Can Democrats Accept the Truth?
/By Don Varyu
November 11, 2024
Before the election was even called, liberal pundits were already dissecting what went wrong. The recriminations flew far and fast: “It’s Biden’s fault for not dropping out sooner;” “she should have done Rogan’s podcast;” “I said all along she needed to spend less time talking democracy and more time attacking Trump” (or vice versa). A hundred small beliefs...ignoring a larger truth.
Because in total, all these little things are twaddle. It obscures the overriding point: this defeat wasn’t due to a campaign misstep or strategy error. This was an outright thrashing: 91% of all American counties moved towards Trump compared to four years ago. This wasn’t just Trump rising on his lies. Something even larger caused the Dems to falter.
In fact, by reviewing voting tallies, you could make a more valid argument that the Dems would have been better off just sticking with Biden. After all, he beat Trump, while Kamala lost to him by five million votes.
But I don’t believe that. She was a glorious candidate who ran a near-perfect campaign. The true fault lies elsewhere.
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So, what went wrong? The answer has been in the making for at least a decade, beginning at a time when Kamala was still an elected official out in California. It consists of the way Dems have come to define themselves...who they have decided to talk to…and how they do that talking.
For liberals, these may be difficult lessons to swallow:
Lesson 1: Democracy won. Five million more voters chose Trump than Harris. The election was “clean.” In the words of old Chicago mayor Richard “Boss” Daley, “the people have spoken.” In other wors, we lost fair and square.
Lesson 2: Character doesn’t matter. In the closing weeks of the campaign, every day Trump did or said something more preposterous, more vulgar, and apparently more self-defeating than the day before. Democrats feasted; he was clearly “unfit” for reelection. In fact, exit polls showed voters actually liked Harris more than Trump on a personal level. But more of them still voted for Trump. To win anymore, you don’t need to be the “better person."
Lesson 3: The “woke mind virus.” This phrase was coined by Elon Musk and is instantly offensive because it suggests that all liberals think alike and act in lockstep. Even Musk had a tough time clearly defining this, mumbling that it’s, “…anti-meritocratic…anything that suppresses free speech.” Uh, OK. It’s unlikely if you randomly asked 100 of the MAGA faithful for a clerer definition, that any could come up with one.
But I’m here to tell you this: there IS a woke mind virus. And it can simply be described like this: seeing every issue through a lens of race, gender, or abuse—and frequently, all three. Democrats talk inclusion, but in fact practice exclusion—cancelling anyone who doesn’t voice this particular flavor of grievance. It’s like the cover charge at a club: if you don’t have it, you don’t get into the club.
Here’s a quick example of how this exclusion happens. When any social problem is discussed by liberals on cable networks or online, it’s typically supplemented with the phrase, “…particularly for people of color.” That may be factually correct, but using it reflexively inflicts political self-harm. It suggests that others don’t really suffer the same way these specific subsets do.
In the hours after the election, CNN’s Van Jones (who I admire quite a bit) said among the first people he thought of was how a new Trump era would hurt “Black women” and “the parents of transgender kids.” Do you know who wasn’t thinking about them? The people who voted for Trump. And there are more of them than there are of us.
The same kind of reaction comes when Democrats push for things like forgiving college loans. Again, a worthy goal. But the sheet metal worker is left asking, “why don’t you also wipe out the loan on my pickup?” We keep talking about help for some--but at the exclusion of others.
If you want to win elections, find issues and phrasing that embrace “all” people, not just a subset. (And by the way, Kamala was excellent on this point on the campaign trail. She always referred to her campaign as being for “all the people.” She never once defined herself as a woman or a “person of color.” That is the template Democrats need to employ moving forward.)
Lesson 4: Look outside your silo. It’s obvious by now that Democrats have lost the working class to Trump—and likely to any potential successor. Which is maddening since that working class used to be the core of the Democratic electorate.
Let me ask you a few quick questions:
Do you have a college degree?
Do you purposely avoid Walmart and McDonalds?
Is your income determined on an hourly basis? Does it include overtime or tips?
Do you often use an Uber, but never take the bus?
Is your iPhone less than five years old?
Do you attend church or a synagogue?
Do you have a 401k or an investment portfolio?
Do you own a home espresso machine?
Do you own a gun?
Do you own a power drill?
I think you see what I’m getting at here. You understand that tens of millions of people would answer almost every one of these questions exactly the opposite of the way you did. And not only are they different kinds of people; they are also the majority. Three out of every five U.S. workers live paycheck-to-paycheck. It’s time to stop thinking "woke" and start thinking "broke," Until Democrats start talking effectively to those voters, there will be more election days like 2024.
Lesson 5: Right now, America’s truly disadvantaged group is young men. This is going to rankle a lot of Democrats, because what I’m telling you may violate your personal worldview. So let me explain. Pundits are asking why millions of young Latino men defected, and why young Black men didn’t turn out as expected. But by putting the questions that way, those "experts" are simply practicing the reflexive orthodoxy I described above. They’re segmenting “young men” by race, when the fact is that the same issues facing them also predominantly affect all struggling young men.
These are the young guys who long heard the promises of college and a professional career--but dropped out because “college wasn’t for me,” or never enrolled in the first place because of test scores or cost. Many women have largely overcome these same obstacles, but many (most?) young men have not. It’s not enough to (properly) celebrate the rise of women without also recognizing that young men are falling backward.
Also, most young men feel they can only “meet” potential mates online. But they soon find themselves swiped away because their profiles hardly scream “positive long-term relationship potential.” They are left seeing no way up and no way out. And they aren’t just disillusioned—they are resentful and pissed.
And then they hear something else: Donald Trump. When he declared, “I am your retribution; I am your vengeance,” they felt like he was talking directly to them. In exchange for a vote, he’s promising them a way out—even though he never details any plan to do that.
Next, I did not invent the idea I'm about to lay out, and I am not alone in stating it: I believing that men have a cultural and biological bias towards protecting and providing for their families. Many women will say, “I don’t need protection, and I don’t need any man providing for me—I can do that for myself.” But respectfully, I’m not talking about you—I’m talking about them.
Despite all the false bravado that comes with projecting virility, power, and force, men carry the base impulse to take care not just of themselves, but of others. When they feel that this impulse is blunted by the inability to earn a "respectable" living and make a positive mark in the world, bad things happen. People have written books explaining this (e.g., see Richard Reeves’ Of Boys and Men). To go further into this topic here is beyond the scope of this article. But strategically, if you want to choose a demographic for more care, this is the one to understand and talk to—that is, if you want to start winning elections again.
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I am gratified that some Democrats are starting to call this out…to voice what I’ve stated above...and for a long time.
Bernie Sanders has always been viewed as a leftwing firebrand, but it’s instructive to remember that when Trump first won in 2016, the overwhelming second choice among Trump voters was Sanders. Maybe he understands what to say and how to speak to those voters? A couple days after the election, Sanders told the New York Times:
"The Democratic Party is a party which has increasingly become a party of identity politics rather than understanding that the vast percentage of people in this country are working class."
Jon Favreau is a former speechwriter for Barack Obama, and now hosts the popular Pod Save America podcast. At its core, his job is observing the Democratic party. In his day-after-the-election group discussion, he said this:
"If there’s one thing we are seeing…(it’s that) people’s racial, gender and ethnic identities are not the most salient elements in their politics. I think we, as a party, have to stop treating them that way. It’s demeaning .This party cannot be the sum of its interest groups. There has to be a bigger message about improving people’s lives. We have to have a message that reaches everyone…that everyone can see themselves in."
And Favreau’s cohost, comedian Jon Lovett, suggested a thoughtful approach moving forward:
"Kamala talked about joy, and I do think that what gave us a sense of hope was seeing that joy. That is not invalid because we lost. (Trump) wants a country that is angry and at each other’s throats. We can’t let Donald Trump make us the angry and awful version of ourselves that he wants us to be. Not just because it’s bad for our souls, but because we have to be a movement that people want to join."
May those voices echo across the progressive universe.
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