John Davis, the non-partisan political analyst with a conservative bent, has a message for Democrats. He says the party needs to stop viewing politics through a 50 year-old lens. If they don’t, they could squander a tremendous political opportunity heading into 2018.
Davis is really talking about the focus on identity politics. Or as he puts it, they need to “get beyond their strategy of inclusiveness that excludes everyone except minorities and liberals.” He believes the party is pandering to agendas of certain groups while ignoring the economic messages that cross identity boundaries.
Davis implies that the party looks a lot like the one that fell apart in 1968 and again in 1972. Back then, Democrats built a party largely based on pro-civil rights organizations and anti-war groups. Under Lyndon Johnson, they had passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The women’s rights movement was coming into its own and the gay rights movement came into focus with the Stonewall Riots. These movements dramatically changed America for the better and Democrats became an activist party, focused on causes and discrimination, not jobs and wages.
For many Americans, the transformation was too fast and the push for further changes alienated them, especially the white working class. They became Nixon’s Silent Majority that carried him to victory in 1968 and then helped him win a landslide victory in 1972 against George McGovern. McGovern’s campaign politicized a lot of young people who would later shape the Democratic Party, but it also lost most of the older, whiter voters who made up the bulk of the electorate.
Like then, Democrats today are coming off of historic victories that will change the social landscape of the country. We elected the first African-American president. Marriage equality offers LGBT people the same rights as the rest of us. Universal access to health care is now a mainstream idea that Republicans oppose at their own political risk. We’re transitioning from a carbon-based economy to one based on renewable energy, despite resistance from gas and oil companies and climate change deniers.
Again, the shifts in policies are dramatic and, for many people, too fast. Public opinion is still catching up with public policy. Even people who may agree with the policies themselves may feel ignored by a Democratic Party focused on issues they don’t believe affect them directly. Those people have not completely recovered from the Great Recession or are buried in student debt or worried about the impact of trade agreements and technological changes on their careers.
To be successful, Davis and others argue, Democrats need to rebuild their tent and talk more about economic issues that have broad impact instead of issues that affect narrow constituencies. Democrats should look at Rep. Cheri Bustos who represents a rural district in northwest Illinois that Trump won. She beat her opponent by 20 points talking about bread-and-butter issues and downplaying more divisive ones. She’s pro-choice in a pro-life district but still wins handily. It’s a road map Congressional candidates in North Carolina should follow.
Democrats will always be the party that stands up for the rights of minorities and those left behind by society. Sometimes, though, leading with those issues is a losing formula. Winning elections leads to making policy. Democrats should find messages that win, not just ones that inspire certain constituencies.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
People want financial security and most could care less about all this touchy feely nonsense. No wonder we lost all the races.
I don’t disagree with the point that economics is a critical and often primary issue. However, in reading the various comments that are so critical of “identity” politics, I wonder if there is anyone other than me responding to this who fits into that category? Just a thought.
What category is that Norma
There is something really wrong with the system when everything Tom lists is true. Leaving it to the courts to protect minority interests in the Republic is frightening with a packed to the Right Supreme court. Still the general wisdom of the voters is reflected in the General votes.
Further the Democratic Party has nowhere to look of leading ideas and ideals but to the Sanders Platform. Most of the disarray has to do now with the DNC’s apparent aim to do anything but simply get with the program, so to speak.
I am convinced that Barbara Tuchman was right in her essay from Practicing History that the US needed to Eliminate the Presidency and adopt the Parliamentary form of democracy. (“Should we eliminate the Presidency”)
Were that the case a Vote of No Confidence would do.
In order for that to happen the constitution would have to be rewritten and that is a long a difficult task.
To Tom — you are correct in all that you said, but who is President, which party holds a majority in both the Senate and US House, which party has the most governors….the Democratic Party failed to play the game by the rules of the electoral college, etc. and appeal to the bread and butter voter…all the rest are footnotes in history!
The Democratic campaign of last year forgot Bill Clinton’s watchwords: “It’s the ECONOMY stupid” (courtesy of James Carville). Had that been the mantra this past year, today, we would have a different President, Democratic control of the US Senate, etc.
We need to go after the economic issues and talk to the voters about jobs, pay, etc. That will win the election.
In my lifetime, I am 51 the country has never been more prosperous than it was under Bill Clinton’s second term. Yet the political class of both parties seem to detest that time period. I can see why the Republicans detest it, they would have rather died than give
Bill Clinton credit for anything, but ever since Howard Dean ran for president the Democrats have been afraid to touch that period, even Al Gore 2000 run did not embrace it. If any one should have it should have been Hillary Clinton, she saw first had how much the county and the party benefited from her husbands second term, but like the others she would not touch it. I for one just don’t get it.
Both parties want to ignore the Clinton years in order to protect their brands.
Bill Clinton was one of the best Republican Presidents we’ve ever had. Clinton described himself as an “Eisenhower Republican” during his first cabinet meeting.
There you have it, is was not alive during the Eisenhower years but it was the last time the county was prosperous before Clinton, it seems like protecting the brand is more important they a prosperous country in both parties
And in Eisenhower’s day, the top tax bracket was 90%.
Try that today and you’ll get death threats for being a Communist.
Go figure.
So if we are in a period where the political class of both parties would rather protect there brand then do what is right for the country where does that leave us
At the mercy of the 1% that fund the two Parties.
Democrats should heed Davis’ advice for a completely different reason.
Identity politics means that the only promise that has been made to the rank-and-file is to get the ceiling-shattering candidate elected – and that’s all. From that, we are to assume that good policies will magically flow from an individual based on their demographics. Which, quite frankly, is insane. Sure, one would expect a female candidate to have an understanding of, and sympathy for, issues that affect women. But there was not a renaissance of women’s rights under Maggie Thatcher in the UK – nor has there been a surge in the well-being of African Americans under Obama. In fact, Thatcher quite deliberately “out-manned the men” – using shaming tactics and telling colleagues to “man up” (you wussies) in her support of the Military-Industrial complex and the wars it must have in order to survive.
So the actual agenda that will be pursued by a demographically ground-breaking candidate is not determined by their identity. In fact, I would argue that Obama had “Jackie Robinson Syndrome” – the realization that if he failed, other African-Americans would be unlikely to follow in his White House footsteps. This lead to Obama being cautious when he had the opportunity to be bold in the first years of his mandate, with his only achievement being the passage of Mitt Romney’s health care reform plan.
Perhaps there are lessons to learn but:
The Democratic party candidate for president got more votes than any candidate of either party in US history except for the Democratic candidate for president in the previous election.
The Democratic candidates for the US Senate across the nation received 11,000,000 more votes that the Republican candidates.
The Democratic candidates for the US House across the nation received almost as many votes as did the GOP candidates where there were contests.
The Democratic candidate for President defeated her opponent in the primary by over 3,000,000 votes and received the second highest vote for the nomination of any candidate of any party for the nomination in US history and she was second to herself having won the highest vote for the nomination of either party in US history in 2008.
The Democratic candidate or president received more votes in winning her party’s nomination than did the GOP candidate for president in winning his party’s nomination.
The Democratic candidate for president received the highest vote in a single state of any candidate for president of either party in US history. She received the highest vote in history of any candidate of either party in other states.
The candidates to the left of the winning candidate for president received 11,000,000 more votes than he did.
The Democrats have won the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections.
Getting the most votes does mean something I would think. Perhaps one party is about people and one is about acreage.
Tom
The problem is there is only on winner and in 2016 it was Trump. History has shown that when a party gets too wrapped up in its on utopia and forgets about the voters the party suffers.
It is always interesting to not what John Davis says considering he has long been on the side of the Republicans so giving the Democrats advice should be taken with a grain of salt. However there is something to be said the party sometimes does not understand what voters are thinking. As a general rule the working class voters are lot less interested in issues such as gay marriage or removing confederate flags from buildings as they are about economic chances for the working class. And this is not just the white working class either the black working class or other minorities are more interested in finding steady work then gay marriage or confederate flags either.
Perhaps Stephen, Davis sees the need for balance in politics. Not the super majorities and the veto proof State and Federal houses of government we current see. Because in these times, there is no negotiation, there is no compromise. It is either my way or no way. Perhaps Davis sees the gross error in that and perhaps even he sees the potential for tyranny from both sides without moderation between the two.
I think we’re seeing that concept in spades currently right here. The legislature does what it wants because it can, period. Who’s going to stop them?
This is exactly what the Dems need to do. Common ground issues, NOT identities, should come first.