Why the Democrats will lose in November, unless ...

The Problem

The 2022 midterm election is shaping up to be one of the most critical elections in our history given the multiple crises the US and the world face. Note that many commentators said that of the 2016 and 2020 elections. How can each one be more critical than the one before it? Easy. What has happened is that after each of these earlier elections little was done to resolve the crises we face, and often new layers were added to our problems. We are “waist deep in the big muddy” and we are told that “all we need is a little determination” and to “just push on”. (Pete Seeger)

The November election comes at a time when the country is more ideologically divided than it has been since 1860 and in the midst of several crises, any one or combination of which could lead to disastrous consequences and even the end of society as we know it.

We have a proxy war being fought between the two largest nuclear powers that is slowly, inexorably escalating. That proxy war is part of a broader political and economic struggle between the dominant imperial power (the US’s Empire of Liberty and its NATO partners) and the rising economic power of China, with the support of its junior partner, Russia. The Chinese are responsible for the economic challenge, the Russian, with their nuclear capabilities, the threat of military muscle. Is it coincidental that, at the same time as the US is sending massive amounts of military equipment to Ukraine, it is conducting naval maneuvers of unpresented scope in the Pacific and challenging China? And you thought that Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan was the problem.

Besides the threat of nuclear war, the proxy war in Ukraine is threatening the world’s food supply, particularly that of many Global South nations, which are already dealing with various effects of climate change. Wide spread famines in these countries will result in political destabilization; Sri Lanka is undoubtedly the first of many such destabilizations. (As I write we are already hearing about others.)

Global climate warming is threatening to reach a tipping point, yet the US is failing to meet even its modest goals and instead is pouring hundreds of billions into the war machine, one of the key sources driving the climate crisis, with its massive production of greenhouse gases.

I could go on, but I imagine my readers are familiar with much of what is happening. In this context, if the Democratic Party loses control of Congress, we will face 2 years in which the national government will be totally dysfunctional, that is, even more dysfunctional than it is right now. Manchin and Sinema will be yesterday’s news. The Republican party, which is fundamentally opposed to government period, will be able to prevent any advances designed to meet the challenges we face. And, to quote an old Chinese saying, “Where the broom doesn’t sweep, the dirt won’t go away by itself.”

Will the Democrats lose in November?

It’s no surprise that Democrats are up against it this fall, both in terms of history and economic conditions. The president’s party generally loses ground in midterm elections, which in this case will mean losing both the House and the Senate. Inflation is at a 40-year high, crime is up. And the centerpiece of President Biden’s domestic agenda has been torpedoed by united Republican obstruction — and a West Virginia Democrat, although at this point it appears that a very watered-down version may pass before the November election (but not in time to have any real effect, other than to give the Democrats a talking point – see, “we are trying”).

But a critical factor was revealed in a recent New York Times-Siena College poll: Though they enjoy a huge 20-point advantage over Republicans among white college-educated voters, the Democrats have a working-class problem, and it is not just a white working-class problem (Note that I am using that term, white-working class, because it is in common usage, but in reality, it is not accurate. The working class is probably the most integrated aspect of American society.) The GOP leads the Dems by a 12% margin among ALL non-college educated voters. Despite its racist and anti-immigrant platforms, the GOP is in the process of consolidating a multiracial working-class base, as is evidenced by the defection from the Democratic Party of a significant portion of Hispanic and even Black voters in 2020 and 2021. This does not take into account traditional Democratic voters, particularly young people, who stay home rather than vote for what they see as the lesser of two evils. A bit harsh, but in my experience, an accurate assessment.

Who or what is to blame? The party establishment trains its guns on the left. The gerontocracy that runs the Democratic Party (says someone who will be 80 years old in less than a month), the centrist thinktanks, and the big money donors all agree that, as Ruy Teixeira argues, problem is that the left has poisoned the “party brand”. “Wokeness,” according to James Carville, “is a problem and we all know it” or, as a local party official here in Wilmington put it, the problem is those damn “Bernie bros”. Their solution to overcoming the ominous clouds of defeat in November is to focus on campaigning for more gun control and against the assault on abortion and Donald Trump’s “big lie” about a stolen election as the way to save Democrats this fall.

Now it is true that the Republican party seems to be doing its best to hand the election back to the Democrats, and I’m certainly not advocating looking this gift horse in the mouth. But by limiting their appeals to the social issues that garner support from suburban whites and their big corporate donors, the Party will continue to bleed. Add to that the attacks on the left, which alienate many younger voters (and even old farts like me), the Party is doing a poor job of incorporating into its ranks the 4 million young people who turn 18 each year. Democrats ought to be concerned that the activists of their base — the young, African Americans, climate activists, Hispanics — are demoralized by what the Party is doing and not doing.

It's not that the party has moved to the right, it’s that the voting age population has moved to the left, in part because of the looming crises, in part because of the work of the progressives and in part because of the influx of young voters. Just check out the support for issues the left is advocating – universal healthcare, taxing the rich, the Green New Deal, cancelling student debt, establishing tuition free college and so on.

Add to that the continuing assault on working Americans standard of living, particularly in rural areas and in the Rust Belt states of the Midwest, which has alienated the working class (and not just white workers) and provided a fertile ground for the extreme right to organize. It doesn’t help when centrist Dems (yes Hillary, I’m talking about you, but also the rest of the crowd) refer to Trump supporters as “deplorable” and (yes, Barack, you too) when you talk about those who “cling to guns and religion”. It’s little wonder that many working-class Americans view the Democratic Party as a party of the economic and social elites – because in many respects that’s what it’s become.

What needs to happen between now and November?

·         The Democrats, starting with the top leadership, need to STOP trashing the left and STOP supporting DINOs against progressive challengers (although, since the primary season is about over, there won’t be much opportunity to do the latter).

·         Joe Biden needs to mount the bully pulpit and demand that Congress act on his agenda right away. I’m sure it won’t have any immediate effect, but it will play well on TV and the internet and change his image. No more milk-toast Joe.

·         He needs to pressure the various agencies of the government (and even those like the Fed, that are not directly under his control) to support his agenda or do everything in his power to remove the people who are creating roadblocks.

·         Biden needs to do EVERYTHING that he can to implement the campaign promises he and the Dems ran on in 2020 that don’t require the do-nothing Congress to act. For starters he could declare a climate emergency and cancel student debt.

·         The Democratic Party needs to put forth and run on bold proposals that address working class issues – economic issues like the child tax credit, invigorating the labor laws and their enforcement, raising the minimum wage to at least $15 an hour, rural development – I could go on, but I think you should have gotten my point by now.

·         And Biden and the corporate Dems need to STOP feeding the Pentagon and its military-industrial complex, resources that Americans and others around the world need to survive the crises we are all facing. The bloated war machine does not make us safer; the truth is that it makes us less safe.

Will this be enough to reverse the Party’s declining support among the working class. No, but it might be enough to guarantee the Democrats 2 more years in power. After that, it will take a lot more to begin remaking the Democratic Party as the party of the working class, For now, it may be all we can hope for.