On July 20, Steve Phillips had an op-ed piece in the New York Times in which he asserted, in effect, that Democrats should focus on getting votes in 2018 only from those groups who voted for Hillary and should ignore white working class voters. On July 22, Amanda Marcotte had a piece in Salon which also argued, in effect, that Democrats should ignore rural white voters and focus on those who voted for Hillary. Unfortunately, they are not the only people to have gotten pieces in various media outlets saying similar things. To understand why this approach makes no sense, let’s look at the way elections work in the US, especially federal elections like those coming up in 2018.
First, as everyone who took a US politics course in college knows or noticed the 2016 election results, a person can be elected President without getting a majority of the votes. Al Gore had this happen, although only through the interference of the 5 Republican Justices on the Supreme Court, and Hillary Clinton had this happen all on her own. Since the Electoral College system isn’t going away, it is folly to forget this.
Second, as progressives, political science students and other fans of democracy keep pointing out, the Congressional and state legislative districts in almost every state are heavily gerrymandered in favor of Republicans. This has created a lot of undemocratic results where a majority of the voters in a state do not elect a majority of the US Representatives or the state legislators. This situation is also not going away soon.
As a result, a progressive Democratic strategy to win enough elections, particularly in 2018, to make a difference at the state or federal level has to include getting the votes of either, and preferably both, some of the rural white voters who voted for Trump or people who didn’t vote in the 2016 election. The latter amounted to 40% of the eligible voters.
This is because of a couple of factors. First, a lot of women voted for Trump, so just counting on them to unseat Republicans seems dicey. Second, putting aside that some African-American and Hispanic voters voted for Trump, the districts where these voters live are so gerrymandered that their votes are concentrated in a very small number of districts that are already represented by Democrats. The exception is that in a small number of places, if a significantly larger number of Hispanics voted, that could significantly aid in unseating a Republican. But in general, if Democrats want to get control of the House, Senate, some more state houses and state legislatures, or at least one house thereof, they need to find more votes among other voters.
This is very doable, if Democrats will face reality and be logical, instead of just doing some variation of what got the country into its current situation where a minority of voters control the government of most of the country. No large group of voters for any candidate are doing so for the same reasons. Nor do they all have the same views on everything. Not all Trump voters are hard-core racists. Some are, but some who seem racist are reacting to being told by Republicans for 40 years that all their economic problems are caused by women, African-Americans, Hispanics and immigrants (a claim which progressives and Democrats have not bothered to refute). Some of them are open to a message that their problems are actually caused by Republicans and big money in politics. So are non-voters who have noticed that neither party shows any serious interest in solving their economic problems or even recognizes them.
Just offering to hand out governmental benefits without explaining why they are needed and how they can be paid for hasn’t worked up till now, and there is no reason to believe it will work in 2018. The Democrats “Better Deal” announced yesterday is, at bottom, just a promise of more goodies. There is a reason Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in America, and it’s not because he’s promising goodies.
For progressives and Democrats who want to stop losing, step one is to admit that voters need to be shown that there is a problem that affects them, and they need to be told what caused the problem. Then they need to be given a solution that clearly works and is much more realistic than any solution proposed by the Republicans. Step two is to find problems to be solved which affect the majority of voters and their families.
By sheer good luck all this is just sitting there waiting for progressives and Democrats to grab. The biggest problem facing the nation is that of the massive economic inequality. Not only is it very unfair to 99% of our citizens, but it threatens the very existence of our society and country, since no society can long endure where 1% of the population keeps getting richer and richer and the rest of us get poorer and poorer. The causes of the economic inequality are clearly set out in Robert Reich’s book Saving Capitalism. In summary, this situation has been created by hundreds and hundreds of laws passed by Republicans at the request of the CEO’s of big businesses and financial institutions and their largest contributors with the intention of creating a Robber Baron Market. It’s also created by hundreds of court decisions made by Republican judges which favor business over consumers and workers.
The solution to the problem of economic inequality is then easy: elect Democrats who are committed to passing laws to replace the Robber Baron Market with markets that favor the 99% over businesses. Within this framework, the frequently proposed progressive public policy solutions to other problems make sense and work economically.
Put another way, progressives and Democrats need to focus the 2018 election not on dividing the country into groups to be either appealed to or ignored, but on problems and solutions which will benefit the majority of voters. Most people are well aware of the effects of the economic inequality on them and their families and want it ended. What better way to unseat Republicans than to get voters to focus on the small group of wealthy people who have paid those Republican politicians who have created the laws which caused the problem.