have abandoned the people who raised them, the communities they once lived in, and the values they once shared.

In rural parts of the nation, far from Michigan, a chorus of voices worried about “Christian values” and “our way of life.” The foghorns of bigotry about the rise of a Muslim to potentially be a United States Senator sent waves of anger across small rural communities. That political dynamic during the midterms ties in with the words of the man from my hometown. And it raises a question. What happens when the pursuit of knowledge and the experience of living in a diverse urban environment urges a person to reconsider the beliefs that once made them feel at home in a rural village?

It is wacky not to grasp that someone who leaves a small town, attends college, meets different people, and develops new perspectives has not necessarily grown into a new worldview. Are they a traitor to their origins? For instance, I love my hometown, but reject the deep prejudices I knew of and saw play out when I was growing up. Part of becoming an adult is being able to question assumptions accepted decades ago.

Consider the controversy surrounding Abdul El-Sayeda, a Muslim candidate. For some people, the candidate’s religious identity is enough to provoke suspicion. From rural Wisconsin, Islam is viewed as foreign, but for people who live in communities where Muslims are numerous, or who have attended universities where Muslim classmates are part of everyday life, those assumptions are seen as wholly wrong.

What concerns me is that the language of the comment then carries into the privacy of the ballot box. Be it in Michigan concerning a Muslim candidate or in Wisconsin where a Black man was seeking the office of governor. And it was there, at the ballot box, with bigoted views strongly held, that we wound up with resentments toward immigrants, spurring federal policies that divided families. It is where the discomfort of cultural change urges their leaders to restore a version of America that never fully existed. (But they are not aware of that fact.)

What we should all find unnerving in the rural man’s words is that he treats his own experiences, or those of the locals, as the only legitimate basis for understanding the country. Those stunted local experiences cannot provide a complete understanding of a nation of more than 300 million people.

The rural-urban divide that played out in these midterms was often described as a conflict between different economic interests or political preferences. But the deeper conflict may concern what it means to belong as an American. When economic and cultural changes seemingly, but not actually, threaten that continuity, people understandably look for ways to protect what they value. I understand that in the broader sense. But we must reject shutting off, decrying, and demeaning intellectual growth. Experience does not guarantee wisdom, but it can make ignorance more difficult to defend.

Finally, what an ELECTION NIGHT IN AMERICA!