So, I have read with interest a few posts here on the DCCC incumbent protection plan to punish vendors that work with a Democrat challenging an incumbent in a primary. Here are two of those posts:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Blasts the DCCC for picking winners in Democratic Primaries
Ayanna Pressley doesn't like the DCCC's new incumbent protection rules
You can probably guess where I stand on the issue given the frame I put on it in that first sentence. Why do I have that view? Because our electoral history over the last few decades is pretty bad. Our leadership has been in power most of that time. They have not demonstrated an ability to win elections. In fact, our reach, when looking at the electoral results over this period of time, has only NARROWED over that time. We are winning fewer elections in fewer regions of the country. That is a massive problem.
Before I dive into a little data, let me address another concerning thing I have seen over the last week or so. Mayor Pete Buttigieg has been causing some waves in Democratic partisan crcles talking about Trump voters and, more generally, our woes in middle America. This has met with a wave of criticism.
Mayor Pete Is Walking a Delicate and Increasingly Dangerous Line
A story that points to this as one of the dangerous line things Pete has said
It’s time for some of the more visible national voices of our Democratic Party to come from the red states. It's time for a little more of a regional mix in the faces that our party puts forward in the highest level. We love our friends in the big cities, but it is time for us to confront the idea that any state, any county, or any community has to be conservative because it's been voting Republican for the last few years. Where is is written that this has to be a Republican state? Where is it written that Indiana has to be a Republican state? So would it not make more sense for more people to come from red states [to] the Democratic party and change the way some people think of our part of the country?
Then there is this from the Washington Post In a coastal state with 4.5 million Trump voters, Pete Buttigieg says coastal states don’t know Trump voters which was not really particularly critical of Pete’s stand on reaching out to a wider array of voters, but, makes a decent point that Trump voters are everywhere:
Again, Buttigieg’s point was that the general stereotype of Trump voters — rural, blue-collar, white — might have seemed foreign to San Franciscans. But the issue is that the stereotype is often wrong. There are hundreds of thousands of people on the coasts who may have voted for Trump for very different reasons than people in Buttigieg’s home state of Indiana.
If Buttigieg really wants to understand Trump voters, incidentally, he was in the right place. For every Trump voter in Indiana, there were three in California.
One could argue this is a bit of a nitpicky view. It is pretty clear Buttigieg is talking about expanding Democratic reach in red states, which is important. Sure Trump voters are everywhere, hell, the top vote getting county for Trump was the same as Hillary’s which was the same as Stein’s which was the same as Johnson’s. All of them got their largest vote by county from Los Angeles County. So the writer makes a fair point. the problem is, we did not lose the election in California, we lost it in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvannia, and that is what Pete is trying to address.
Here is an entry from a Kos member as well: Sick of hearing this: economic insecurity in the heartland. Reach out,understand Trump voters.
Why I am so sick of the "worrying about the Trump voter, heartland people" meme? So the decent "midwest, heartland people" according to media are JUST SO HURT by the nasty elitists on the coasts. Boo hoo. We BULLY them, they imply. HA! Did they ever watch even five minutes of a Trump rally in the heartland?? They should because they apparently do not get the concept of who is doing the bullying!
I get the anger here, I truly do. I hate the fact that a racist asshat bully is in the Presidency. it’s disgusting. His rallies are a frightening amalgamation of hate and authoritarianism. That said, writing off “heartland people” because of rabid Trump supporters is a grave error. Like it or not, we live in a federal governing system. States set election rules to a large extent, from what a district looks like to how people can access the polls. This impacts our ability to win Presidential elections, as we have learned, and other aspects of governance. If we want to reverse these things WE HAVE TO WIN IN RED AMERICA.
And, frankly, it is not like red America is as red as we think. I live in red America for example. I am not the only one.
I combine these two stories because they reflect some basic attitudes we must confront if we hope to begin winning again. We have been getting slaughtered electorally for decades now. Don’t agree? look at these numbers:
Republicans gained all of this power by WINNING elections. To fight back effectively we must win elections. Our leadership orgs, like the DCCC, have been terrible at leading us toward victory in a wide range of the country. We MUST expand our reach to take the power we need to address the issues important to all of us. Saying to hell with the heartland won’t help us. Attacking Democrats willing to talk about expanding our reach to a broader array of Americans won’t help.
Like it or not, we must start winning more in rural, heartland, red state America. It is essential in a federal system. And remember, Nearly half of Clinton’s vote came from red states. Democrats are everywhere, we need to support them to help them turn their parts of the country around.