Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom.
-Hi, Trevor. How are you this evening? -Dr. Genius.
-How are you? -(laughs)
I feel like that should be your title from now on, Dr. Genius.
If I work for those titles, forget my name.
I am Dr. Genius, and that's all you shall refer to me as.
-Congratulations. -Thank you so very much.
It's been a wild ride, hasn't it?
It has been a crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy ride.
What do you make of everything that we've seen so far?
I mean, obviously, results are still coming in,
but it's-it's been an interesting year
where, you know, Trump is winning more Black men
-than Republicans before him. -Mm-hmm.
And the vote seems to be swinging in a strange direction.
Hispanic voters going for Trump.
What do you make of everything that we're seeing?
Well, you know, so far, tonight,
it's going mighty whitely,
and I think that's how many of us expected it to go.
Uh...
For all of the impressive "get out the vote,"
uh, that happened on the Democratic side,
which I do think we will continue to see
the fruits of over the next couple of days,
the fact remains that we are not gonna see
a clear repudiation of Donald Trump
by the Republican party, um, and that means something.
That means that no matter who wins--
today, tomorrow, next week,
whenever this thing finally ends--
we are still living in the United States of America
where 40% to 45% of the population
thinks Donald Trump has been doing a really good job.
And that's gonna be really difficult to govern
no matter who is elected.
Uh, in many ways, Donald Trump has made a mess
that only Donald Trump can clean up,
and that's kind of terrifying.
It-it really is strange, because, like, on my side,
I sometimes believe that.
I think America is-is like, all hope is lost for America.
But then there are times when I think,
if you only have a two-party system,
doesn't it mean that inevitably, you're going to have
people voting for one of two parties?
Because some of their issues are gonna be on one side,
some of them are gonna be on the other.
Like, do you think there's ever going to be a time
when America isn't split down the middle?
No. The only thing that can happen...
We're not actually split down the middle
when you look at the popular vote.
Actually, people in this country,
despite what shows up in the polls,
agree more on some of the big things
than they disagree.
What happens is that the way the electoral college,
of course, appropriate votes
makes it look like we're split half and half.
It's really just a very vocal,
uh, not quite, you know, small minority.
It's a sizable minority.
But there is a significant part of the population
that just has an outsized, uh, influence
on who is elected relative to their actual size.
And then there's this really complicit, sort of mushy middle
that just doesn't see a significant difference
between either party or either candidate.
And because they don't see a significant difference,
they tend to go along with the flow.
And right now, that's the most vocal,
virulent part of the voting population,
and that's the Republicans
for whom being a Republican has become their identity.
So, what the electoral college allows to happen,
uh, is that there are voters
who vote Democratic or Republican.
You know, they become a Democrat or Republican
for six months every couple of years.
But then there are people
who singularly identify with their party,
and on the right, that is a much stronger impulse
than it is on the left,
and those are the people who end up driving the narrative
and makes it seem as if it's inevitable
that there will always be this sort of, you know,
um, evenly divided conflict
about all of the things that matter,
and it's not exactly true.
It's allowed to be true
-because of how we elect people in this country. -NOAH: Right.
It-it feels like a...
I mean, a lot of the information is skewed,
but sometimes, it feels like that has
-a self-fulfilling prophecy effect to it. -It does.
-Yep. -You know? Um, one of those things
has been Black men
voting in larger numbers for Donald Trump.
Black women staying consistent.
As a sociologist,
do you have any idea of why this is?
Like, what could it possibly be about Donald Trump
that more Black men than usual
go like, "Yeah, I'm gonna go with him"?
Man, cocaine is a hell of a drug.
-(Wood and Noah laugh) -I think that... (laughs)
I think there is...
For all that we talk about race in this country--
and it is significant, and it matters--
and for all that we talk about class--
it is significant, and it matters--
what we have learned is that gender also matters.
And there has always been
a conservative streak or impulse
in the African American community.
It gets drowned out by our shared oppression
relative to white people,
but there has always been a conservatism
that runs parallel
to what is just, frankly, patriarchal impulses.
And I think one of the things that you see
is that there has been enough time that has passed
between the civil rights movement
and today's especially young
or young middle-aged African American male voter
that they think they can actually vote
their class interests
separate from their race interests
when, really, what they're doing
is voting their gender interests.
They are attracted to the same thing
that a lot of Cuban American voters are in Florida,
that white rural voters are attracted to in Idaho.
They are attracted to the presentation
of masculine strength in Donald Trump.
Despite what the rest of us
may think Donald Trump looks like,
his bluster looks like strength
and masculinity to a lot of people.
And I just think there are a significant number
of Black male voters right now
who feel like, uh, that strength
is an indicator of what might be possible for them
under President Trump,
and our historical memory is so short,
they don't realize that's a mirage.
Well, I can tell you this. Um, I will hope to talk to you again
after this election has been fully done.
Uh, I hope we get to sit together in person
once the pandemic is over, and, um, hopefully,
you can help me make sense of all of the craziness
that's happening right now in the United States.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Always a pleasure, Trevor. Thank you.