For liberals, Donald Trump’s victory this week prompts adjectives like scary, terrifying, depressing, and demoralizing. But one word it should not evoke is this: surprising. In a downwardly mobile country, Democrats’ rejection of working-class politics — and the party’s open hostility to populist politicians within its midst — was always going to end up creating prime political conditions for a conservative strongman promising to make America great again.
Trump and his cronies spun tales of overbearing bureaucrats, DEI warriors and migrant gangs to weave a narrative that the government of elites is so out of touch — or focused on identity politics — they don’t care about the affordability crisis ruining everyone’s day-to-day lives. Democrats countered by trotting out Hollywood stars, the Cheneys, and billionaire Mark Cuban to tell a story of an assault on establishment norms that is imperiling brunch and jeopardizing a West Wing reboot.
Shocker: The working class responded by giving Trump a decisive popular vote victory.
I’ve spent much of my adult life working to prevent this — both in the slog work of campaigns and in my reported articles, books, and audio series. One of those articles was published 20 years ago at what felt like a very similar point in American history, when a Republican running for reelection won big swathes of the working class. Change the names and it reads like a description of the current moment.
Vindication is not consolation. I’m angry about what happened and how predictable it all was. I feel like Randall Mindy in our film Don’t Look Up — specifically in the scene where he’s just scream-weeping up at the sky, saying he tried to warn everyone. And I’m enraged by those still purporting to be surprised, whether it’s cable TV-addled liberals personifying the proverb about blindness, or pundits and politicos who embody the famous Upton Sinclair aphorism.
But perhaps there’s a silver lining here. Maybe the shellacking will prompt an awakening. Maybe everyone will finally tune out the pundits still claiming Democrats ran a “flawless” campaign. And maybe people will finally acknowledge, accept, and internalize realities that were obvious so long ago. And maybe from there, things can improve.
What follows here are some big questions so many people have been asking me, and my preliminary answers. Think of it as a FAQ about what just happened — a proverbial handbook for the politically deceased.
The questions I’ll cover are listed below — click a topic to jump forward or scroll through:
- What is the Democratic Party’s theory of winning elections?
- Why do Democrats seem unwilling to focus on persuading working-class voters?
- Why have working-class voters been fleeing the Democratic Party for years?
- How does all this relate to the Democratic Party’s internal fights over the last few years?
- But aren’t Democrats being smart by trying to be a big-tent party?
- What were Republicans’ most effective tactics to court working-class voters?
- Why weren’t Democrats able to sell working-class voters on their economic record?
- Why did Americans decide to vote against “saving democracy?”
- What could Democrats have done to win the election?
- How did both parties approach the media during the election?
- What do we do now?
