Santa Barbara County is a unique place where you can hike mountain trails in the morning and surf famous reef breaks by afternoon. Not so unique, however, is the county’s political geography. City folks, especially in South County, trend liberal, while northern rural areas lean conservative. No better metric tells this story than the historic split on the County Board of Supervisors, where battles over a swing vote on the five-member panel have shaped public policy for decades. In this way, our political profile mirrors much of the rest of the country, where elections hinge not on predictable red or blue blocks, but on turnout, mercurial independent voters, young voters, and participation among communities of color — the “edge” battlegrounds that define and redefine our country’s historical arc.
This natural political tension has always seemed to find a sort of fulcrum in Republican and Democratic administrations alike, some more off-center than others. The country now, however, is stretching further right and further left, in ways not seen for decades, possibly since the Civil War. Meanwhile, the ignored demographic — the moderate center — seems forgotten while left and right fight to swing the pendulum as far as possible in their respective directions. The consequences of this polar combat could spell disaster for the experiment we call American Democracy.
The shifts began before Donald Trump leaped into the political abyss, but he certainly accelerated the process by tossing lit matches into a smoldering heap of dissatisfaction among millions of Americans who believed their lot in life and the “evils of big government” might be best addressed by a corporate outsider furiously intent on shaking up the system.