This NYT Op-Ed piece by Thomas B. Edsall presents how Republicans define themselves, which is also something Democrats have to face.
He presents the following views of analysts and writers who present both the problems and solutions for the Democratic Party.
Isabel V. Sawhill, a senior fellow at Brookings, noted that “Democrats face an uphill battle in both 2022 and 2024.”
But, she went on, “the problems are much deeper. First, the white working class that used to vote Democratic no longer does.” Sawhill noted that when she
studied this group back in 2018, what surprised me most was their very negative attitudes toward government, their dislike of social welfare programs, their commitment to an ethic of personal responsibility and the importance of family and religion in their lives. This large group includes some people who are just plain prejudiced but a larger group that simply resents all the attention paid to race, gender, sexual preference or identity and the disrespect they think this entails for those with more traditional views and lifestyles.
Messages coming from the more progressive members of the Democratic Party, Sawhill warned, “will be exploited by Republicans to move moderate Democrats or to move no-Trump Republicans in their direction.”
Also,
Sean Westwood, a political scientist at Dartmouth, is highly critical of the contemporary Democratic Party,
The traditional strategy in midterm elections, Westwood wrote, is to mobilize the party base. Instead, he contended, Democrats
have decided to let the fringe brand the party’s messaging around issues that fail to obtain majority support among the base. Perhaps the most successful misinformation campaign in modern politics is being waged by the Twitter left against the base of the Democratic Party. The Twitter mob is intent on pushing social policies that have approximately zero chance of becoming law as a test of liberalism. Even if you support reducing taxes on the middle class, immigration reform and increasing the minimum wage, opposing defunding the police or the legalization of property crime makes you an unreasonable outcast.
Will Bunch, a liberal columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, argues that Democrats should adopt a full-speed-ahead, damn-the-torpedoes approach...
I asked Bunch how a Democratic candidate should appeal to white working-class voters and socially conservative Black, Hispanic and Asian American voters. He replied by email:
The white working class is a much more diverse group than commentators from all sides tend to credit. Remember the large turnouts for Black Lives Matter marches in isolated Rust Belt and rural communities in 2020, for example, and many in the working class remain zealously pro-union. I think the greatest cause of resentment is lack of educational and related career opportunities that have shut out the working class of all races. The Democrats are philosophically wired to expand these opportunities — through free community college and trade school, for example — yet have failed to make these a priority, ensuring a continued sense that Dems are now the party of self-enlightened degree holders looking down on them. That cycle can and must be broken.
I also asked how a Democrat should counter Republicans who exploit critical race theory, defunding the police, affirmative action, transgender rights and other politically divisive issues.
Bunch replied:
It’s important to reframe the conversations, so that the debate about schools, for example, isn’t about critical race theory (a construction that’s only taught in law schools) but about book banning or blocking teachers from discussing even Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks, which most voters in the vast middle vehemently oppose. Likewise, Democrats need to make clear that their goal is making streets safer and ending the heartbreak of homicide, but the way to do that is by thoughtfully building safer communities, not throwing more taxpayer dollars at failed methods of policing. The best strategy on affirmative action, at least in education, is to again make higher ed a public good and eliminate the current “Hunger Games” of college admissions.
Of course there's a lot more in this op-ed. But I post these parts because we Democrats need to get out the vote among people who could misunderstand what is at stake for their futures in 2022. We have to convince them that overall, (regardless of the fear messaging of Murdoch's FOX, or their general fear of a black planet) we are the party that has delivered what has worked for them, too, not just for POC; and if they stick with us Democrats, we will continue to do what's best for them, and not for the few who practice the politics of fear and conspiracy.
How we get there will take lots of contact with them and ground work. As Eric Boehlert has always claimed, corporate media (including this op-ed) might want to make itself the arbiter of political issues, but we also must take a closer look at how right wing analysts see right wing voters who are manipulated by fear politics to vote in the red statehouses we now see surging.
We might not see another 74 million Republican votes in 2022. But that doesn't mean we will win again. Like Obama and
his team once said, we have to act like we're 30 points down and act accordingly.
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