The issue is - Democrats had little choice but to trade coalitions. The GOP has increasingly become the party of cultural conservatism and anti-immigrant nationalism.
Its why Trump could so easily cast off free trade as a defining GOP feature, or Josh Hawley, in bright red Missouri can run on antitrust issues. Because ultimately their vot…
The issue is - Democrats had little choice but to trade coalitions. The GOP has increasingly become the party of cultural conservatism and anti-immigrant nationalism.
Its why Trump could so easily cast off free trade as a defining GOP feature, or Josh Hawley, in bright red Missouri can run on antitrust issues. Because ultimately their voters really want to keep the current cultural tide at bay, limit immigration, and ban abortion.
But Democrats - the party where most cultural liberals reside and that was the favorite of non-whites (at least broadly) couldnt really turn its back on those cultural issues.
I would also note - this is the first time since 1980 that Democrats have had to run with an unpopular incumbent. Just like 2008 wasnt indicative of how elections going forward would go, neither was 2024.
The idea that we cant get back 2% of the vote in PA, and 1% in MI and WI seems a little overwrought.
One interesting thing is that young people are moving towards the GOP. It makes sense. For all of liberals concerns about Trump, ultimately his term was good for most people economically (peace and prosperity) and if you are young COVID likely meant you skipped school for a year too. Then they reached adulthood during Biden's term and wow, they cant afford rent or food. Bummer.
Plus liberals are now the fogey establishment (one reason we absolutely need to ditch all of these oldsters - get anyone over 60 out of leadership).
But this actually might make things a little easier for Dems to transition towards a more culturally populist message. So much of the drive for change that I mentioned above comes from young people - we needed to do student loan foregiveness, and maximal immigration policy, and focus on climate change to appease young college grads.
If they are already less liberal, then we can ignore them a little more in favor of doing things that are broadly more popular, but less popular with young college students.
Of course the problem doesnt entirely go away - young college students are still a big part of the coalition (as we are seeing with I/P) but it might help.
I get what you're saying but the danger comes with the multiplier effect. The more that upscale suburbanites define the Democratic base, the more we tend to speak to them exclusively. This is why Harris's closing message was limited to reproductive rights, preserving democracy, and fascism. They convinced themselves that the swing voter they needed to reach couldn't be reached with kitchen table issues, and that if they litigated kitchen table issues they'd risk risk losing the microscopic "Nikki Haley voter" demographic that they delusionally believed held the keys to the kingdom.
Beyond that, as Gretchen Whitmer pleaded with the Harris campaign last month to include more economic messaging in their advertising, several people here openly mused that that was a bad idea as it was too deferential to working-class whites and didn't stay on message about abortion rights.
This is the multiplier effect that compounds losses. First you lose the storyline...and then you make decisions that ensure the storyline remains lost by convincing yourselves that those you've lost are to be ignored moving forward.
And while you're technically right that bouncing back from 1-2% losses in just enough places to thread an Electoral College needle remains possible for a party whose coalition is in retreat, that strategy only works in cycles where you're unambiguously on offense. Typically, once places start trending against you, it gets harder to turn that tide once it's in motion. Until there's a complete overhaul in Democratic messaging, I don't see sustained growth in the coalition.
One thing that frustrates me about Democratic messaging is that much of the party seems unable to consistently put forth positive messages about what we stand for and have accomplished. Many of our most effective electoral arguments are about not letting Republicans get their way on issues like abortion or health care; even the ACA only really became an asset politically after Republicans nearly repealed it and we could run on "don't let them take it away".
That's especially so when we're in office and trying to defend it. We may have an easier time with messaging over the next few years as much of it will be devoted to criticising Republican policy and politicians, but while that might temporarily bring a significant number of voters back it won't make for "sustained growth". Absent a change in messaging--both in what we say and how and where we say it--at best we can get back into power only to go through the same "wash, rinse, repeat" cycle.
I mean . .I don't know about other places but Harris had tons of economic-focused ads here in Georgia (likely knowing the electorate here is more conservative on abortion). It definitely wasn't a "2014 Cory Gardner" campaign it's being made out to be.
It’s also a global phenomenon playing out in plenty of other countries, at that (Canada in particular, as the BC results show). So it’s something we need to adapt to because it’s not something we can reverse alone here.
The issue is - Democrats had little choice but to trade coalitions. The GOP has increasingly become the party of cultural conservatism and anti-immigrant nationalism.
Its why Trump could so easily cast off free trade as a defining GOP feature, or Josh Hawley, in bright red Missouri can run on antitrust issues. Because ultimately their voters really want to keep the current cultural tide at bay, limit immigration, and ban abortion.
But Democrats - the party where most cultural liberals reside and that was the favorite of non-whites (at least broadly) couldnt really turn its back on those cultural issues.
I would also note - this is the first time since 1980 that Democrats have had to run with an unpopular incumbent. Just like 2008 wasnt indicative of how elections going forward would go, neither was 2024.
The idea that we cant get back 2% of the vote in PA, and 1% in MI and WI seems a little overwrought.
One interesting thing is that young people are moving towards the GOP. It makes sense. For all of liberals concerns about Trump, ultimately his term was good for most people economically (peace and prosperity) and if you are young COVID likely meant you skipped school for a year too. Then they reached adulthood during Biden's term and wow, they cant afford rent or food. Bummer.
Plus liberals are now the fogey establishment (one reason we absolutely need to ditch all of these oldsters - get anyone over 60 out of leadership).
But this actually might make things a little easier for Dems to transition towards a more culturally populist message. So much of the drive for change that I mentioned above comes from young people - we needed to do student loan foregiveness, and maximal immigration policy, and focus on climate change to appease young college grads.
If they are already less liberal, then we can ignore them a little more in favor of doing things that are broadly more popular, but less popular with young college students.
Of course the problem doesnt entirely go away - young college students are still a big part of the coalition (as we are seeing with I/P) but it might help.
imo your 60 number is ridiculous (getting where you are coming from but 60???)
I get what you're saying but the danger comes with the multiplier effect. The more that upscale suburbanites define the Democratic base, the more we tend to speak to them exclusively. This is why Harris's closing message was limited to reproductive rights, preserving democracy, and fascism. They convinced themselves that the swing voter they needed to reach couldn't be reached with kitchen table issues, and that if they litigated kitchen table issues they'd risk risk losing the microscopic "Nikki Haley voter" demographic that they delusionally believed held the keys to the kingdom.
Beyond that, as Gretchen Whitmer pleaded with the Harris campaign last month to include more economic messaging in their advertising, several people here openly mused that that was a bad idea as it was too deferential to working-class whites and didn't stay on message about abortion rights.
This is the multiplier effect that compounds losses. First you lose the storyline...and then you make decisions that ensure the storyline remains lost by convincing yourselves that those you've lost are to be ignored moving forward.
And while you're technically right that bouncing back from 1-2% losses in just enough places to thread an Electoral College needle remains possible for a party whose coalition is in retreat, that strategy only works in cycles where you're unambiguously on offense. Typically, once places start trending against you, it gets harder to turn that tide once it's in motion. Until there's a complete overhaul in Democratic messaging, I don't see sustained growth in the coalition.
One thing that frustrates me about Democratic messaging is that much of the party seems unable to consistently put forth positive messages about what we stand for and have accomplished. Many of our most effective electoral arguments are about not letting Republicans get their way on issues like abortion or health care; even the ACA only really became an asset politically after Republicans nearly repealed it and we could run on "don't let them take it away".
That's especially so when we're in office and trying to defend it. We may have an easier time with messaging over the next few years as much of it will be devoted to criticising Republican policy and politicians, but while that might temporarily bring a significant number of voters back it won't make for "sustained growth". Absent a change in messaging--both in what we say and how and where we say it--at best we can get back into power only to go through the same "wash, rinse, repeat" cycle.
I mean . .I don't know about other places but Harris had tons of economic-focused ads here in Georgia (likely knowing the electorate here is more conservative on abortion). It definitely wasn't a "2014 Cory Gardner" campaign it's being made out to be.
It’s also a global phenomenon playing out in plenty of other countries, at that (Canada in particular, as the BC results show). So it’s something we need to adapt to because it’s not something we can reverse alone here.