Underlying the Democrats’ defeat
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I will say this,” one House Democrat said. “The Democratic Party has a major working-class voter issue. It started a decade ago as a working-class White issue. It’s now gotten even worse and spread across racial lines.”
—The Washington Post, November 6, 2024
Throughout the campaign, Donald Trump has had supporters of many stripes. There are the rich looking for even lower taxes, the energy barons looking for the end of “climate nonsense,” the suburbanites and country-club types who can’t imagine voting for a Democrat–the so-called traditional Republicans.
My concern here is not these predictable folks but the huge number of Americans who were drawn to Trump because they believe they have been shunted aside economically and socially and not helped by the Democrats.
“My concern here is the huge number of Americans who were drawn to Trump because they believe they have been shunted aside economically and socially. In much of this, they are not wrong.”
In much of this, they are not wrong. Across a broad front of national life, as detailed in The Democracy Collaborative's Index of Systemic Trends, the American economy and our politics are not delivering good results for average citizens or the poor. The documented truth is that the conditions of life and living in our country are deplorable for half our people or more.
In almost all measures of public well-being, the US is well behind other upper-income countries. These actual conditions are among the main things fueling the widespread political disaffection in America today. When combined with extraordinary wealth concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority, the unsurprising result is widespread public anger and resentment.
This reality is one of the reasons that the Biden administration’s economic gains didn’t matter much to voters. Those gains barely touched the problems.
Recall some polling results during the campaign. This is from a New York Times news story back in mid-May. "The findings reveal widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the country … Nearly 70 percent of voters say that the country’s political and economic systems need major changes — or even to be torn down entirely."
And on June 15, The Washington Post opined: "Polls suggest that several of Mr. Biden’s core constituencies — young people, Black people and Hispanics — are increasingly Trump-curious. … For the disaffected, Mr. Trump offers the promise of radical change. In the Times poll, these ‘tear-it-down’ voters — some 15 percent of registered voters — prefer Mr. Trump by 32 percentage points. For anti-system voters, what could be better than a candidate who promises to destroy that system?"
How, in the first place, did Democrats, and progressives generally, allow the welfare of average Americans to stagnate and decline? Aren’t Democrats supposed to be looking out for the little guy? The conventional wisdom is to decry the reality that the Democrats have lost close touch with working people, the non-college educated, and those in rural areas. There is truth there, but I think it is too easy merely to say that the Democrats lost sight of these Middle Americans.
The deeper truth, I believe, is that Middle Americans and the poor have been leading hard lives for decades because of the nature of the economic and political systems in which we live and work. Those systems prioritize many things, but the well-being of average citizens is not one of them.
The American polity and economy are thoroughly skewed in favor of production, profit, and power at the expense of people, place, and planet. Yes, the Democrats failed to deliver, but even when they had some power, they were quite constrained.
For example, our political economy’s growth imperative puts our politics in a straightjacket, constricting available political choices and giving real power to those with the finance and technology to deliver that growth. It is easy to identify a host of public policies that could dramatically improve the well-being of working-class citizens that are stymied because they are said to “hurt the economy.”
The Democrats did have a chance for real progressive power. Way back in 2008 David Sirota wrote a prescient book, The Uprising, about the nascent populist revolt then becoming visible. “The activism and energy frothing today is disconnected and atomized,” he wrote. “The only commonality in it all is rage.” That rage, he saw, could threaten both major parties.
If they played their cards right, the Democrats were the natural beneficiaries of the gathering storm, and the natural leader to make it happen was a new senator from Vermont named Bernie Sanders. Sanders almost gained the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, but that now seems like a distant pipedream.
Our system of political economy has greatly narrowed policy options, and Democratic leadership has not been willing to challenge the system. Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden have all been establishmentarians unwilling or unable to pursue the paths opened up by Sanders.
Here are two data points that further help to explain today’s politics and the progressives’ failure to deliver for average folks. Between 1973 and 2020, the private sector unionization rate in the US declined by two-thirds, from 25 percent to 8 percent. And today US military spending is about half of discretionary federal spending. In other words, half the pie has already been eaten, and average Americans have been greatly weakened in the slicing up of what’s left.
And, of course, Trump and the Republicans exploited the Democrats’ failure. Sadly, Trump’s victory demonstrates that in our politics it can help to be unscrupulous and shameless. For years, what average Americans have been fed for their pain by Republicans, Fox News and others is a diet of lies, misinformation, and scapegoating, now to such an extent that a close cousin of brainwashing appears to have occurred. Trump and the Republicans have skillfully exploited the mother lode of latent American prejudice, fear, frustration, misogyny, and racism, including endlessly blaming immigrants for a host of real and imagined ills.
“ The Democrats should be reaping the political benefits of the 70 percent of voters who believe serious changes are needed in our economy and politics, but it is Trump at the table, eating progressives’ lunch. Something must change.”
The question, then, is what is to be done? The Democrats should be reaping the political benefits of the 70 percent of voters who believe serious changes are needed in our economy and politics, but it is Trump at the table, eating progressives’ lunch. Something must change.
I am sure the Democrats will be tempted to try a version of Trump lite. Why not learn from a winner and play the identity politics game? And I am also sure I am unable to provide an adequate prescription for Democrats. But there is an honorable and honest path forward, and I hope the Democrats will use it as part of their strategy.
Democrats could unite behind and fight for programs of major change addressed to America’s deep problems: income insecurity and social injustice, climate change, democratic failings, immigration policy, failing education and health care systems, the emergence of a multipolar world, and, most basically, the imperatives that drive our currently failing system of political economy. We need profound changes in these areas, not superficial adjustments. History, we must believe, will be on the side of those who stand for real answers to real challenges.
Gus Speth is a Distinguished Next System Fellow at The Democracy Collaborative and the editor of The New Systems Reader. He has worked as a key environmental movement leader and is the author of several books.