This analysis of the Democratic Party’s current state appears in the Nation, a leftwing journal. I think it’s well worth reading and, in some ways, spot-on.
The article, by Matthew Karp, consists of two main parts. The first is a summary of the views of John Judis and Ruy Teixeira as presented in their new book Where Have All the Democrats Gone? The second is Karp’s take on these views.
As Karp describes the book, it also has two parts. Judis and Teixeira begin by discussing the well-documented defection from the Democratic Party of the working class. They attribute it primarily to the “neoliberal” economic policies of presidents Carter, Clinton, and Obama, Here, says Karp, the authors sound like democratic socialists.
Next, Judis and Teixeira present their prescription for reversing this defection. Karp describes that prescription this way:
To once again become “the party of the people,” the Democrats must do more than merely return to the liberal economics of the New Deal; they must also break with the “cultural radicalism” that, Judis and Teixeira contend, continues to alienate working-class voters from the party. Now sounding less like leftist tribunes than centrist op-ed columnists, the authors call for a pragmatic “middle ground” on questions of race, gender, climate, and immigration.
It’s difficult to dispute either thesis of Judis and Teixeira. The working class has defected from the Democratic Party. Polls make this clear.
“Neo-liberal” economic policies almost certainly have had something to do with the defection although, as the prescription of Judis and Teixeira suggests, cultural issues may have had more to do with it. In any case, breaking with cultural radicalism probably would go a long way towards reversing working class alienation from the Party.
What Karp disputes, first of all, is whether the Dems are capable of abandoning cultural radicalism. He writes of Judis and Teixeira:
Their historical arguments are too powerful for their prescriptive ones. The very forces that have reshaped the party of Roosevelt into the party of Biden make it almost impossible for the Democrats to embark on the political transformation the authors seek. . . .
For crucial Democratic constituencies—the “shadow party,” but also a broader voting coalition—[cultural matters] are the very issues that drive political commitment in the first place.
Karp also questions whether Democrats need to move towards the center on cultural issues:
Nor is it clear that the party’s leftward shift has exacted such a terrible price at the polls. Indeed, the Democrats have junked Clinton-era social conservatism, written progressive policy into law in states from Oregon to Minnesota, doubled down on their alliance with progressive elites in the media, the entertainment industry, and academia, and still managed to remain competitive as a national party.
This is true, though I believe the Republican Party has played a big role in helping Democrats remain competitive in the face of working class defections.
I also believe that Democrats do need to trim their culture radicalism sails a bit if they are to remain competitive during the next decade. Trump (who, to be fair, played a part in causing the working class to defect) may now be the gift that keeps on giving to Dems, but he won’t keep giving forever.
I doubt the Democrats need to trim on certain culture war issues (e.g. abortion), but would benefit from a tougher stand — or at least tougher talk — on crime and the border. I believe the Party is already moving in the direction of tougher talk.
Here is the conclusion to Karp’s piece:
The Democratic coalition today is built to fight, and perhaps to win, [the culture war] struggle. It is not built to become a “party of the people,” a vehicle to oppose elite rule, or a force for major economic reform. Insofar as the upper-middle-class Democratic base finds itself pinched or bruised by the reckless march of capital, it may consider mild adjustments to the fiscal or regulatory order; insofar as it wishes to reward the less-advantaged voters inside the coalition, it may support mild increases in welfare spending.
But a party that wins 60 percent support from the wealthiest 10 percent of the country and 75 percent support from top earners in business and finance and that claims enthusiastic allegiance from much of the billionaire class will not organize a new New Deal. Its “material interest and social position” simply does not favor a transformation of class power in the United States —or, to say the same thing in different words [NOTE: Really?], a government that can deliver good jobs, healthcare, housing, and education to all its people.
If Karp is right, we should be thankful. However, the Democrats’ cultural agenda seems at least as ruinous as the economic agenda Karp would like the Party to pursue.
It looks to me like the Democratic Party has been hijacked by race huckstering, reparations, transgenderism, criminals-as-victims (if not heroes) and all the other far Left stuff to an extent that they have now crossed the Rubicon. It's not that they can't go back, or that they do (or don't) need to go back. It's that they DON'T WANT to go back, so it's not going to happen. The key for us is to (1) broadcast these issues to the hilt; (2) emphasize that the country (and families' pocket books) were better off with Trump than they are now with Biden; and (3) get Trump to talk about the future of the country rather than how I Wuz Robbed Four Years Ago.
We know (3) isn't going to happen, so the question is whether we can get (1) and (2) enough front-and-center to win. The answer is that it's possible but hardly a sure bet. So we can still lose an election we should easily win and that the country desperately needs for us to win. It wasn't optimism that drove me to write recently about "Seven Thoughts To Ruin Your Day."
I subscribe to Teixeira's Substack, The Liberal Patriot where he and a number of other writers continually harangue the Democratic Party for the things described in this article. The problem with Teixeira is that, like many Democrats, he thinks it's a matter of optics and thar Biden for example can just "tack right " for the election season and convince anyone. Modern politicians seem to have caught the disease Lincoln described. They believe they can fool all of the people all of the time. No one is being fooled. The Democratic Party is woefully unpopular with not just the working class but with a huge majority of moderates and independents who find the cultural radicalism nauseating. The problem is that the same people are even more sickened by what the Republican party has become under Donald Trump. I truly believe that if a Reagan or someone similar somehow emerges in the next decade then the Democrats would be repudiated in a landslide. But here we are.