It didn’t strike me as particularly surprising four years ago when Donald Trump did well in areas where jobs have been fleeing the country for decades. His pox-on-both-their-houses message fit the mood of populations that have been left behind in the modern economy. There’s been a lot of skepticism that “economic anxiety” drove these voters to Trumpism, with racism most often cited as the more likely explanation. But the results of the 2020 election should make people reconsider.
It’s simply bizarre that voters who feel they’re better off than in 2016 strongly preferred Joe Biden, while those who think they’re worse off voted for Trump. This is a reversal of Ronald Reagan’s famous formula from the 1980 campaign against Jimmy Carter. But the explanation is that Trump’s formula is to appeal to the left-behind, and they don’t care that he didn’t deliver for them. What they like is that he appears to be on their side.
Meanwhile, Trump got very little credit for a strong stock market and good pre-Covid jobs numbers from the people who benefited, precisely because he made it very clear that he’s not on their side in a cultural sense.
The lesson for Democrats isn’t to give up on winning over left-behind voters, but to realize that they don’t respond to policy pitches or even results as much as the perception that you’re making them a high priority. Racism is one way to say you’re fighting for them, but it’s far from the only way. Local Democrats have to organize people in these areas to make up for the declining influence of labor. They probably have to organize them around non- or semi-political issues at first. As long as the Democrats are very visibly organizing around issues of concern to their urban and professional base, without doing anything comparable in rural and small-town areas, they’ll get slaughtered in the which-side-are-you-on battle.
As I’ve said, over and over again, when the left abandons a struggling majority race population, the result is fascism. It makes them more racist. In fact, it makes racism an organizing principle for the right. And this is never more true than now, when traditional Republican constituencies have left the GOP and demographic changes require the right to win an ever-higher percentage of the white vote to compete.
I predicted Trumpism before Trump for exactly these reasons, and it won’t go away until the left makes representing the rural poor more of a priority. It’s got to start with actual work in the communities.
I dunno Martin. Certainly I think some of Trump’s gains with Hispanics and Blacks are due to the economy doing pretty well, and the lack of a Dem ground game (which was a bad decision in my opinion) which helped to spread propaganda.
It’s true that there are some Obama Trump voters that could be coaxed back with an emphasis on labor unions and monopoly busting in these communities, but I would argue the large turnout is more from QAnon and other far right crazies who rarely voted for Rs but now enthusiastically back Trump. We saw a blue wave in 2018 because R party without this crazy base is fully doomed.
I thought your ideas on antitrust were brilliant. Not sure why you’ve stopped talking about it or why Democrats don’t pick up on it in a meaningful way. For a while it looked like Warren might go there but she was half-hearted. She chose to try to steal or split the Sanders vote instead of bringing something unique to the debate. A real shame.
“They probably have to organize them around non- or semi-political issues at first.”
What types of issues did you have in mind? My biggest concern is that the main draw was the naked racism and nothing related to economic anxiety. I’m also curious as to why people like this would genuinely believe DJt is “on their side” when the actual results of the last 4 years completely contradict this.
I also share the concern that probably racism is at the heart of a lot of the appeal, but it cannot probably be more than 40% of the R voters, which means the rest of them are either decided against Liberals because of policies (they just are conservative and would prefer the government not do anything), or because of cultural persuasions.
I do think that Martin identifies one of the core problems correctly, which is that the Democratic party is seen as advancing the issues of a white, educated progressive elite in major cities, as opposed to anything that Rural America TM wants. I honestly can understand that sentiment. In fact, I would argue that a lot of Ds (NOT BIDEN) were not appropriately critical of the activist left in the Summer. I would argue this is part of the reason why Biden ran ahead of most D senators and house candidates.
When activists say ‘Defund the Police’, the correct response is to say “NO WAY, THIS IS NOT WHAT THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY WANTS” and to pound away that the statement is patronizing and racist because it doesn’t consider the views of, you know, actual majority of Blacks that have to live under police brutality. They want police reformed, and safer communities – not defunded police (see https://www.vox.com/2020/6/17/21292046/black-people-abolish-defund-dismantle-police-george-floyd-breonna-taylor-black-lives-matter-protest ). Biden was not afraid to go out and say that he opposed defunding police, so it didn’t hurt him as much. But it might have hurt D senate candidates (ask Clyburn) and downballot, where the R side could just pound away this message on social media. you think it didn’t hurt our standing with Latinos and Blacks?
Let me give another example. If you want to earn the Latino vote, don’t use the term LatinX. This was a term designed by white progressives who have no business in explaining to Latinos and Hispanics how they should refer to themselves. Most of the latter have never even heard of it, and when they do they don’t like it. DON’T USE IT. Go to these communities and find out what they want and need, instead of just saying ‘other side racist’.
As a nonwhite person, this infuriates me to no end. But these are examples of the types of things that have been prioritized by the Democrats in their messaging, that turn off rural white voters. We don’t need to do this. We need to put the emphasis back on pocketbook issues, and completely stay away from what college campuses are thinking. I say this as someone who is a researcher with a PhD. This doesn’t mean abandoning social justice. But don’t be a SJW when trying to get the vote of a white farmer in Iowa. The needle can be threaded. Obama did it.
I think that a lot of it comes down to how white progressives frame issues or set them to a narrative. We/they will frame them in lofty scholarly language and terms, rather than just using “common sense” terms for what we want. Social Justice is just a white progressive way of saying we want to treat everyone fairly. It’s almost like white progressives are trying to claim themselves as martyrs for a cause on behalf of whatever minority group by using scholarly phrases rather than just saying “we want to help everyone”. It makes white rural Republicans think we’re coming to take their stuff to give to poor minorities. And it makes minority group members think we think of them as some monolithic group that can’t help itself without our sacrifices.
And yes, the protests and defund movement started costing Democrats votes by the middle of June. I said it here myself. No one really wants to abolish the police, and that’s what “defund” sounds like, regardless of what it actually means…yet again a bad way of just saying “we should train police better to deescalate situations” or whatever.
I agree with every word of that. One thing though, some people actually did (or still DO) want to “Defund the police”, meaning to actually abolish the police entirely! This was just plain stupid, but they got some airtime and the damage was done.
Bingo.
You can bet a lot of those people were “principled progressives” who always seemingly agree with “moderate conservatives” that everything is the Democrat’s fault. Classic ratfucking.
We’ve gotten into a weird place where disadvantaged people don’t count if they hold the wrong political views or belief systems. The left can’t leave people behind who are suffering from lack of health care, massive loss of economic opportunity, an opioid crisis, and the loss of cultural clout. If the left does this, then the result is all organization breaks down in those communities and the vacuum is filled by right-wing populism based on bygone glory and racial grievance. This is fascism, and it leads to more than racial violence. It leads to a disrespect for democratic institutions. It also leads to right-wing political dominance.
The key point is understanding the costs of doing nothing, of writing people off based on how far they’ve already gone in the wrong direction. They just keep going and going until we have civil unrest and even insurrection.
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The GOP as it presently exists, as a conservative movement, has little choice but to encourage this, because they cannot win without getting whites to vote with racial consciousness. If facts get in the way, then the boundary between truth and lies can be blurred to the point of eradication.
This is all starts with the left losing these folks as labor unions were weakened, so the way back is to organize around something other than labor. I’ve talked about antitrust because it’s something these folks actually understand, believe it or not, but it can be about restoring rural hospitals or enterprise zones or agricultural issues. It has to be an effort to bring people together around something constructive, and maybe at first it will help if these issues aren’t seen as right vs. left or GOP vs. Democrat.
If we’re going to actually go after rural voters, then we have to actually incorporate issues they really care about. I mean, if you can explain to me how the average “rural” voter cares about anti-trust issues, fair enough. But if you’re talking anti-trust with the goal of taking down Wal-Mart and Amazon…again, you’re going to have to explain to me why “rural” people are going to go for that, while you’re still telegraphing that you want to take their AR-15s and give poor black people free stuff.
Y’all know rural people? Like, real rural people?
My suggestions, knowing rural people, and being realistic about what our fragile Democratic “majority” can work towards, without shattering and letting Tom Cotton destroy America:
Drop “gun control”. It’s never going to happen in any way y’all think it would do anything, and seriously, the majority of gun owners are not criminals. Mass murders with guns are mostly mental illness, or political, but I repeat myself. The reason why people mass murder in the US isn’t guns, it’s because our culture is mentally ill and very sick. Guns aren’t the means, they’re the ends. It’s how mentally ill people can most affect other people. If you think rural people are going to vote Democratic when you say you’re going to take away their AR-15 or Glock19, you’re insane.
More Federalism, not less. Write bills that expand the safety net, giving states the option to opt out. Until Red State voters get to truly experience being a Red State, they get the best of both worlds – delusion that they are ruggedly individual, while soaking up Blue State socialism without even being aware of it. Medicare for All, with opt-outs for Red State shitholes. Clean energy initiatives that expand renewable energy in Blue States, while letting Red States pay more for less energy. I’m not going to steal, so go read this…from a sane ex-Republican who figured it out by 2015 that he could no longer be a Republican.
https://www.politicalorphans.com/democrats-should-weaponize-federalism/
And finally, for anyone still reading: QUIT SHYING AWAY FROM WARREN/SANDERS PROGRESSIVISM. If it fails and Tom Cotton wins, then the experiment has been over and we’ve just been standing here watching the coals thinking it was a fire. If the Democratic Party only really stands for the status quo, then the “demographics” of the electorate are never going to change. I.E. young people are going to continue opting out of voting, and old people who are afraid of their shadows are going to keep voting.
Another link to another blog’s post that I think is valuable, and should make everyone wary of the “demographics will change everything” view that’s been touted for decades.
https://www.politicalorphans.com/our-most-dangerous-election/
This country is IN DANGER as long as the Republican Party exists. We need to make them irrelevant.
Repubs have mastered the technique of evading accountability. Where I live, exactly the people who complain most bitterly about the lousy government also seem unaware that their government has been dominated by the GOP for decades. If they don’t like the current circumstances, there is really the GOP to blame for it. But this connection is not made, and repubs instead shift into victim mode, blaming it all on the evil dems, and on any and all minorities. And it doesn’t get any better when you figure that the dems do a poor job of educating about these dynamics.
Sadly, Xochitl Torres Small lost in NM2 even though she did a great job in particular pushing for rural health care, broadband, and even traditional energy jobs in her district. Very disappointing.
I live in NM-2 and I thought Torres Small did a good job at highlighting her emphasis on the rural issues you mentioned. The republicans countered that by portraying Torres Small as some sort of San Francisco hippie liberal (whatever that means) and playing to the wedge issue culture war things that really have no substance other than to stir up people’s emotions. I also think the oil and gas folks know that the days of status quo are numbered and they want someone to blame. Democrats have always been an easy target.
Saying “The racism is the point” blind themselves to the problem and the solution. The problem is the resentment, the grievance. They resent a changing world that no longer revolves around White, Male, No College, Middle Class. They resent not being able to “tell jokes,” or having to press 1 for English or being told which pronouns to use. They see the expansion of rights and opportunities for others as a zero-sum situation.
Honestly, the best solution is to simply stop talking about a great many of the issues that are near and dear to the Democratic base. Focus on bread and butter issues, and then – when you have legislative majorities – go ahead and do what the base wants.
There is no way you consistently win swing districts with “defund the police.” But you can win and then do some variation of that under a different name. But then you risk dispiriting your base voters.
The protests and especially the “defund” movement became counterproductive about two weeks into June.
People see fires and broken windows and vote Republican.
Aside from my kids, I know my extended family was getting more than a little frustrated with a lot of the defund the police rhetoric, and just became more frustrated as time wore on. We all voted Democratic, but then again our specific candidates down ballot were not wanting to be caught up in that mess. Better training and background checks for police officers? I’m cool with that. Emphasize de-escalation? Cool. There are all sorts of creative ways to reach those desired outcomes. The last Democratic County Sherriff we elected actually did some of that at his particular level. I wish he hadn’t decided to hang it up when he did. He could have cruised to electoral victories indefinitely. He was no leftist, but he was someone who could speak plainly. That mattered. Other than that, the bread and butter issues are what matter. Those of us in former industrial cities, in rural towns, etc., have some common experience of being left behind. Talk plainly about specific plans to fix our infrastructure, to revive business in our communities, keep our hospitals afloat, etc. I’ve now watched two communities decay over the span of a decade each due to Republican neglect. It will be a heavy lift for the foreseeable future for the Democratic Party to regain the trust of those who almost never see Democratic politician with any stature visit with us on our turf. I doubt the conversations would be easy ones, but necessary. First, stop the bleeding. Then maybe some sort of healing can happen. Maybe you start flipping some local elections and CDs that were supposed to be untouchable. Maybe not consistently, but often enough. Build on that.