Like so many other hopeful progressives, I was wrong.
I fully expected a Blue Wave this election cycle. No matter how you cut it, there wasn’t. Yes, Joe Biden defeated Trump, but most Senate challenges fell short. Democrats lost seats in the House and made few gains at the state level.
Which begs an important question. Why?
Why did the Democrats only win the headliner without any perceivable coattails when Donald Trump and the Republican Party have been savaging the nation for the past four years? Lies and incompetence about the Covid pandemic that have left a quarter-million dead. The worst economic contraction since the Great Depression that has left 30 million out of work. Brutal racism overtly displayed in cities throughout the country and celebrated in torchlight, neo-Nazi parades.
Another question.
Had it not been for the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on the economy, do you really think that Trump would have lost? Almost 90% of voters who said they are better off economically voted for Trump. Almost 90% of voters said the economy was good or very good. Which seems incredible given the barrage of news about massive unemployment. That suggests that most people view the economy only as far as the end of their checkbooks. Same for Covid. If I’m not sick, then it’s no big deal. Same for racism. If I don’t see any racism, it can’t be real.
Make no mistake, I have zero love for those 85% of voters in Harlan County, Kentucky — formerly a Democratic stronghold — who voted for Trump. Who face poverty, unemployment, an opioid epidemic, substandard house, failing education, and a life expectancy far below the national average. There really is only one reason they vote as they do — racism, homophobia, ignorance, and right-wing religious zealotry. Which is a package deal in Harlan and is unlikely to respond to reason.
But how do you move forward politically in the current political environment?
Not the political environment that we dreamed of two weeks ago, but the one we actually have now. Without any significant change in the balance of state legislatures, Republicans will control census redistricting in 2/3s of the states. The Senate is likely to stay under Mitch McConnell’s thumb — barring a miracle in Georgia. And the courts, not just the Supreme Court, have been stacked with Trump appointees over the past four years.
Why can’t a Democratic Party whose policies are supported by a clear majority of Americans turn that support into elected majorities? Gotta ask that question. Is the only essential ingredient party unity — where every Dem votes in lockstep with Biden or Pelosi as the Republicans have done under Trump? If so, then it doesn’t matter whether Dems take a leftward or centrist turn.
Or do the policies themselves make the difference? Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez right when she argues that unless the Democrats adopt positions that truly offer change in the status quo, millions of potential voters will simply stay home? Or are centrist positions essential to build a large enough electoral coalition; that the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and Defund the Police movements push a large enough segment of voters into Republican arms to allow them to retain majorities?
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Two weeks ago, I believed that the Democrats would emerge from the 2020 elections with Biden as president, majorities in the House and Senate, and control of more state legislatures which would lead to fairer redistricting in the 2020s. It is not to be. If the Democrats could only squeak by in 2020 — with so many factors in their favor — then they had better come to understand how they can expand their appeal by 2022.
I believe that unity is crucial for any Democratic success over the next two years. And Democratic success is badly needed to overturn so much of the damage Trump has inflicted. In 2022 we have to win Senate seats in places like Maine and North Carolina where we lost in 2020. We have to hold and expand on competitive House seats. And we have to do that in a climate where GOP gerrymandering will continue and the courts skew heavily conservative.
It’s a big order.