Written by Findlay Normanton.
Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election this November constituted a scathing
rejection of the Democratic Party. Prior to the election, the polls projected a dead heat
between the two candidates, but the results of the election tell a different story. Trump won
every swing state, while securing the House and the Senate for the Republicans. The
Democrats were roundly crushed.
The initial response of many on the Left to Trump’s success was one of confusion. How
could America elect a tangerine tyrant convicted of 34 felonies, who was found liable of
sexual assault, whose vice-presidential nomination had all the charisma of a terminal
diagnosis, to the most powerful office in the country? Trump’s campaign was awash with
statements that would be major gaffes if any other politician had said them (‘she happened
to turn black’ and ‘I am a better looking person than Kamala’ are personal favourites). By
contrast, Kamala Harris’ campaign seemed water-tight. Nobel Prize-winning economists
were supporting her plans. She annihilated Trump in their only debate (cue ‘they’re eating
the dogs, they’re eating the cats’). She even had Beyonce backing her. How could she lose
to him?
The reality is that the Harris campaign was fraught with failings that most on the Left were
willing to overlook in the face of the ‘joy’ emanating from the Vice-President’s rallies. If the
Democrats wish to succeed in future elections, then they need to pivot drastically from their
current policy platform, and from the ideas they hold around how to conduct an election
campaign.
The reasons for the election loss are many, but a significant factor was the failure of the
Democrats to put out a convincing narrative. Kamala Harris’ failure is due in large part to two
flaws in her campaign: ‘winning on joy’ and her presentation as an incumbent; both of these
lines failed to speak to the deep-seated frustration many in America feel and articulate. The
positivity of the Harris campaign was irrefutably fun; from Charli xcx labelling Kamala ‘brat’,
through the resurgence of ‘you think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’, and ending with the
succession of A-listers coming out to support the Democrats. But the upbeat nature of the
campaign was anathema to and failed to address the anger felt by many Americans. During
the election, the journalist Marina Hyde remarked, ‘please tell me the election anywhere in
history that was won on joy.’ Almost every contemporary election has been won by telling
voters that the other side is too scary to trust; the Democrats simply failed to do this.
Though, to be fair, they did try. Behind the playground insults of calling Trump and Vance
‘weird’ were stern warnings about the threat the Republican nominee posed to the USA.
They called him a fascist. They called him unstable. They said he wants unchecked power.
They said he wants to institute a national abortion ban. All these claims were intent on
turning the public against a man perceived as dangerous. But in their sharp focus on the
obvious threat posed by Trump, they failed to address a threat to which many Americans
feel they are exposed day-to-day: the economy. It’s true that the American economy is, by
any observable metric, doing very well. Unemployment and inflation are down, growth is up.
The Economist called it ‘bigger and better than ever’ and ‘the envy of the world’. But for
whatever reason, the American people feel that the economy is fragile and punishing, and
the Democrats failed to reassure them. Kamala’s now-infamous appearance on The View resulted in her saying that ‘nothing comes to mind’ when asked what she would do
differently from the Biden administration. She was the continuity candidate in the eyes of the
public, which felt like continuity from failure.
Compare that with the most succinct expression of Donald Trump’s narrative: Make America
Great Again. In four words, Trump manages to make clear that everything’s broken, nothing
works like it used to and only he can fix it. When Donald Trump declares that ‘the American
Dream is dead’, millions of people nod along approvingly. Somehow, the serial philanderer
and multi-millionaire managed to cast himself as the virtuous change candidate, and the
American people bought it.
The question for the Democrats going forward is: what now? There are a couple of schools
of thought on the issue. The more moderate stance comes in the desire for a charismatic,
relatively young candidate who can speak to middle America; this is the view articulated by
Anthony Scaramucci, who asserted that the Democrats needed a Blair-esque or Clinton-
esque figure. This is deeply flawed. The political environment that produced Blair and
Clinton has evaporated since the 1990s; the rise of politicians like Donald Trump was
sparked in part by a rejection of that environment. To hope for the return of a charismatic,
liberal candidate would fail to acknowledge the wishes of the voters, which transparently is
for wholesale change.
The more radical option for the Democrats is that articulated by the likes of Bernie Sanders,
who contended after the election result that ‘it should come as no surprise that a Democratic
Party which has abandoned the working class would find that the working class has
abandoned them’. This assertion is broadly correct. Ian Hislop said in 2008 that ‘America
has a right-wing party and a very right-wing party’; despite the few differences between the
Democrats and the Republicans, such as an increased appetite for public spending from
Kamala Harris’ campaign, the two dominant parties in American politics seem to coalesce
around a number of right-wing issues. Barack Obama leant into Wall Street, taking more
money from Goldman Sachs than anyone else during his presidency. The Vietnam War,
opposed by much of America’s New Left in the 1960s, was started by a Democratic
president. The most recent presidential election all but fit this pattern, such as Kamala
Harris’ readiness to lean into the gun-toting sensibilities of the American Right, saying that ‘if
someone breaks in my house, they’re getting shot’. Sanders asserts that the Democrats are
no symbols of the establishment, ‘defend[ing] the status quo’, something at odds with the
American people’s desire for change.
But while Sanders' diagnosis is broadly correct, his treatment of the problem collapses into
several classically left-wing talking points. Some of these points (universal healthcare, more
robust opposition to Netanyahu) are valid, but won’t bring about electoral success on their
own. These solutions would be a return to old-style left-wing ideology, while the Right is
breaking new ideological territory. If the Democrats want to return to the White House, they
need to recognise the ability of Donald Trump to forge a new electoral coalition.
Donald Trump’s success has been in large part created by the fusion of two existing
ideologies. On the one hand, he subscribes to the bread-and-butter right-wing economic
policy such as tax cuts, garnering support from the middle classes and the wealthy. But he
also harks back to older viewpoints surrounding national identity as a uniting force, sparking
his predilection for tariffs to protect American jobs, resulting in a focus on blue-collar support.
In the fusion of two distinct ideologies, Trump has created a new political base between the
working class and the rich, bound together by an instinctive nativism.
If the Democrats want to win an election, a clear route forward is to create a similar blend of
ideas to attract a new coalition of voters. Put simply, they need to attract the poor without
scaring the rich. In this light, the necessity for grassroots political change becomes clear.
The Democrats should be focusing on uniting those in need around local, humanitarian
projects to alleviate poverty and suffering, such as social enterprises and co-operatives, and
encouragement trade union organisation (that a trade union leader spoke at the Republican
National Convention this year signals a seismic failure of the Left to speak to the working
class). Meanwhile, at the national level, the Democrats should implement policy in the
legacy of the Third Way politics of Blair and Clinton, allowing help for the vulnerable while
retaining the support of the so-called liberal establishment, educated and middle class.
Policies such as Pete Buttigieg’s ‘Medicare for All Who Want It’ is a sensible example of this
support. In this light, the Democrats can garner new support from those who’ve abandoned
it, while holding on to the votes needed to remain an electoral success. They can bring
about real change, needed and sought after by the American people, through the institution
of a new ideological model combining the most successful elements of the Left’s various
factions.
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