Tuesday's great message

Voters did not just reject Trump; they did it mainly by way of centrist candidates

Since winning the 2024 presidential election, Donald J. Trump has referred repeatedly to his victory with 49.8% of the popular vote as a landslide (usually spelling it with all caps).

Mr. President, Tuesday is what a landslide looks like.

We will leave it to analysts more astute than ourselves to sort with precision through the explanations. How much was the election about Iran? About affordability? About corruption? About democracy and executive overreach? About cruelty and nastiness? About a rollback in the nation's commitment to civil rights? About uncontrolled AI? About concern over white Christian nationalism? About Canada and Europe? About climate change? About competence?

Those looking for reasons to vote had plenty of options to choose from. Exactly which ones took precedence, we can only speculate.

But one thing is clear. The landslide was a historic rebuke of the Trump presidency, both its policies and its repulsive, sometimes tone-deaf style. The electoral shift was far beyond the off-year results that typically go against the White House. It was historic in its scope.

Democrats are, of course, celebrating, and they clearly have cause. But it would be a mistake for them to interpret a rebuke of the Trump-captured Republican Party as an unequivocal endorsement of Democrats. Poll after poll clearly shows that the public is plenty skeptical of Democrats, too. And it was only two years ago that voters sent a message about open borders and Biden-era inflation. The long and the short of it, voters dislike excess.

Gearing up already for 2028, it is fashionable for progressives to wrap themselves inside an argument that their passions are required to fire up low-propensity voters to turn out. They argue that Democrats cannot just go back to the status quo; they need to be bold in moving the country forward. Certainly, there is some basis for both of those arguments, and without a doubt, if you look around the country, you'll find many progressives who were elected Tuesday. You'll find some of them in our suburbs, too.

But you know what else you will find if you look around the country?

Centrists getting elected, or coming close, almost everywhere. Democrats and all those looking for an alternative to the MAGA-era politics of cynicism and division need to appreciate that for the most part, Tuesday's landslide was built around moderate candidates. In election result after election result.

Democrats ought to remember that sure, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can energize their voters, but progressives do not have exclusive ownership of that talent. James Talarico, Adam Hamilton and Jon Ossoff have shown that they can energize voters, too. It's not just the message necessarily that excites passion but as much, the messenger. Moderates can be inspiring, too (and they need to recognize their obligations to do so).

Different regions swing between different ideologies. Urban areas further left; rural, further right; the suburbs, a bit more in the middle. On Tuesday, voters of many different outlooks came together in a rare moment of unity. They called on Democrats to return a sense of decency to government and to turn away from gross excess, extremism and the politics of division.

Everywhere, people of different outlooks want solutions. But they also want something more. Almost everywhere, there is a yearning for common sense. For stability. For civility. For our shared values. Deep down on Tuesday, voters wished to see a few Mr. Smiths going to Washington.

Yes, the message voters were sending is that it's time, as Jimmy Stewart's scriptwriter so eloquently put it in that classic film, for our nation's representatives to get back to "a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness. And a little looking out for the other fellow too."