Every Democrat needs to see this chart
Out of touch much?
The most common question people ask me post-election is some version of this: Are Democrats going to move more liberal or more moderate?
The honest answer is that I don’t know. And I think I have that in common with the Democratic party’s big thinkers and strategists!
There are those who insist that the party needs to move leftward toward the sort of economic populism represented by the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
And there are those who argue that the path forward is, like Bill Clinton in the early 1990s following three straight White House defeats, to forge a more centrist “third way” led by the likes of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.
Which side wins that fight? Too early to say.
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And, what the party will do is, of course, different than what they should do — in raw political terms.
That, to my mind, is a bit clearer especially after I saw this terrific chart from the Financial Times (thanks to Bubba Atkinson for flagging):
Striking, right? The chart tells the story of American politics in stark terms: Democratic opinion setters and elites are FAR to the left of the ideology of the average voter while Republican opinion setters and elites are only slightly to the right of the average voter.
Why does this matter? Because influencers — elected officials, TV pundits, opinion writers, lobbyists etc. — play an outsized role in defining the "brand” of each party.
When those people are WAY to the left of the average voter, you get what we saw over the past 2 years — and, specifically, in the final months of the 2024 campaign: An emphasis on identity politics, wokeness, “Democracy” and the like.
Not only did none of those issues resonate with the average voter but they also allowed Donald Trump to make the case that Kamala Harris (and her ilk) were wacko liberal communists who would destroy our morals and value system — not to mention our economy — if elected.
Again, remember that this ad was what Trump closed with in most swing states — and the one that even the Harris people admitted was deeply damaging to their chances:
That ad isn’t really about transgender rights. It’s about a broader values message — that Democrats aren’t like you. That they are so focused on “Latinx” and “they/them” that they have lost sight of the price of eggs and the crisis at the Southern border.
The fix then, you might think, is simple. Democrats need to move to the ideological center. They have allowed themselves to be as FAR left and need to remake the brand to be a more moderate and welcoming place.
Like almost everything in life, it’s more complicated than it at first appears. Here’s why: Know who DEEPLY believes in the needs to uplift marginal communities, to drive DEI practices in corporate America — in short to mainline what is derisively referred to as “wokeness”? The Democratic base!
As in, the activist and major donor class — as well as some of the leading lights at some liberal think tanks and the like — believe deeply in all of this stuff! And they don’t want to walk away from it because, politically, it’s bad news.
Which is why the party is, at the moment, in a major pickle. It is caught between the beliefs of its base and the clear message that voters sent them in November — that they moved too far to the left, especially on cultural issues, and, in so doing, allowed someone like Trump to move into the White House. Again.
How does this resolve itself? My guess is that it will require a candidate — or a leader within the party — who is able to articulate a vision that finds a way to not give up on the identity politics of the base but to de-emphasize it in favor of a policy agenda that re-imagines what “Democrat” means to the average voter.
When does that person emerge? I don’t know! Who is it? I don’t know! But that, to me, is the way Democrats find their way out of their current morass.
I don’t think the chart shows what you are claiming it shows. I’ve seen reporting about polling on issues, on position and when no party is linked to the particular policy position, the issues that Democrats are trying to achieve are very popular. The electorate just doesn’t associate those positions with the Democratic Party. Similarly, when the public got wind of project 2025, the Republican candidate had to disown it because it was so toxic. MAGA voters are still saying that Project 2025 has nothing to do with the president-elect.
I'm a lifelong Democrat but, because of my wife's employment situation, I routinely socialize with working class folks who tend to favor Trump. Based on casual conversations over the years and over the beers, my recommendation for my fellow Dems is to move to the left on economic issues and to the right on cultural issues. There is a surprising amount of agreement between Progressives and MAGA members (not their leaders) on economic policies like health care, minimum wage, income inequality and so forth. The hostility toward the Democratic party primarily flows from issues around identity politics, immigration, gun control and so forth. The cultural issues tend to be more decisive in determining how someone will vote.
If we want to be successful politically going forward, I'd suggest that we emphasize and defend left wing economic policies while, as much as possible, minimizing our cultural differences.