How Democrats Can Win Again: Go Back to the Future

A defeated Democratic incumbent. A charismatic Republican outsider. An election roiled by economic turmoil and violence somewhere in the world, usually in the Middle East. A campaign of contrasts, of relentlessly negative liberals, dismissing their rival as extremist, and equally vocal conservatives pushing forward with a somewhat contradictory message of current doom and gloom punctuated by buoyant optimism that things will turn around if they triumph in the electoral contest. And then, the results: a dramatic realignment, of traditional constituencies abandoning the Democrats and moving firmly towards the GOP, and a nation politically dominated by a resurgent, reforming Right.

I’m talking, of course, about the 1980 election, though I could mean 2024. For in their Republican triumph and desolate Democratic failure, the contests are remarkably similar. That’s clear wherever you look, from the focus on hostages, variously in Iran or Gaza, to how Trump and Reagan tapped into the concerns of young people and the middle class while Harris, like Carter, relied on exhausted (and exhausting) invective while offering nothing more substantive themselves.

Not, of course, that smart historical dovetail is merely a matter for academics and pundits. On the contrary, it offers hints about how the defeated Left-wing of American politics may yet find an avenue to revival. For just as the Democrats absorbed the lessons of 1980, readjusting their message, returning to the White House, and ultimately bestriding the political scene until Trump 1.0 in 2016 — so too must their current successors relearn the practical policies that made their forebears so potent and effective.

That earlier Democratic comeback, culminating in their dominance during the Nineties, wasn’t really about any single policy. Rather, to quote former party activist Ted Van Dyke, it was about “being more in tune with the voters’ thinking”. Unlike the treacly miserable Harris campaign, full of word salads, vague generalities, virtue signaling or indeed those waged by Carter, Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale, what eventually became the New Democrats focused not on vague appeals to “values” or “joy”, but on actual winning. With charismatic communicators like Bill Clinton, as well as the early (pre vice presidential) Al Gore or Gary Hart providing youthful energy, they managed to convey in words and policies both common sense and empathy, managing to reach New York liberals and hard-nosed Southern bubbas simultaneously to form a winning coalition.

What a marked contrast with today’s Democratic Party, formerly led by a wobbly old man with an impressive resume but way past his sell-by date, and with progressive mediocrities such as Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as his would-be successors. Living in their own universe, they have little idea of what Main Street actually thinks, drawing instead on the progressive Woke culture increasingly dominant in classrooms, offices, the media, and indeed the government bureaucracy itself. Their outreach to the masses consisted largely of tapping hyper-partisan celebrities and East Coast pseudo intellectuals and similarly left-leaning traditional media. It’s a message that fell on fallow ground everywhere from suburbs and exurbs to smaller cities — basically anywhere in America that looks set to grow over the coming decades even as their party’s hold both on the electoral zeitgeist fades.

Far more even than Barack Obama (who could be, on occasion, very Ivory Tower in his thinking and attitude), in short, people like Clinton understood Americans in ways reminiscent of Truman and Reagan. That, in turn, was reflected in the post-Eighties policy agenda. Turning away from Carter’s missives about national malaise or arguments for green austerity, they instead embraced economic growth, personal responsibility and color-blind racial policies. Rather than back the policies of green lobbies or civil rights activists, they instead embraced a kind of Fabian liberalism. Democratic Party bromides on issues such as racial quotas, criminal sentencing, trade and education were attacked, often to the consternation of traditional party constituencies.

What of Democratic policy in more recent times? Biden’s huge expansion of government did boost some special interests, notably green and race grifters, as well as wealthy stock and property owners. But Bidenomics failed to uplift the bulk of the working and middle class (becoming more and more endangered each day), even as inflation hit hardest among the least affluent. One-in-four Americans fears losing their job over the next year, even as roughly half now think the vaunted “American Dream” of home ownership has become unattainable, particularly in coastal cities. No amount of statistics and administration statements about how strong the ‘economic fundamentals’ were could assuage the restive populace who didn’t feel it.

This divergence, of both policy and personnel, has had stark consequences. By shifting to the center, Clinton undermined Reaganism while once more becoming competitive in parts of the South and Midwest. In marked contrast, these days the Democrats are electoral poison across much of the country. That’s clear enough when you consider the success of their opponents. Trump more than doubled his margin among working-class voters, enjoying a lead over Harris of more than 10%. He also gained among other traditional Democratic voters, including Jews, Asians and even some African Americans. Perhaps 45% of Latinos, arguably the most critical voting bloc in the land, stumped for Trump too. That’s a record for a Republican: in 2012 the GOP candidate managed under 30%.

And if that should make grim reading for liberals, surely the most galling thing is that many Democrats don’t even seem willing to face facts. With their base in the professional classes, the federal bureaucracy and the media, the party now operates with almost North Korean conformity, using influencers to lambast their opponents with a ferocity even the Kim dynasty would appreciate. Party supporters seem out-of-touch too: a recent poll of urban professionals found their views on everything from meat consumption to freedom of speech differs drastically from those of most Americans.

This Manichean mania has led progressives not to rethink but assail. As Van Jones, a long-time Democratic operative and CNN commentator has observed, once voters choose wrongly, they’re dismissed as racists and fascists. It goes without saying that this kind of selective scapegoating is neither workable nor a sustainable political strategy.

Not that the situation is completely hopeless. Look backwards to the Eighties and contemporary Democrats will find a clear roadmap for the future. First, they should move away from identity politics. To regain primacy, they’ll need to row back on progressive ideas such as transgenderism, reparations and racial quotas, all backed by no more than 30% of Americans. Second, they must focus on economic growth and opportunity. Unlike Biden, Clinton understood that expanding government for the sake of it is pointless. Rather, he favored tax policies that would spark growth and poured billions into law enforcement to address the popular concerns over crime.

The most galling thing is that many Democrats don’t even seem willing to face facts.

Whatever one thinks of them, meanwhile, redistribution of income, universal healthcare and higher taxes on the corporate elite are all popular ideas. Especially given that Trump will doubtlessly oppose these measures, they seem like good ways of peeling parts off his base.

None of this will be easy to achieve in practice. Nowadays, reformers face an ever more strident progressive base — one whose whole raison d’être is destructive identity politics. A whole chattering class of ‘progressive’ talking heads, whose inanity epitomizes an entire ideology, has been blaming white women for failing Harris. Activist Democratic women, for their part, blame the vice president’s defeat on misogyny among the multi-racial unwashed. Looks like a circular firing squad shooting inwards at themselves.

In the first instance, then, the Democrats must find their new Clinton, someone who can bridge the gap between more radical progressives and the big money people who fund the party. Fortunately, there are signs that new leaders are emerging, politicians brave enough to break with the progressives on issues such as immigration and fracking. That includes Senator John Fetterman and Governor Josh Shapiro, both Pennsylvanians, as well as the New York congressman Ritchie Torres. Together with Andy Beshear in Kentucky, they’re far better harbingers of a revived party than rich boy virtue signalers like Gavin Newson (California) or J.B. Pritzker (Illinois), both of whom have done a masterful job of undermining their own economies.

There’s other good news for the Democrats, with much of the country clearly primed for a return to the center. Los Angeles, Oakland, St Louis, San Francisco, Buffalo, Seattle — in all these cities, far-Left candidates have been squashed by more moderate alternatives. So too were Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, two members of the “Squad” decisively beaten by more traditional Democrats. A dozen Soros-funded district attorneys, ominously radical in their approach to criminal justice, were similarly turfed out.

No less important, the Democrats must realize that their Republican rivals are far from invulnerable — this is the first time in 20 years that they have won the popular vote. No less than the Left, the Right is plagued by its own lunatic fringe, particularly on issues like book bans, guns, and abortion, which in different ways tend to alienate independent voters. The record of the cacophonic GOP House majority is hardly enviable.

Trump, being Trump, is bound to make things easier for reasonable Democrats. His grave personal faults will make a repeat of Reagan’s “morning in America” unlikely. More to the point, Trump will struggle, as did Biden, with increasing global instability and the country’s bewildering concentration of wealth. Trump, then, may offer bigger profits and lower taxes, but as the heir to fortune and worshipper of mammon, he remains an unlikely leader of a “people’s party” that reflects what most people actually need and aspire to. As their electoral successes vividly prove, the New Democrats understood just that.