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The Political Pendulum, 5211 Baker Road, Minnetonka, MN (2026)

10/06/2023

At 6 square miles, the city of Waconia, Minnesota represents around 0.00015% of the US land mass. What does this have to do with congress?

There are 100 Senators and 435 Representatives in the house to make-up a total of 535 members of congress. That means 535 people are in charge of policies, laws and regulations for the 340 million people living in the United States. Do the math and that’s 0.00015% of the US population that represents us.

This post isn’t about small (but beautiful) cities in Minnesota. It’s about an issue I often contemplate. With such a small number of people having massive influence, who do members of congress represent versus who should they represent?

For simplicity, let’s assume there are no special interest groups or major donors, just the American public. I know that isn’t realistic, but it’s a beast of a topic for another day.

Members of congress are elected at the state (or district) level, are normally aligned with a political party and create federal policy. There is conflict in doing what is right for the people who voted for them (state), their political party that helped get them elected (party) and other Americans nationwide that are impacted by their decisions (nation).

If we ask everyday Americans who members of congress represent (state, party or nation), most people would state their political party because that’s generally how they vote.

However, I would argue that members of congress should first and foremost represent the interests of the United States as a whole. After all, their decisions impact every American regardless of which state they are from. Unfortunately, this causes a prisoner’s dilemma. If one member of congress unselfishly votes on what is best for the country, but that goes against their party, they are villainized.

Like the prisoner’s dilemma, our country keeps on reaching sub-optimal outcomes because we elect politicians who are party, not country first. Trust is a word in politics that has been used often lately. Until that trust is restored in a bi-partisan fashion we can expect the 0.00015% to continue to make bad decisions for the rest of us.

09/19/2023

The seven groups of Americans we define are the foundational building blocks to create meaningful policies in our companies, government and other organizations. By understand all viewpoints, what is most important to people and how to communicate your policies, you have a better opportunity to create sustainable change the allows our country to move forward together.

Over the past couple of weeks, we have highlighted each group and given a little insight into what they want and why. The research we have created is unique and gives a holistic view of Americans, but what we showed is just the tip of the iceberg. Our study goes into more depth so that you understand the nuances of each group to best gain their support.

No one will ever be able to get all Americans to be on the same page, but with education, effective communication and intelligent decision-making we can help more Americans and reduce the tension and frustration that Americans feel regarding racial relations.

Want to learn more about this and the other groups that define American views? Visit our site at www.thepoliticalpendulum.com/racial_relations.

09/08/2023

The second group under the “Neutral” mega-group we will discuss are the Slight Social Supporters. They have fairly neutral views across most views, but differ from the Pessimistic Middle in that there are more policies that they do support (even if not strongly) and may be able to be convinced with communication and education.

The areas the are slightly more supportive are focusing on education, training and conversations that advance understanding as well as social support. This group has elements of frustration with the government and policy makers that “talk about, but don’t do anything” to improve racial relations, but companies are doing what they need to.

What is also unique about this group is that they skew toward non- African American minorities. Their viewpoints can be influenced by this as policies should address minorities as a whole and the issues they personally face, not just African Americans alone. In that way, they are similar to the Un-Invested Opposers and communication and policy that are broader can appeal to them.

Want to learn more about this and the other groups that define American views? Visit our site at www.thepoliticalpendulum.com/racial_relations.

09/07/2023

The Pessimistic Middle is the first of the “Neutral Groups” we discuss. They do have some areas where they have stronger opinions, but overall they are fairly neutral. This is primarily driven by their frustration with a lack of progress and little hope that fundamentally things will improve.

While they skew Independent, they span the political spectrum. While not a top five issue, Racial Relations is still important and many of them believe the current state of racial relations is very bad. At the core of it, they believe people need to treat each other better which puts the burden on individuals instead of companies and elected officials to improve.

This does not mean that policies won’t work or be supported, but the tone is important when convincing them and need to align them with human behaviors. There are specific policies they support or oppose, which is important especially with a neutral group that you need to convince if you are looking for a majority support for any policy.

Want to learn more about this and the other groups that define American views? Visit our site at www.thepoliticalpendulum.com/racial_relations.

09/05/2023

We start our series with the group who most opposes policies regarding racial relations, the Vocal Opposition. Like their name, they not only strongly oppose most policies but many are not afraid to voice their opinion. Not all people in this group are traditionally defined as “racist” but many of them have racist beliefs based on our open-ended question.

Despite what you may be thinking, these people aren’t skewing towards rural areas in the South. Nor are they all hard-core Republicans (some solid democrats are here as well).

What defines this group is that many of them don’t believe racial relations is a top 5 issue for America and that many of the issues African Americans face are self-inflicted. They state that they don’t see African Americans being treated poorly in their communities and the government and companies have gone too far to promote equality. These are the foundations for many of their beliefs and what they want done.

There are some areas they will support investment, but only a few specific areas where they feel they are personally impacted. These areas can be a point of compromise and can position some policies in a broader perspective to make them more acceptable to people who are more open in this group.

Want to learn more about this and the other groups that define American views? Visit our site at www.thepoliticalpendulum.com/racial_relations.

08/28/2023

The is no single question that defines viewpoints on racial relations. In our study, we take a unique approach that identifies 7 different groups based on their holistic views on the topic. We use proven research and analytic approaches to give new insights into American views. The topline results show new insights on what Americans want and why.

Before we preview each group, we need to set the stage. While we foundationally identified 7 distinct group, we can simplify them into larger buckets based on their broader support of policies and initiatives to support racial relations. In our case, we call these mega-groups which include “More Opposed”, “Neutral” and “More Supportive.” While this is an oversimplification, it gives context at a higher level. The three groups are meant to be a guide for the total views/beliefs even if they have specific policies that differ from their broad beliefs.

It is also important to understand that not all groups within the buckets have the same strength of support/opposition. For example, “Vocal Activists & Allies” are much stronger in their support than “Tepid Supporters” even though they fall into the same mega-group.

We also know the size of each group and mega-group from a percent of Americans who fall into that group. What we uncovered is that each mega-group is about 1/3rd of Americans, with some skew towards groups that are more supportive of policies that improve racial relations. This is critical to understand since policy makers, corporate leaders and organizations need some level of support from the neutral group to gain a majority support for their positions.

Regardless of whether the objective is to gain a majority support or not, understanding the size of the groups, what they believe and why is necessary to create policy and communication. This is true not only of the groups that you are targeting, but groups that may oppose your views to gain an understanding on where they may be open or have significant push-back.

In the next posts, we will start to introduce each group at a high level. Follow us to ensure you get all of the information to help your organization.

08/23/2023

Racial relations is a complex issue and our current system to understand viewpoints is broken. Defining Americans with single questions such as “Do you support reparations?” over-simplifies the viewpoints of Americans and isn’t helpful for companies and elected officials to make policies that are supported and sustainable. Studies define people by their political affiliation or demographics, which simply doesn’t work. Vocal minorities on both sides get the attention, leading to rash decisions that don’t consider long-term impacts, followed by heightened criticism.

How are we as a society going to make meaningful progress that is supported by a majority of Americans? It starts with a different approach to understanding what Americans want and why.

What if you knew the holistic views of what Americans want to be done (or not done) to improve racial relations? What if you knew what was most important to them, the limitations they would accept and most importantly, why they believed that? What if you could group people based on similar views to better address their needs?

The answer is you would be able to create policies in the workplace and government that had overwhelming support and could create a communication strategy that was more effective at educating and changing minds.

Our study does just that. We have identified 7 unique groups of Americans based on their levels of support for racial relations/DEI initiatives. We studied their motivations to understand their beliefs to get at the heart of why they support or oppose specific initiatives. Over the next few weeks, we will give a high-level overview of the different groups.

Stay tuned to learn more about what Americans want or visit our page on Racial Relations to purchase the full study (www.thepoliticalpendulum.com/racial_relations).

07/05/2023

If you're an company or college, ethnicity has been part of the application process for quite some time. The recent Supreme Court ruling impacts that college application process and while colleges can still understand how ethnicity has impacted life experience in their essays, the question of ethnicity alone will not be part of the application.

What may surprise you is that only a quarter of Americans (and less than half of African Americans) agree that companies and colleges should consider race in the application process. On the other hand, 32% of Americans believe ethnicity shouldn't be considered.

The question now is, will companies follow the Supreme Court decision? How do they balance the desire for equal representation and focus on DEI with changing perspectives of Americans?

Affirmative action is just one aspect of a comprehensive DEI or racial relation policy strategy. If you want to learn more about what Americans want (and don't want) to improve racial relations in the government and at employers, reach out. We can help.

06/27/2023

Juneteenth was last week. There were concerts, rallies and other events that you and your company/brand may have taken part of. Many companies posted on social media and gave employees the day off to recognize the national holiday.

But what now? Simply recognizing Juneteenth isn’t enough if your company or brand is serious about DEI initiatives. A serious DEI strategy for your employees or consumer is ongoing, consistent and informed.

Not sure where to start or concerned about the mis-steps that has impacted global companies taking social stances? We’re here to help.

Our study focuses on what Americans believe regarding racial relations and what actions they want companies to take. This gives brand managers, human resource partners and corporate strategy teams the information they need to make internal policy decisions and communicate social stances for their brands.

Want to learn more? Visit our site www.thepoliticalpendulum.com/racial_relations to get more information about our study and how it can help your business develop a DEI strategy and tactics.

05/03/2023

These stats blew my mind. Let's call it what it is....... embarrassing (or should be to our representatives). But who is responsible and how do we change things?

Both representatives and the electorate need to change their mentality.

The quote "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results" by Albert Einstein comes to mind.

As Americans, we keep electing the same people and expect a better outcome. If we want improvement, we need to stop believing our representative is fine, it is just EVERYONE ELSE who is the issue.

What about our representatives? One of the most common complaints is that nothing ever gets done, even when one party has control of the house, senate and Presidency.

Our representatives need to make common-sense policy that is sustainable. Americans want progress and by understanding where Americans really stand comprehensively on any issue, our elected representatives have a better chance at creating policy that a majority of Americans support.

04/26/2023

I have recently seen political ads and commentary accusing politicians of changing positions over time. My favorite was about Biden now running in his 80s, but early in his career having an opinion people were too old to run. Is that ridiculous? How many 20 year-olds think generations before them are out of touch, while boomers think gen Z is naive and uninformed? It's generational.

The answer is yes it is ridiculous and over the course of 40 years, people should be allowed to change their minds. But what about flip-flops over a shorter period of time?

My argument..... people should be able to adapt their positions and yes, that includes politicians. In market research, we go in to studies with hypotheses but people change their perspectives based on the results. They often do (and should) change their minds in the short-term.

Why are people so harsh on politicians? Beyond the obvious desire to make your opponent look bad, there is a deeper reason. Leadership should change their position as they get more information and as situations change. For example, if we reduce oil production in the US and oil prices spike significantly, should a politician be accused of flip-flopping if they support increasing oil production? Or should they be applauded for understanding current situation and course correcting?

More politicians need to simply state “this is what I thought and why, but then this happened and my viewpoint has changed.” It would be refreshing.

Another source of flip-flopping is that politicians may react to a very small, but vocal part of their supporters. Take the defund the police movement. When the desire for police reform was at its peak, many politicians supported defunding the police. Had they listened to a majority of Americans instead of a vocal minority, they would have known that people did not want defunding as part of police reform. In fact, people want increased funding for crime and safety.

As we move into the political season we should be skeptical of politicians who don’t give reason for switching policy positions, but give them a little slack to allow them to explain the change before judgement.

W

04/20/2023

Over the past two years there has been a massive corporate investment in DEI/DIB. With the national focus also comes the difficult task of developing internal policy, employee resource groups and advocacy positions.

Our research helps companies develop internal policies by giving a holistic viewpoint on the topic of racial relations and how Americans want companies to support (or oppose) racial relations in the corporate setting.

Want to learn more about how our research can help you? Visit www.thepoliticalpendulum.com/racial_relations

The Political Pendulum

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