OPINION:
Sixty-seven percent of recently polled Americans just said the Democratic Party is out of touch with the real cares and concerns of the average individual.
This is not an ah-hah moment. This is a no-duh moment, if there ever was one. My gosh, the party’s losing presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, is still running around and tossing out the gender card to explain her stunning loss to President Donald Trump.
“Certainly misogyny played a role [in my loss],” she said, during a recent speech before the Women in the World Summit. “I mean, that has to be admitted.”
That follows a long line of similarly spoken viewpoints that have head-patted Hillary and trounced Trump for months. In November, the Guardian asked in a headline: “Why did women vote for Trump? Because misogyny is not a male-only attribute.” Even before the election, the mantra was making media waves. In October, it was this, from New York Magazine: “The Most Misogynistic Gear Spotted at Trump Rallies.”
OK, left. Let it go.
Has no one in the entire party a mirror?
The ABC News/Washington Post poll was pretty blunt: “Sixty-seven percent say the Democratic Party is out of touch with the concerns of most Americans, even more than say the same about Trump.”
Indeed. The number who say that about Trump? Sixty-two percent. Still high — but then there’s this, as well: The 67 percent for Democrats is 19 percentage points higher than three years ago, for the same question, according to the pollsters.
Call it a long, slow death for the left.
Democrats must be panicking, wondering what’s up with their party. Conversely, with Republicans, the poll goes this way: “This poll finds no evidence of buyer’s remorse among Trump supporters. Among those who report having voted for him in November, 96 percent today say it was the right thing to do.”
Call it a long, steady rise for the right. Either way, good news for conservatives, come 2018 elections.
The longer Democrats sleep — the longer they fail to look inward for the solutions to their faltering poll showings — the better it is for the country. It means the socialism pushed by Barack Obama is not wanted. And since Democrats can’t get that through their heads, it means Republicans will likely hold the reins of power a while longer.
What a face-slapping for the left. And my gosh, look at this. The latest Dem assessment of what went wrong suggests Clinton’s base didn’t just stay home on Election Day — rather, they went for Trump.
“New information shows that Clinton had a much bigger problem with voters who had supported President Barack Obama in 2012 but backed Trump four years later,” McClatchy reported. “Those Obama-Trump voters, in fact, effectively accounted for more than two-thirds of the reason Clinton lost.”
That’s according to a Democratic political and consulting firm, the Global Strategy Group. And that may very well be. Talk about a ding to Democratic pride.
But it’s still beside the point. It still fails to take into account the core reasons why Democrats have been faltering with voters.
And on that, the answer really is easy.
Note to Democrats: You’re polling as out of touch with the concerns of average Americans because you are indeed out of touch with the concerns of average Americans. It’s not an image problem. It’s a substance problem.
This is what people want: A secure environment in which to raise their families, a decent job for which to provide for their families, and schools to which their children can go and receive proper education.
Did Obama provide those? Or did he rather open borders to illegals and terrorists, drum up national hatred against police, stutter-step the economy to the point where he was labeled the food stamp president, and focus education policies more on, say, transgender rights than on science and math standards?
Did Clinton campaign on overturning those policies — or advancing the same? And what about members of the Democratic Party — where were their interests on such matters?
Right. Then in comes Trump, talking common sense border control, support for police, concern for education — not the special interest stuff, but the part that recognizes the role of the parent and local government, over the federal bureaucracy — and jobs, jobs, jobs.
Really, consider all that and the fact that only 67 percent see Democrats as out of touch with Americans’ concerns is the bigger angle. One has to wonder: Who are those 33 percent who think the Dems actually have their backs?
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