"And to “win back the young people” who’ve drifted to the Republicans, they chose David Hogg, an obnoxiously ultra-left young man, as one of their vice chairs. Because if only young lefties knew what party to vote for." Comment.
"This week, California Governor Gavin Newsom sat for an interview where he chastised Democrats for refusing to explore last year’s loss. Speaking with The Hill, he said: “We have not done a forensic of what just went wrong, period, full stop. I don’t think it — I know it”.
"Many people have called on the party to examine what went wrong and figure out a better path forward. So far, there’s little sign the party plans to do this. And given the frenetic start to Trump’s second term, many Democrats have already pivoted from introspection into resistance mode.
"In lieu of an official party autopsy, we must rely on a handful of outside views about where the party has gone wrong. Initial polling after the election indicated that Kamala Harris was inhibited not only by inflation but by voters’ perceptions that she and the Democrats held extreme views on social and cultural matters, such as immigration and trans issues. This was confirmed by Blue Rose Research, led by David Shor, which found that Democrats are seen as too liberal for a centre-right country and have lost trust on key issues like Social Security and education.
"At minimum, these findings mean that the party needs to get more comfortable running candidates with unorthodox views in harder-to-win places. But they must also ask how a vocal minority pushed them too far Left. If the party fails to fully reckon with the reasons for its loss, they’re likely to continue having trouble winning national elections — including possibly next year’s midterms.
"As the Blue Rose postmortem (and plenty of pre-election analysis) showed, Democrats have serious structural vulnerabilities that have gone unaddressed for many years. For example, the party has been steadily shedding support from non-white and working-class voters for more than a decade. Both were core parts of the post-Second World War Democratic coalition, and their growing struggles with these voters have made them less competitive in key states. Working-class voters, specifically, are a major cause of concern.
No comments:
Post a Comment