Instead of charging ahead like a juggernaut, the Democratic Party has found itself in steady retreat. Every hot spot of progressive transformation has grown colder. The party’s plight demands a reality check and a correction of course. Without this painful work, they’ll struggle to make any kind of sustained comeback.
As recently as eighteen months ago, Democrats thought that the diversifying Sunbelt would lead them to victory. Not so. Despite sixteen years of demographic change, Florida went for Trump by the exact 49-48% margin that it chose Bush. North Carolina went for Trump by a larger margin than Romney, and for Romney by a larger margin than Obama in ’08. Hillary Clinton’s margin in Virginia grew only because of third-party voting: She got a lower percentage of the vote there than did Barack Obama in either of his victories. Georgia’s eighth district took exactly eight months to revert to Republicanism.
Meanwhile, as demographics failed to giveth, they nevertheless tooketh away. Trump breached the so-called “Blue Wall” that supposedly kept the Upper Midwest sealed. And this cannot be chalked up to neglect by Clinton. She campaigned aggressively in Pennsylvania and lost the state anyway, largely because formerly loyal blue-collar whites deserted the Democratic Party. Democratic optimism implicitly assumed that they would keep most of the Rust Belt. That assumption has been broken.
Those with a more hopeful outlook would say, “well, that was just one presidential election.” But 2016 was the culmination of six years of attrition. As is widely known, the Democrats had their downballot strength ground into dust throughout the Obama years. The Party lost 1,000 legislative seats in the this time period. His reelection was fairly narrow and rested upon turnout patterns that do not appear replicable. In political terms, this decade has been heavy on defeat.
Given this experience, it’s hard to deny that Democrats’ dominant theory of politics has failed. Yet too many Democrats either remain in denial—despite a massive heap of contrary evidence—or accept the reality but try to fit its square form into a round ideological hole. Clinton herself holds onto the demographic theory that failed her. She’s wrong. But many left-populists have concluded that Bernienomics is the answer, when in fact that agenda holds little appeal outside of Sanders’ upscale ideological base.
Perversely, winning in 2018 and 2020 could set back the process of Democratic recovery. To paraphrase a cliché, we’ve seen this movie before—twice. Democrats won Congress in 1974 and the presidency in 1976; and repeated the feat in 2006 and 2008, all because of Republican failure. Both times it was a fluke, as the respective following decades proved. No matter what happens next year, the Democratic corpus requires reconstructive surgery.
We have a system where there are no permanent minority parties. But the Democrats could remain at a disadvantage for ten years or more unless they make adjustments. It’s time to give up on the Emerging Democratic Majority thesis. And it’s time to stop writing off Trump-Obama voters, broaden the tent, and learn to tell the progressive base “No.”
John F. Kennedy said “no problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.” That doesn’t mean that failure isn’t an option.
Alexander Jones is an original contributor to PoliticsNC.
If more Democrats start getting this as a Republican operative I’ll confess my worry. Thankfully I’ve not seen reason to worry yet.
“…learn to tell the progressive base “No.””…
Really?
Honestly?
Oh yeah, that’s a winning strategy as we all saw with the primaries and the large voting contingent of progressives that were, and still are supporters of the legislative agenda that Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont put forth to the voting public. Democrats had better get used to disappointment in their expectations of winning anything in future elections with that myopic, head in the sand centrist mindset. The commons voted for change, albeit the totally wrong person for that change, so now we once again fall back to the very same legislative strategy that brought us Trump? Sanders campaigned on real change, that which has been his platform and agenda for over 30 years, which the public time and time again wish for and expressed: That’s real change for you, and not platitudes, and lies. Clinton lost to the worst Republican imaginable opponent in the history in any United States presidential election: Doesn’t that tell you something right there??
Obviously not. It appears that stealing defeat out of the jaws of victory is the Democratic Party “strategy” from here on in. Heck of job, boys, and girls.
I think the Democratic Party needs to follow the lead of the Republican Party and come up with a very simple (simplistic) platform that even Trump supporters can understand and hopefully agree with at least in part. I suggest coming up with a short list of DEMOCRATIC TALKING POINTS that outline very basic positions that anyone can understand. Instead of pontificating and preaching ‘pie in the sky’ idealism that few truly understand or can discuss intelligently, use this list of talking points to hammer the electorate with endless repetition and volume ala the GOP.
It is painfully obvious now that Republican voters are either willfully ignorant or purposefully devious. We need to figure out an approach that even they can/will listen to. The ‘Talking Points’ might work when appealing to their smarts and better angels won’t.
Interesting thesis you have there – that Democrats can only win in the long run by abandoning their base.
I would argue that the main problem with the Democratic Party over the last 40 years is that they abandoned ordinary Americans in favor of collecting corporate cash for their campaign coffers. As a result they cannot make any kind of effective move in terms of economics, as the big corporate donors would desert them if they take away the sweet deal that the 1% currently enjoy. THAT is the Democrats “dominant theory of politics”.
Because economic reform of any effective scale is verboten, all that is left is the far, far less popular social/identity politics – which also happens to feed the pre-existing “culture war” narrative, and keeps political discourse locked in the position preferred by the status quo (No interference with “the money”. This has been brutally evident in the fight for health care.)
The Democratic Party has been purchased, and the corporate owners expect a handsome return on investment. The primary thing those investors want is to prevent another FDR – a President who makes promises to do popular things, actually does those popular things, and then has so much popularity he can then inflict justice on the corporate owners themselves.
Failure IS an option, and the Party leadership will grab it with both hands if it looks like the base if getting out of control and starts “screwing with the money”. But luckily, we have authors like this one who will help “broaden the tent” so more money-worshippers can get in.
Gay marriage? Fine. Confederate monuments moved? Fine. Independent redistricting commissions? Fine. A woman President? Yay!! Universal health care? Whoa, whoa, whoa -no frickin’ way, too many conservative Senators, magical free market, blah, blah, blah.
You will never win political races in the United States or have a chance to make legislative changes running against free enterprise.
The culture war is where the right-wing wants the discussion to be. Discussing gay marriage, family values, the flag, bathrooms and other soft issues is a safe space for Republicans. There is no measurable standard for success, and there are no budget implications. There is no penalty for failure to bring about culture change. Abortion, for example, has been legal for nearly half a century, and school prayers are still forbidden, but the right still holds out hope that those laws will be changed some day, and the faithful remain loyal, even though they have almost nothing to show for their support.
Opposing free enterprise is the wrong approach for Democrats. 157 million Americans are employed by some company or other, 127 million are employed full time. Only 17% of those workers work for federal, state or local government. Jobs provide food, shelter, clothing, transportation and all of life’s amenities. Americans work hard. Attacking our economy is exactly the wrong approach.
Democrats should stand for a vibrant economy which provides jobs along with reasonable regulation of business activity. Businesses should not be able to poison our rivers, streams and drinking water. Businesses should not be allowed to foul the air and to injure people. Businesses should pay their fair share of taxes to assist households in providing streets, highways, airports, and other public works which create efficiencies for business and for households. The debate between Republicans and Democrats should be about who will shoulder the burdens of government and who will benefit from government. That debate is the center. Arguing that free enterprise is a bad thing is so far left and so ill-conceived, your words are dead on arrival. There are excesses and inequities, and that is where Americans seek redress.
The United States is being run off the rails by too much corporate control of the legislative process. The top 1% have taken control of most of the nation’s wealth and, at the same time, managed to make the case that they pay too much in taxes. Democrats do not want businesses to fail; they want the middle class to participate in the wealth they have helped to create. Our economy expanded vastly in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s when we had greater union membership, higher taxes and lower CEO pay. Our economics have been infected by right wing wet dreams like “trickle-down economics” and the insane notion that lower tax rates create more taxes for the government. That we have opportunists and con men in the United States is separate and apart from whether free enterprise is a viable system. Free enterprise works, and you make your life very difficult if you run against the system that feeds and shelters a powerful nation.
Yes, I realize that “free enterprise” stands up there in status with “the indispensable nation”, “the can-do American spirit”, “freedom and justice for all”, and other such civic mythology.
In fact, “free enterprise” is so magically powerful that you can use it as a magical spell against the evil eye of “Kenyan Socialism”. Just saying the words can banish away laziness and dependency – like magic!
And because the saying of the words “free enterprise” is a magical spell, you don’t even have to explain anything any further – like why aren’t all the hard-working field workers rich now – since “hard work is the key to success”? They’re independent contractors. Surely their freedom is causing them to be prosperous, right? Why, it’s only a matter of time before they own the farms, because that’s how “free enterprise” works, right? The industrious prosper, and the lazy suffer in poverty, right? Investment bankers are the hardest-working people on the face of the planet, so they rightfully deserve x100 the pay of the average worker because they cause so much prosperity, right?
And yet, as you say, this pile of crapola is politically invulnerable.
Free enterprise describes a system by which goods and services are delivered.
The term is economic, not philosophical. Your belief that America should abandon a system that provides for all the needs of a nation suggests you have a more efficient way of providing income to households and goods and services to the broader economy. It’s like repeal and replace. I don’t hear a replacement plan from you.
We must look at the facts before we offer prescriptions. Capitalism is a fact of life, but free enterprise has many, many problems associated with it.
Economists have long recognized that unregulated capitalism creates inequities and morphs into destructive forms. Nineteenth economists foresaw that unregulated free enterprise does not produce more competition; it produces monopolies. While monopolies are a form of private capitalism, monopolies are anti-consumer and tend to raise prices while making goods and services more scarce.
Corporations have been successful in convincing the public that regulations are a problem and snookering people into thinking that regulations should be undone. Corporations have broken the unions for the most part along with help from conservative legislators, who have been compensated for it.
You live in a world awash in political donations from special interests. Money, for now, is the lifeblood of campaigns. Many Democrats would be happy to opt for public funding of campaigns, but it would be suicide to refuse money from donors. The right has access to massive amounts of corporate money. If the Democrats take a vow of poverty, they will lose more races by larger margins.
Your vilifying Democrats helps Republicans. Do you hate Democrats so much that you would rather have Republicans in the legislature? Republicans aren’t listening to your anti-free enterprise ideas but they are making your laws.
So you are aware that are current American economic system is Capitalism, and that Capitalism advantages those who have capital over and above those who do not. Try to start a small business and see if you can get some of those incentives that Amazon is being offered. No capital, no special favors from the referees.
Free enterprise exists to the extent that all people have equal access to the marketplace – which does not exist under American Capitalism. If you think otherwise, tell me how big your IPO allocation is from the Investment Banks. What, no access to IPO’s? Only those with lots of capital have access? That’s equal access? That’s free enterprise?
You have fallen for Reaganite revisionist mythology and don’t even know the definitions of the words you use – you use the Republican “rebranded” meanings, and have internalized their BS. Capitalism is not the same thing as free enterprise and is not the same thing as democracy.
My replacement plan is to call things by their rightful names, and institute ACTUAL free enterprise, as opposed to the Capitalism plus Magical Thinking we have now.
Consider these things: On the subject of “unilateral disarmament” Trump was outspent by most of his primary opponents, and was outspent 2-to-1 by Clinton, and he still won. And on the subject of the efficiency of economic systems, when the US was faced with the challenge of WWII, “free enterprise” was set aside in favor of central planning, rationing, and contracts with dictated terms of profit.
Think about that.
Democracy is a political system. Capitalism is an economic system. Everyone has access to our financial system. Open a bank account or a brokerage account. It takes 15 minutes.
Alex, your analysis is insightful and probably accurate. I think you have looked at the political environment through rose-colored glasses without looking at the dark side.
The dark side prevails.
The Republicans brought their guns to the fight while Democrats continue to bring their high-minded civics lessons. The battlefield is bloody with the bodies of integrity-laden Democratic politicians while crooks, scam-artists, racists and con men take their seats on the Republican side of the aisle.
We would not be talking about 1,000 Republican seats lost by Democrats since 2012 if the Republicans had not so effectively used redistricting to prevent majority rule in so many places. The right wing of the Supreme Court opened up the floodgates of special interest money in 2010 with Citizens United decision, unleashing corporate corruption and monetizing democracy.
The right wing is not so fastidious about truth or facts and they flood the airwaves with their perverted views using talk radio, cable television, and other right-wing media. They have consorted with enemies of our nation and employed the propagandists from St. Petersburg to undermine our American way of life. Republican legislatures have prevented millions of black Americans from voting. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, right-wing money, right-wing media and Russian hackers have taken democracy away from the people of the United States.
All of these anti-democratic and anti-American tactics were deployed against this country by Republicans who embrace the dark side. They have made their deal with the devil.