Dems Are Still In Disarray; It's Their Current Guiding Philosophy

They Are Still Having Difficulties Sorting Out Which Way to Go. We Offer Advice

Let’s be frank.

The New Deal Coalition composed of Labor Unions, Working Class Whites, Minorities and Academic Intellectuals is for all practical purposes dead. It had been on life support for a long time now and it took Donald Trump to just kill it outright. The only people who still think it’s alive and kicking are the same boomers and consultants who propped up Biden in that Weekend at Bernies Campaign last year.

This wasn’t the first time that was declared; after Reagan realigned the right behind him in 1980 and crushed Mondale in ‘84 everyone suspected it then too. But savvy politician that he was Bill Clinton just redefined and modernized the coalition for a post-industral world, fashioning it for the information age. He adhered to open economic borders, especially after the end of the Cold War, and signed free trade agreements which sent the stock market skyward. This was the business-oriented democratic party that Obama appealed to in 2008, and maximizing the minority vote in ‘08 and ‘12 hid the fact that the labor vote all but abandoned the Dems. In 2020, helped by a once in a lifetime pandemic, Biden was able to eke across 270 by picking off enough of them in the rust belt states, but now those working class union voters are gone and they are not coming back.

Democrats have to rebuild their party. To win, they have to re-orient themselves and find a winnable coalition not anchored by having to win a few thousand extra votes in old Rust Belt states. They have to change their whole strategy.

Part of the problem that has symied Democrats was Obama’s complete shellacking in 2010, which led Republicans to draw harsh gerrymanders across much of the country. Yes, this led to the effect of drawing more Republican districts, but it also had a detrimental side effect for Democrats; corralled into bluer districts, the party as a whole became much more progressive and ever since they have been less interested in appealing to a broader range of districts. I mean, why should they? Most Democrats are so secure they only fear a primary from their left. It’s why David Hogg is spending so much time and effort getting rid of older (wiser) Democrats and trying to elect younger, more progressive ones. This is not the way to build a winning coalition on a national level. It’s a way to get a bigger slice of an ever decreasing pie.

That, along with the general sense that DNC Chair Ken Martin essentially has no instinct for the job and no sense in how to get out of this mess. The others at the top of the party are no help either, as they all are in-fighting and squabbling over their own personal fiefdoms. Any optimism that Democrats will turn the corner soon is, well, optimistic.

So, in our ongoing quest to help give some direction this aimless, utterly lost party, we’ve offered some guidance and suggestions below. Soak it in Ken, you need to understand these things if you’re going to bring the Democratic Party back from the dead.

So let’s look at what the Democrats have in their favor.

Dems have academia. Nobody really likes academia, which most of society views as out of touch, politically extremist coddled people in ivory towers with serious arrested development issues. Don’t get me wrong, people love college. It’s a great time in many a person’s life. But the goal of it is to train oneself and get prepared to work in the real world. Too many academics have never experienced “the real world,” and their abstract way of looking at things and describing the world doesn’t always resonate with the general public. Too many Democrats see higher education as a goal onto itself instead of as a means and stepping stone to a career.

The near monopoly on academia also means they appeal to the upper class sophisticate crowds. The kind of people who cite where they got their undergraduate from, who fawn all over the publishing houses’ next big book and love to cite articles out of The Atlantic or elsewhere. They absolutely love to hear themselves talk and if one might disagree or offer an alternative viewpoint, they love to knock that person down a peg or two with some witty, snide commentary or indignation. Yeah, most voters don’t really care for them much either.

Democrats have women. A very high percentage of women. This alone would be enough if all women voted alike. They don’t. You have married women, church-going women, conservative white women, black women, single women, women petrified of immigrants and crime, women who vote with their husbands and so forth. In fact, most women don’t even vote solely on the fact that they are indeed women; they vote based on a myriad of other issues just as defining. For some reason, Democrats have a hard time even defining what exactly a woman is anyway. The overall result is that democrats have a solid 58% of women and perhaps a margin of 2-3% more. Considering that happened in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision means that about 60% is all you can really expect as far as a high tide with that group.

Democrats also have African-Americans (85%+) and generally most Hispanic voters (~60% or so) but both of those are also dropping. Why? Because Democrats are less representative of the working class of voters and both of those groups make up increasing shares of the working middle class. On the one hand, that’s a great sign for cultural integration, on the other hand, it doesn’t help Democrats and increasingly makes it worse for them as the voting patterns of these groups continue to align with the white working class which they are bleeding badly.

Democrats also have a hammerlock on the urban centers. Most large cities are predominantly Democratic and put out huge margins for Dems there.

Lasrly, they also have a near monopoly on the LGBTQIA+crowd. This group became almost completely Democratic in the 1990s when Evangelicals and the Religious Right, along with the Tea Party, totally took control of the Republican Party.¹ In fact this group has become one of the Democratic Party’s most vocal supporters. ²

OK then, take all of those groups, put them up in a five star hotel for a weekend to put together a plan for a National Coalition and a Congressional Majority and what do you get? Well, pretty much what you have right now, which is a lot of uber-progressive nonsense, a cowardice to only speak to those that are already on your side and a group picture that most people not already a part of these groups would not want to be a part of. It’s no wonder they’ve failed so miserably when they’ve done exactly what this paragraph said so far this election cycle.

So what do they need?

The short answer is they need to appeal to a broader set of groups than just those, but how does a party do that?

Economic Appeals

Democrats’ economic policy has historically always been geared to lower and middle class voters. Those voters just don’t realize it anymore because the Democrats’ predominant focus on cultural issues. Get back to talking about working class economics again. Cut the Deficit. Tax Billionaires. Fix Social Security and Medicare. The best way to get a golden cycle of economic growth and increase revenues for Social Security is to pay down the debt. Lowering the amount of interest paid will free up funds for other goals targeting the middle and lower classes. Shift the focus to a person’s economic status instead of their demographic identity, and open the doors of opportunity for them.

Regional Appeals

The next thing to do is to stop focusing on the urban areas, and instead expand into the suburbs and exurbs. I realize that to many people in the city, there is a selfish mentality that the suburbs should be more cosmopolitan like they are. Trust me, they don’t want to live like urbanites. They like their space. Their schools are better. There’s less crime. So when Democrats prop up “Abundance” with it’s focus on urban planning and more socially conscious ideas for affordable housing, transportation and green spaces, it falls on deaf ears outside the city. It’s a city proposal, meant to appeal to city people.

And you shouldn’t stop there. Reach out to rural America. Farmers used to be a solid backbone of the New Deal Coalition. What happened? Money started flowing out of rural America into the cities and are now at the point were rural small towns are all but dead. Rural America is some of the biggest voting blocs in the middle of the country, or what Dems on the coast derisively call “flyover country.” Democrats at the least have to compete here and even moreso have to win in some rural states if they have any chance of building a majority coalition again. There simply is no consistent way to 270 without winning states Democrats have currently all but given up on.

Compete everywhere, in every district. One of the ways the Democrats rebounded in 2006 and 2008 was Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy. States that Hillary wrote off in 2008, Obama made direct appeals to and he managed to win them by huge margins in the primaries. Coming out of the primaries, people gave Obama a chance because of it, even in places like Iowa, Nebraska, Idaho and Montana. Democrats can’t afford to be like Hillary anymore and write off non-typical Dem areas.

Families

Which brings me up to item number 3; Democrats are sorely losing traditional families. I know a lot of liberals who would read that sentence and be “So what, I don’t want to be in a traditional family, and what the hell even is a traditional family to begin with!” Yeah, the problem is that most people still aspire to be a PART of a family. They want to meet someone, marry, most want to have kids, and when they do they want to go through the typical milestones of their childrens’ lives. This transcends racial lines, and in fact many immigrant communities rely on their families and define themselves with their traditional family roles. Scoffing at that paradigm alienates many of them, and that’s just dumb because they make up a very large (and growing) percentage of Americans.

Many (including me) laughed when Dan Quayle made a snarky comment regardling Murphy Brown and family values. Those values, however, are important, and many people, including the vast majority of voters, relate to them.³ One thing Democrats have done well over the past 30 years is redefining generally accepted partnerships. People are accepting now of gay parents and children growing up with them. It’s a good thing. However, Dems have tended to focus more on “untraditional families” as the standard which kind of tilts the landscape; the vast majority of families are still relatively traditional. A better message is to incorporate non-traditional imagery into a diverse picture of what families are without making it the centerpiece. The message should be building strong families regardless of any other identity you may have. Single fathers helping kids with schoolwork. Moms and Dads both being heads of household and chief wage earners. Gay couples contributing to a PTA meeting. Grandparents watching their grandkids at a school sporting event. A neighborhood of families helping the special needs child on their block. Families of every stripe helping out one another. When you build families up, regardless of what kind of family it is, you help build neighborhoods, which helps build communities, which helps win elections. Democrats can’t afford to cater to the single, bougey crowd cynical of settling down anymore; they have to actually get back their block parties and driveway bonfires again.

Men.

Yeah, this is a problem Democrats can no longer ignore. I’m not going to go into this too deeply here, other than to say that Democrats have to do a much better job of being less gender-focused in their messaging. By making such hard, explicit repetitive appeals to women, they’ve alienated a lot of men in the process. Their supporters have taken girl power messaging to the extreme and run with it and the damage has been done. If Democrats want to sniff a majority again, they have to do better than the decisive percentage of men they lost by last election. Period. Oh, and liberal podcasts where they try to talk about hunting and football and beer is not the way to do it.

Latitude

Democrats have to give latitude to candidates in various regions to distance themselves from the more progressive aspects of the party. There has to be a permission structure that allows purple candidates in red or purple areas to run if Democrats want to win.

So how do you do this? Well, for starters, drawing attention to the most liberal advocates of the party isn’t what you want to do. As an example, here’s a liberal account broadcasting far and wide what AOC said on Sunday morning after the attack on Iran:

To impeach you need a majority of the House and 2/3 of the Senate, which is not going to happen, especially with this issue right now. So why even bring it up? It serves absolutely zero advantage whatsoever and potentially pushes away persuadable voters to boot. This kind of message, one where progressives push the button on all things, all the time, has to stop. At least, it should not get near the attention that it does.

Another example is the current love fest in New York over Socialist candidate, Zohran Mamdami. This is Donald Trump’s and the GOP’s wet dream candidate. Not just for NY, but for the entire country. If he wins, his face is going to be on every negative ad along with AOC’s from sea to shining sea, and socialism doesn’t play in Peoria. Democrats have to be better at understanding we live in a media environment now where what happens in one place can be broadbrushed everywhere. They have to be willing to compromise and be more practical, and less dreamy for the ideological out there.

The broader the coalition appears, the easier it will be to appeal to persuadable moderates across the country.

Decency

Lastly, they need to maintain their decency. Watching protesters burn waymos isn’t decent. People recoil at such images. The No Kings protests were largely a success because crowds largely remained under control. Republicans and MAGA supporters demonstrably cross this line regularly. The shooting of two Minnesota legislators. The masked “kidnappings” of suspected illegal immigrants off the streets by ICE. The sending of an American citizen without due process to El Salvador. I could go on and on. Trump and his administration have proven to be indecent, and disrespectful of everything and everybody. Its a huge contrast Democrats can and should take advantage of.

The immediate reaction is to be respond in degree and in kind to such things. That would be a huge mistake. Demonstrate a better way. Keep your chin up. Maintain your dignity. Fight, but keep everything above board. People are seeing. The world is watching. Many voters already regret their decision, having forgotten what Trump 1.0 was like and then getting the rude awakening with Trump 2.0. Make it easy for them to reconsider their decision. Invite them with a soft touch and an open hand, not the ranting, screaming advocacy of the lunatic fringe on the left. Show them there is a better way, a smarter way, a more sane way towards a better America.

As far as issues, let the individual candidates and regions determine what to stand on where. You have to build up and that means being a little looser in what you stand for. Quit with the progressive issue bundling and instead let local candidates go head to head against Republicans using any and all issues at their disposal, even if it’s not Democratic Dogma. The “what” right now is not as important as the “who” or “how.”

Conclusion

Democrats right now are still in disarray but have a huge opportunity as well. The more they open up, and let themselves be a little looser with far more diverse options, regions and ideas, the faster they can rebuild. If they succeed in 2026 and 2028, they will have gone a long way toward reconstructing the bench of leaders across the country for the next generation and beyond.

PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day

The thing about forest fires is that following them you often have a natural rebirth with young, growing trees taking their place, continuing the cycle of life. Where once their was devastation, soon after gives rise to a strong growing new generation.

2024 was a forest fire for Democrats. It’s time to rebuild.

PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject

“It’s a liberating experience being lost with no particular place to go. Every avenue one may take results in a success of some kind.” — Oscar Wilde

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. To demonstrate, all you need to do is hear the story of former Wisconsin Congressman Steve Gunderson. A gay Republican, representing mostly rural Wisconsin communities, he was actually one of GOP Minority Leader Newt Gingrich’s Deputy Whips. Many in his district did not know he was gay until he was outed on the House floor by fellow Republican, the outrageous Bob Dornan. When Republicans took over the House in 1994, Gunderson was next in line for a Chairmanship, but with the Tea Party crowd dictating the direction of the party, Gingrich declined to give it to him and he decided not to run for re-election in 1996. As the party grew more vocally anti-gay, most remaining gay Republicans left the party and it’s been that way ever since.

2. That’s not always a good thing.

3. Another anecdote. When I first worked on a campaign, one of my jobs was to go through the weekly newspapers in the largely rural district and send letters of appreciation to those older couple celebrating their 25th or 50th or whatnot anniversary. The form letter the Congressman had contained a line in it saying something like “Many today don’t appreciate consider family values an empty term, but it is refreshing to see how much two people love each other and demonstrate the term for all to see.” I thought it was a bit corny, but I’d be damned if it wasn’t effective. At events up and down the district those people came to meet the Congressman and thank him for the kind appreciation letter. It’s little things like that that go a long way to build electoral wins.