The Democrats are seeing the same polls we all see yet continue following the wishes of their vocal radicals and ignoring the more moderate voices.
Feeling Superior Still Not Same As Winning
Bad Policy Begets Worse Politics
Tom Edsall in NYT: “Democrats Are Making Life Too Easy for Republicans”
“Ruy Teixeira [Top 1% of awesome names], a co-editor of The Liberal Patriot, argues in an email that ‘the cultural left has managed to associate the Democratic Party with a series of views on crime, immigration, policing, free speech and, of course, race and gender that are quite far from those of the median voter. That’s a success for the cultural left, but the hard reality is that it’s an electoral liability for the Democratic Party.’
“Teixeira went on: ‘The current Democratic brand suffers from multiple deficiencies that make it somewhere between uncompelling and toxic to wide swaths of American voters who might potentially be their allies.’
KneeJERKS
“In Teixeira’s view, many Democrats have fallen victim to what he calls the ‘Fox News fallacy.’ ‘This is the idea,’ Teixeira said. ‘If Fox News criticizes the Democrats for X, then there must be absolutely nothing to X, and the job of Democrats is to assert that loudly and often.’ He wrote, ‘Take the issue of crime. Initially dismissed as simply an artifact of the Covid shutdown that was being vastly exaggerated by Fox News and the like for their nefarious purposes, it is now apparent that the spike in violent crime is quite real and that voters are very, very concerned about it.’
Identity Politics Fatigue
“But, [Brookings Fellow Isabel Sawhill] went on, ‘the problems are much deeper. First, the white working class that used to vote Democratic no longer does.’ … ‘This large group includes some people who are just plain prejudiced but a larger group that simply resents all the attention paid to race, gender, sexual preference or identity and the disrespect they think this entails for those with more traditional views and lifestyles.’”
When Keepin’ It Real Goes Wrong
“Sean Westwood, a political scientist at Dartmouth, is highly critical of the contemporary Democratic Party, writing by email: ‘Misguided focus on unpopular social policies are driving voters away from the Democratic Party and are mobilizing Republicans. Democrats used to be the party of the working class, but today they are instead seen as a party defined by ostensibly legalizing property crime, crippling the police and injecting social justice into math classes.’
“As a result, Westwood continued, ‘it is no surprise that this doesn’t connectwith a working family struggling to pay for surging grocery bills. By abandoning their core brand, even Democrats who oppose defunding the police are burdened by the party’s commitment to unpopular social policy.’
“The traditional strategy in midterm elections, Westwood wrote, is to mobilize the party base. Instead, he contended, Democrats ‘have decided to let the fringe brand the party’s messaging around issues that fail to obtain majority support among the base. Perhaps the most successful misinformation campaign in modern politics is being waged by the Twitter left against the base of the Democratic Party. The Twitter mob is intent on pushing social policies that have approximately zero chance of becoming law as a test of liberalism. Even if you support reducing taxes on the middle class, immigration reform and increasing the minimum wage, opposing defunding the police or the legalization of property crime makes you an unreasonable outcast.’
Worse Before Better
“The prospect of Democratic losses in the House will have ideological consequences for both parties. [Texeira colleague John] Halpin pointed out that the Democrats who lose seats in Congress in 2022 are certain to be disproportionately drawn from the moderates who face the most difficulty winning re-election in purple districts:
“‘If the Democrats get clobbered this fall, it will mostly be frontline members — those who are more moderate and centrist — who lose their seats, thus paving the way for a minority Democratic Party to become even more left wing. This would be a disaster for Democrats, but no one in the party seems willing to confront it.’”
Under-Deliver And … Aaahhh … You Know The Thing!
“[Former Pelosi Chief John] Lawrence [NOT COBRA KAI] replied by email to my inquiry: ‘I think a lot of voters will use 2022 to remind Biden (and Democrats, since they can’t vote against him) that their vote in 2020 was a vote to return to normalcy, not a blank check to build on the New Deal and Great Society. Once in office — albeit with ridiculously narrow margins — Democrats used the crisis to swing for the stands, ignoring the historical lesson of the Senate’s moderating role. So they have created the worst of all worlds: a failure to enact what the base demanded (but they did not have the votes to deliver) and the appearance of having overreached and invited an electoral haircut by many 2020 supporters who never embraced such a sweeping agenda.’”
Delusional Dems Repellant To Regulars
Josh Kraushaar: “Republicans Are Winning the Culture Wars”
“Democrats alienate swing voters when they resist moderating their views on hot-button cultural issues. Republicans are all too eager to litigate these issues all the way to the midterms.”
“While the exchange will end up as a mere asterisk in the history books, it does reflect a larger progressive blindness on cultural issues that Republicans are all too eager to litigate in the upcoming midterm elections—and beyond. Progressive Democrats have staked out ideological territory on cultural flashpoints ranging from race and gender to affirmative action, crime and policing, education, and COVID restrictions that are out of the political mainstream. Some of these fights, like the battle over inclusive language (like the much-discussed debate over Latinx) end up being more symbolic than substantive. Other flashpoints, like the fight against testing and gifted and talented programs in the name of racial equity, are quality-of-life issues where the stakes are higher.
“But the one thing they all have in common is that they’re issues where Democrats are on the losing side of a debate that’s becoming increasingly salient to voters. As Democratic political scientist Ruy Teixeira, co-author of the ‘Liberal Patriot’ blog, told The New York Times: ‘The current Democratic brand suffers from multiple deficiencies that make it somewhere between uncompelling and toxic to wide swaths of American voters who might potentially be their allies.’
“It’s that return to normalcy that defined President Biden’s campaign message in 2020. He was referring to a return to pre-Trump norms, but it could just as well have described the cultural polarization that took place during those years, with the Left and Right alike staking out more extreme positions on issues that once commanded a broad consensus. It’s one of the few issues where Democrats control their own destiny in the run-up to a tough midterm year, but only if they’re willing to distance themselves from allies in a culturally progressive bubble.”
Sarcastic Cupcake takes it to the house: “Democrats alienate swing voters when they resist moderating their views on hot-button cultural issues. Some day Democrats will figure this out. Today is not that day.”