OPINION:
With the Republicans fractured between always Trumpers, never Trumpers and “if I have to” Trumpers, and incapable of articulating any sort of positive agenda — the most recent party platform dates from 2012 — the question that immediately comes to mind is, why haven’t the Democrats become the current and future majority party in these United States?
To date, former President Donald Trump has run a campaign based almost exclusively on personal grievances and both vague and specific promises of payback against enemies, real or perceived. The whole enterprise has the flavor of “The Godfather” meets “The Last Hurrah.”
Congressional Republicans are not doing much better. Apart from the speaker demolition derbies, the only budget they offered up that balanced within 10 years — created by House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington — was ignored en masse by the conference.
Even now, despite legislative victories within grasp on both spending — the automatic cuts that trigger on April 1 are almost certain to be better than whatever could be negotiated — and border security, there is a palpable sense that these opportunities will elude the House majority’s grasp.
Given all that, it seems reasonable to ask why the Democrats have been unable to achieve and make durable their dominance in American politics.
The answer is, of course, that the Democrats are every bit as riven as the Republicans; they just do a better job of hiding it — no doubt a result of 200 years of experience in managing a coalition party. The current Democratic Party is a loose amalgam of some working-class Whites, Blacks, Hispanics and the tone-setters — the mostly White, entirely college-educated suburbanite and upper-middle-class and upper-class winners in the current economy.
Unfortunately, the policies these winners have chosen to emphasize — social justice, climate change, open borders, defunding the police, gender fluidity, etc. — are in many cases directly contrary to the policy preferences of the working class.
Not surprisingly, this is slowing driving away the working class. The White working class has been the first out the door: Only about one-third voted for President Biden in 2020, compared with more than half that voted for Hubert Humphrey in 1968. Increasingly, however, they are being joined by Hispanic working-class voters — who are likely to split their vote evenly this cycle — and Black working-class voters — who will probably give Democrats less than 85% of their votes in a presidential contest for the first time in most of our lives.
The bad news for Democrats is that there are about twice as many working-class voters as there are knowledge economy winners in the United States, and that disparity is even wider in the current swing states.
In short, neither party is speaking to “normal” voters, those in the broad middle who have little time or patience for politics and are worried mostly about the economy, safety and now border security, and who generally believe that the United States is a great nation underpinned by a useful and durable set of principles.
In comparison, the electoral strategy of both parties is almost completely focused on the negative qualities of their opponent; neither side has articulated any governing vision beyond recriminations, vendettas and grievances.
It is no wonder that almost three-quarters of voters would like another set of choices.
As for Mr. Biden, he intends to elude any discussion of his record by insisting that opposition to Mr. Trump is the same thing as defending democracy, and that abortion must be given the full sanction of the state as a societal good. To win, he will have to get serious about border security, crime and China, and do something to marginalize those in his party who believe that everything needs to be seen through a racial or gender lens.
Mr. Trump — who clearly dominates survey results on the most important issues as identified by likely voters — seems to be content to offer voters a heaping dose of chaos along with the good things he brings. To win, he needs to stop talking about the last election and who did what to whom and refocus the conversation on his very good and very popular populist ideas.
Whichever candidate can reform their approaches first — or at all — will win, and likely establish a template for their party to hold majority rule for some time.
If neither candidate can manage to rise above his grudges, it may not matter much who wins in 2024. The four years after the election will be much the same as the election itself has been to date — barren of new ideas or even workable old ideas and given to an endless cycle of recriminations.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor to The Washington Times and the co-host of the podcast “The Unregulated.”
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