Democrats are making populist pratfalls trying to imitate Donald Trump. They know they have a problem with the American people, even as they publicly deny it. Yet, as they try to address it, they only make their problem worse. The reason is that instead of talking to “the people,” Democrats are talking to “their people” instead.
Exit polling showed Democrats losing voters making less than $50,000 by 48-50 percent and voters making less than $100,000 by 47-51 percent.
That the Democrats are out of touch is clear. At least it is to all but their Woke elements. Democrat strategist James Carville sounded the warning right after the election, attributing much of the Democrats’ problems to “the unfortunate events of what I would refer to as the woke era.” For a large portion of the electorate, “the image stuck in people’s minds that the Democrats wanted to defund the police, wanted to empty prisons.”
Senator Bernie Sanders comes to the same conclusion from the opposite angle: “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”
Despite coming from opposite ends, the two arrive at the same conclusion: Democrats have lost touch with America’s middle and working classes.
Although Democrats like Rep. Nancy Pelosi refuse to acknowledge this, Democrats are clearly trying to rectify it.
Immediately after the election, a host of Democrat officials announced defiance to an administration still months away from taking office. They have thrown down their gauntlets on abortion, illegal immigration, transgender surgery, and electric vehicles.
In some, they have upped the ante: Illinois Governor Pritzker vowed more transgender surgeries in his state, while San Diego declared itself a “super sanctuary” for illegal immigrants.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) tried to also sound the populist tocsin saying, “people can only be pushed so far” and that “the visceral response from people across the country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system.”
As these positions demonstrate, the problem for Democrats is that when they reach out to “the people,” they invariably reach out to their people. Such cocoon conversations make them tone-deaf as they take positions more important to them than to the majority of Americans — or worse yet, that Americans oppose.
As evidence, simply look at Biden’s approval rating on the issue would-be Democrat populists most frequently raise: illegal immigration — a primary reason Democrats lost in November. According to Real Clear Politics’s Dec. 18 average of national polls, only 34.8 percent of Americans approve of Joe Biden’s performance on immigration, while 63 percent disapprove. Vowing to oppose Trump on illegal immigration only plays to average Americans’ prejudice against the Democrat Party on this issue.
Abortion is another issue on which Democrats believe they are speaking for “the people” when instead speaking for their own. In November, Harris won overwhelmingly with those wanting to go beyond Roe v. Wade. According to exit polling, Harris won 88 percent among those who want abortion “legal in all cases” (i.e., beyond the restriction that Roe v. Wade allowed); however, those holding this position made up just 33 percent of 2024 presidential voters.
Clearly, Democrats imagine they are helping themselves with their recent attempts at populism. However, Democrats’ failure to connect with “the people” doesn’t lie in pursuing the wrong issues (though they are) and saying the wrong things (though they are doing this too). Democrats’ real problem runs far deeper.
Simply, for Democrats, their people are not “the people.” Democrats have become an elitist tribe that revels in their self-perceived superiority. They therefore can’t talk to “the people” because they don’t know them, they can’t talk like the people because they don’t listen to them, and they can’t talk about the people’s problems because they don’t share them.
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READ MORE from J.T. Young:
Democrats Double Down on Elitism
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J.T. Young is the author of the new book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left, from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades’ experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, and OMB, and representing a Fortune 20 company.
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