Will Democrats Finally Learn A Lesson?

Authored by Daniel Lipinski via RealClearPolitics,

Here we go again. Voters have elected Donald Trump president while giving Republicans majorities in the House and Senate. And once again, Democrats are asking themselves, “What do we do now?” When this occurred eight years ago, I was a Democrat serving in the House of Representatives. At that time, some of my colleagues who had seen many traditional Democrats in their district vote for Trump spoke out. They said that working-class voters were tired of feeling looked down upon by Democrats because of policies they supported, what they believed, or even who they were. So when Hillary Clinton was caught claiming that half of Trump’s supporters were a “basket of deplorables: racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic,” she was seen to be confirming this, helping to doom her campaign.

But instead of changing course, Democrats doubled down by embracing a more ardent progressivism and demanding that everyone follow. Primary challenges by progressives rose dramatically. My experience was emblematic. Working-class voters were my base because I focused on bread-and-butter issues critical to struggling families, and I was not supportive of progressive social issues. After surviving in 2018, I lost in 2020 to a progressive challenger bankrolled by millions from national groups. At the same time, candidates for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 were stumbling over each other, trying to get further to the left on a variety of issues. Decriminalizing illegal border crossings, funding sex-change operations for prisoners and detained illegal immigrants, and defunding the police became party dogma, further alienating the working class.

Thanks to bumbling by President Trump and congressional Republicans, however, Democrats won the House in 2018 and captured the White House and both chambers of Congress in 2020.  Progressives felt vindicated and were emboldened to continue their agenda with a self-righteous swagger. President Biden, whose victory was made possible by a reputation he had built over five decades as a moderate deal-maker, foolishly embraced progressives to prepare to run for reelection in 2024. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who won in a state that gave Clinton and Biden less than 30% of the vote, was hounded out of the party by progressives who should have been thankful for every vote he gave them.

In 2024, Republicans handed a massive in-kind gift to their opponents when they nominated the man most responsible for the Democratic Party’s election victories the past six years. Democrats were also given a unique opportunity to install a nominee who did not have to pander to progressives to win primaries. Perhaps the party had no other choice but Vice President Kamala Harris, who had taken some very progressive positions when running for the nomination in 2019. But with five long years having passed, she could have tried to make a clean and hard break from these. Instead, she chose to walk away from some of these positions softly, never seizing the opportunity to claim that a new working-class friendly perspective led her to change. Harris sealed her fate when she delivered a too-clever-by-half professorial response – “I’ll follow the law” – when asked whether she still supported taxpayer-funded sex-change operations for prisoners and detained illegal aliens. Donald Trump went on to become just the second Republican in 36 years to win the popular vote, thanks in part to significant support from non-white working-class voters, particularly Hispanics. 

As Democrats try to figure out what to do next, it is folly to believe that all the party needs is “clarity of message,” as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA) recently claimed. And while it is good to propose new policies directed at helping those left behind economically, as Rep. Ro Khanna (CA) did, it won’t solve the political problem. But buried in that post-election piece by Khanna was one sentence that gets much closer to what Democrats must do: “For our economic message to be heard, we must show common sense on issues of crime and the safety of families and not shame or cancel those who may have honest disagreements with us on a particular social issue.” Rep. Seth Moulton (MA) expressed a similar sentiment when he said, “We lost, in part, because we shame and belittle too many opinions held by too many voters, and that needs to stop.” 

While these are hopeful signs, Democrats must do more than pay lip service to change. After all, a few years ago, Khanna – who is now positioning for a presidential run – was publicly urging our Democratic House colleagues to cancel me from Congress because of honest issue disagreements. And last week, when Moulton dared to give a specific example of not wanting his daughters “getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete,” he was lambasted by multiple Democratic officials, including his state’s governor and one of his congressional colleagues. Nowhere did I see any Democrat have the courage to support Moulton’s commonsense concern or even defend him for being willing to raise an issue with significant public resonance.

Voters are not fools, especially working-class voters who continue to feel that the country is going in the wrong direction and that they always get the short end of the stick. They may not watch day-to-day politics closely, but they understand who and what the Democratic Party now seems to really value. Only time will tell if the party has finally learned a lesson.

Daniel Lipinski is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He represented the Third District of Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2005 to 2021.