Why Does The Democratic Party Hate Its Voters?
On The Lies Democrats Tell Themselves
Talking about which voters “won” a party an election is always hard, because there’s two definitions and if you’re not explicitly clear what you mean, someone will get mad. In terms of, say, Georgia, there’s two answers to who won Biden, Ossoff, and Warnock the state last cycle, and neither were wrong. Black voters was the first answer, an undeniably correct answer in the sense without their huge levels of support Democrats would be nowhere close to winning, but it’s not really the answer to who won them the state, because they had those levels of Black support in 2012 and didn’t come particularly close.
The other answer, of course, is relatively wealthy white people, who were the actual swing voters between 2016 and 2020. They were the reason that Democrats won a state they previously had lost – especially since 2020 represented a whiter electorate than 2016 or 2018. From 2018’s narrow loss to Joe Biden’s narrow win, whites with a degree moved 12 points left, which made up for the better Republican turnout and weaker relative Black turnout that should have sunk Democrats.
This story is the same across the country – in Pennsylvania, John Fetterman did worse statewide than Tom Wolf did in 2014, but outran Wolf with two groups, white degree holders and those making north of $100k. The Fetterman campaign has tried to claim that Democrats won the state because of Fetterman’s status as some working class hero, and compared to Biden, sure, but the actual reason they won the state was by massively underrunning Obama and Wolf in the rurals and getting results in the Philly collar and the suburban parts of Alleghany that would have gotten you laughed at for suggesting were possible a decade ago.
Put more plainly – Fetterman won because he got a lot of Goldman Sachs bankers and Deloitte accountants to start voting Democratic not because of the class warfare stuff but in spite of it. Raphael Warnock will win in Georgia, assuming he does, on the votes of people who quite literally saved tens of thousands of dollars in some cases from the Trump tax cut. And yet so much of the Democratic Party wants to ignore this basic reality, which leaves me with one question:
Why does the Democratic Party hate its voters?
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“I want the one I can’t have/And it’s driving me mad”
I have never seen a political party more actively unhappy about the way they win elections than a certain sect of the Democratic Party these days. The weird obsession of so many in the party’s elites to win back culturally conservative voters is the example of the day, but look at how Jared Golden and Joe Manchin are given passes and excuses for voting the way of their districts – Golden routinely voted against Pelosi’s agenda and Manchin’s, well, Manchin – versus the complete contempt for the caucus of New York, New Jersey, and California moderates in tough races who wanted to undo Trump’s tax rise on their voters.
When it’s Golden voting against the Rescue Package, he’s “being independent” and “representing his district”, but when the SALT caucus dared tried to reverse a tax increase on their voters, everyone needed to be ready to primary their asses. You know what might have helped Democrats win the House? Not getting smashed up and down New York, and maybe just maybe giving Biden voters in the 5 Biden-won districts that Democrats botched a tax cut might have saved a few of those.
More broadly, why are Democrats so fucking horny to try and reverse the realignment that has gotten them a winning coalition? Going back to the 2012 coalitions but keeping these levels of polarization wouldn’t save Democrats’ Senate hopes – the polarization itself would end the ticketsplitting that won us West Virginia, and doing so would lose us four seats in Arizona and Georgia, so congrats, winning Sherrod Brown again would still lead the party to the minority. But more importantly, why is a Democrat winning coalition where the last 10-15% of the party’s vote totals come from culturally conservative working class voters preferrable to one where they come from socially liberal, upper middle class and wealthy ones?
You see it from David Shor (“Unless we see big structural changes in the Democratic party's coalition, then the modal outcome for 2024 is Donald Trump winning a *filibuster-proof trifecta* with a minority of the vote.”), Matt Yglesias (who wanted Democrats to endorse late term abortion restrictions to pander to cultural conservatives), and Jon Favreau (who pushed the class warfare shit about Fetterman’s victory thoroughly destroyed further up) – they want the Democratic Party to be winning back these lost, culturally conservative voters, and I don’t fucking get why.
The reason I prefer the new Democratic coalition to the old one is very simple – the old one is full of people who, whether they would admit this in polite company or not, think I’m a bit odd and a bit strange because I’m gay, and the ascendent coalition is people who quite enjoy hearing about how chaotic gay dating can be. The old coalition is the people who think that rural hospitals need more funding but also think that men aren’t masculine enough these days, and the new coalition is people who might not support as much economic redistribution but are reliable supporters of women’s rights, gay rights, and trans rights. And much of the Democratic establishment wants a message that is more focused on the former.
It won’t work – this past weekend, we got another state election in Victoria where the same fucking shit happened again (working class Labor areas swung right heavily, the ancestrally conservative in the Eastern Seaboard barely swung, Labor won because they held the suburbs) – but more importantly, there are a lot of people who haven’t spent any time understanding the opening the current coalition offers us. Yes, 2024 will be bad for us, but if we can hold the losses to 3, then the loss might be one term. Susan Collins’ seat will flip as soon as Collins retires – likely in 2026 – but the doors that Texas and Alaska are opening for us are immense. Hell, spend some damn money in Wisconsin and the floodgates could open in the Milwaukee collar, which could pry Ron Johnson’s seat from the GOP in 2028 if we have a good night Presidentially.
The current coalitions are not terrible for us, and do have one big advantage – we have the edge in lower turnout elections, which helps mitigate a midterm penalty for Democratic presidents and will exacerbate the GOP’s crisis the next time they’re in office. But according to so many of the white men at the top of the Democratic Party, what we need is more triangulation and more pandering to voters who think that I’m unnatural.
The old Democratic coalition was always, fundamentally, held together by good will – goodwill from women, racial minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community that a coalition of racial minorities and racists, of women and misogynists, and of the queer and the queer haters was electorally necessary. The last decade has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt it’s not one, and yet so many people want to frame it as one anyways. The Democratic Party won the Senate on the backs of wealthy, white former Republicans voting blue, both in 2020 and 2022. And yet the party doesn’t want to admit it.
Make it make sense.
So you want to pander to rich liberals, by promising them tax cuts? You are a smart guy, but you are too focused on winning elections. Maybe it would be a smart move, but taxes are already to low. How are we gonna pay for this. Should we become the party, which cuts medicare and takes away social security. Should we do all the horrific shit Republicans are doing, but be pro LGBTQ? Who are we helping by that? Why are we even winning elections, if we are doing the same shit Repulicans are doing. I am pretty wealthy, but I would not want to vote for a party, which is economically right wing. We should be standing for what is right and not what helps us winning elections. I know many WWC voters won´t appreciate policies, which are designed to help them, but it is still the right thing to do.
I'll tell you why: it's because the Socialists who rebranded themselves as "Democratic Socialists" in the 1980s, and who have been trying to hijack the Democratic Party ever since, still believe in "no struggle but class struggle". Nothing else really matters to them. Not LGBTQ+ rights, not women's rights, not BIPOC rights, not anyone else's rights. Only class struggle matters.
They've convinced themselves that defeating capitalism and putting billionaires to the sword will make everything else fall neatly into place anyway, even though the histories of several nations during the past two centuries show that this simply isn't true.
They also keep telling themselves that white people left the Democratic Party starting with the 1966 midterms because "Democrats sold out to the corporations" and not because LBJ signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. (Vietnam was still relatively popular at this time and the economy was in the best shape it would ever be, so those weren't negative factors.) They are nearly as allergic to the words "Southern Strategy" as are any Republican.
This is also why their mortal enemies in the Democratic Caucus are the Congressional Black Caucus and what is left of the Blue Dogs. Look at the incumbents they primary all the time, even when it costs the Democrats the general election as it did in swing districts like OR-05: CBCers and Blue Dogs. The idea of socially progressive and economically centrist candidates appealing to similar voters makes them vomit, which is why they keep running no-hopers like Paula Jean Swearengin in rural white and deeply bigoted places like West Virginia, and then blame "underfunding by the national party" when these people inevitably lose to Republicans in the general election.