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I’m a center-right “Scoop Jackson” moderate Democrat marooned on an island in today’s deep-blue Washington. My friends and I celebrate local election victories while our governor-elect appears eager to fight the incoming Trump administration. He will get the chance.
Let’s remember. After four years of chaos, President Biden’s election was promised as a “return to normality.” It wasn’t.
He quickly jettisoned normality for a progressive agenda. The Inflation Reduction Act did little to reduce inflation. It was in many ways a green wave, packed with spending on clean energy programs. Gov. Jay Inslee dropped his 2020 presidential run in the primary but his policies were adopted by Biden.
And while we live in a state that buys into the green wave, voters nationally don’t.
Our progressive blinders in Washington render us unable to focus on how to make our Democratic party once again nationally relevant. It’s national relevance that counts. And it’s not helped when the question asked is: “How could voters be so stupid?”
But voters aren’t stupid. We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. And each of us has our own lens through which we see the world.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat – and Donald Trump’s win – in the presidential election this year was sealed the day when Harris answered what James Carville calls “the money question.” A slow softball over-the-plate candidates beg for: Would she have done something differently than President Biden over the past four years? Her answer: “There is not a thing that comes to mind.”
Biden’s popularity, at that moment: Around 43% approval.
As Carville noted, in an election where voters are angry, “That’s the most devastating answer you could imagine.”
Elections are built around perceptions. Trump won because voters wanted a change, and a strong leader, looking past that he is a racist and misogynist. They wanted “different.” They were angry about the price of eggs and their values being disparaged. “Equal opportunity,” not “equality” and a pox on a Democrat party built on the green wave, identity politics, and special interests like the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement and concepts like restorative justice.
But time to stop grieving. This is not our first bad rodeo. Remember Hubert Humphrey on Vietnam, Hillary Clinton’s botched approach to “fly over country” and Ronald Reagan’s trouncing of Jimmy Carter — even here in Washington.
Everyone in Democratic politics has an opinion on what to do.
We need to better align our economic and social-cultural values with our voters. Our voters previously saw us as helping the underdogs. No more. They see us as upper-class white elitists.
We need to revive something akin to the “Democrat Leadership Conference” chaired by former Arkansas governor Bill Clinton.
It propelled Clinton to the presidency. To win, we need a course correction toward “it’s just the economy, stupid,” and less “identity politics,” which we have increasingly relied on for 20 years, gathering speed after George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
We aren’t elitists. We are for working families, who have increasingly turned to Trump.
I am old enough to remember shop class and home economics as required high school courses, and auto repair as an elective. Today, it’s Advanced Placement classes and college credits in high school. To earn a college degree is the gold standard.
That’s misguided thinking and it’s part of the reason we are losing our base. These days, in many cases, getting your hands dirty will earn you more money than practicing law.
U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who twice defeated a Trump acolyte in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, a once a reliably GOP seat, recognizes this in how she talks about the trades and the nation’s workforce.
Progressives were dumbstruck when she voted with Republicans against forgiving billions of dollars worth of college loans.
To again become nationally relevant, Democrats must focus on the economy and more importantly how voters – district by district – perceive it. The key is for candidates and members of Congress to represent their districts, not progressive orthodoxy.
That’s how Scoop Jackson, the “war hawk,” overwhelmingly defeated progressive Carl Maxey in 1968. It’s how Gluesenkamp Perez beat back her MAGA opponent. And it’s how U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, a farmer who voted to impeach Trump, won against a candidate endorsed by the former president in a district east of the Cascades.
Things in Washington state are unlikely to change in terms of how the state’s politics are leaning more heavily progressive. But in national elections, we don’t count.