Democrats: If you keep judging people by how they look, you’ll keep losing elections.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is idiom taught to most of us at an early age. We’re told to not dismiss people by the way they look, how they talk, or any other surface level characteristic.

However, many Liberals will default to a bevy of different stereotypes if you were to ask them what a Trump supporter looks like and who they are. Often these stereotypes will include weathered skin, missing or otherwise damaged teeth, no formal education, and so on and so on. Not only are these stereotypes incredibly classist and reductive, but they both push away folks that are or would be part of the Democratic coalition, while taking for granted the votes of those who don’t fall under these ill-conceived notions.

This meme has been widely shared by Liberal accounts, and is indicative of both the misperceptions Democrats hold of Republicans, as well as the malcontent they have towards the poor.

I was raised in Western North Carolina, with my family being from Eastern Tennessee. It should be no surprise that I have a strong Southern accent and an Appalachian dialect. I’m incredibly proud of my background and how I talk. Yet I’ve been told many times by acquaintances and peers that the first time they met me they assumed I was a Republican just because of my voice.

There is not, and never will be, a look or sound reserved for only Democrats or Republicans. That is a lesson that I know from my personal life and the people I have had the pleasure of growing up with. Many of the most die-hard Democrats I have met fall under many of the reductive stereotypes that suburban Democrats like to associate with Republicans: they have strong Southern accents, never went to college or even finished High School, have well-worn bodies from years of hard manual labor, and are proud to be from a rural area. Look at this photo below from an old family Christmas many years ago. Are you able to pick out with utmost certainty who in this photo is a Democrat? Who is apolitical? Who is a Republican?

If you say you can, you’re lying. You may have some preconceived notions of what a Republican or Democrat looks like, but when you actually try to apply them to real-life people they quickly fall apart. That’s because stereotypes are just that: stereotypes. But these stereotypes have not only influenced how we see our fellow Americans; they’ve also affected how Democrats run their campaigns.

You needn’t look any further to find proof of this than Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and its problems with minority voters. Biden’s team fell victim to the stereotype that Hispanic voters were reliably Democratic and would turn out against Donald Trump with little outreach necessary. And while Hispanic voters did turn out, in many places it was FOR Donald Trump rather than against him. This left many Democrats reeling, shocked at losses in areas dominated by Democrats for decades.

White Democratic leadership had assumed that a general consciousness of being a “minority” was enough motivation for voters to vote for Biden. But that’s simply not true: Tejanos in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley are distinct from the Cubans of Miami, Florida, or the Puerto Ricans of the Bronx. The fact that pundits have long-understood and acknowledged the potential differences between a White man in Cody, Wyoming and a White man in Portland, Oregon, but still consider Hispanics from completely different heritages and backgrounds as one giant bloc indicates how effective these stereotypes are.

Afro-Cubans (left) and Tejanos (right) have very distinct cultures, yet political leadership nationally has largely ignored their differences when targeting these voters.

Bringing new voters into the fold means meeting them where they are: there is no one-size-fits-all messaging or marketing that will appeal to everyone. How the Party markets itself to Tejanos in Texas should be different than how it markets itself to Guatemalans in Los Angeles, the same way it should be different how it markets itself in Alabama compared to Massachusetts. That doesn’t mean we need to compromise our values; it simply means that we need to tailor our message for who we’re talking to. Voters may not always agree with us, but if they see that we’re understanding of their culture and are working to be representative of them as people, it will have tremendous dividends.

A Democratic Party that takes perspective and influence from all parts of our country is the only Democratic Party that can claim to truly represent all of our people. It’s time to make that a reality. That means looking at every person as an opportunity to expand our coalition, instead of sending them away before they even walk through the door.