What Happened?
Biden wins. Nothing much changes beyond that. No blue wave. Legislatures stayed almost exactly the same. The U.S. House under Speaker Nancy Pelosi lost seats. More than four million more people voted for Trump after four years of watching.
Republicans will likely control the Senate and Biden will wrestle with Mitch McConnell for a long time over the future of the country.
What happened? Why didn’t Democrats do better? If ever there was a blue wave election, this was it. Record turnout did not translate to a powerful takeover of the government by Democrats. Despite a changing population in their favor, Democrats lost ground underneath the presidency.
Why? Because of socialism, law and order and racism.
Trump is no dummy. He knew how to incite people and play to the fears of their childhood. Most voters in America still think socialism is what made us hide under our desks in case of a Russian attack. Nobody under 50 gets that any more. But for most moderate voters, when they hear that term, they think Joe Stalin. They think you are taking away their doctor. They may not like their insurance company. But they know that insurance company.
They may not like the health care system. But they know it. And Democrats have not yet figured out how to talk about better health care. Obama told us we wouldn’t lose our doctor. But we sorta did lose our doctor. And it’s expensive. And it’s complicated. And we don’t like it.
“Defund the Police’’ as a visceral scream may have been right in the streets. But it scared people. AOC pointed out correctly that no one campaigned on Defund the Police. But Republicans capitalized and tagged Democrats with the phrase.
Democrats haven’t figured it out. And it is losing them elections.
The Democratic effort to take over legislatures run by former Obama official Eric Holder? Total failure. Total.
The black women in Atlanta that dragged Biden across the finish line don’t want to get rid of the police. They just don’t want to be killed by the police. There is a difference. And Republicans exploited that difference better than Democrats.
There is something else. I get the anecdotal feeling that Democrats think elections are won on Twitter and Facebook. But Trump’s rallies worked. And their door knocking worked. There was a sense that Democrats respected the virus, played by the rules and ran a “responsible’’ campaign. True. But they suffered for it.
Democrats seem to have forgotten the lessons of James Michael Curley, Tommy Burnett, and Susan Collins. To be elected over and over, you have to show up - everywhere. Curley was elected mayor of Boston while under federal indictment. Burnett was elected to the Tennessee House from prison during my years as a Nashville reporter. And Collins pasted her opponent in a Maine race that everyone thought she would lose.
They showed up all the time and their constituents adored them.
The bright spot for Democrats is Stacey Abrams, who should be the next chair of the DNC. After being robbed of the Georgia governorship, she spent four years registering voters and is responsible in a major way for what happened there: a Biden victory and a possible taking of two Senate seats.
Voters vote for people they know. They excuse a lot of faults. But if you show up to the church, the fair, the dooryard, voters remember. It’s really hard work. But it works.
Lesson 1: Molly Gray, a first-time candidate, won the Lt. Governorship of Vermont in a convincing fashion over some very experienced candidates. Even in COVID, she was everywhere. On Zoom, in backyards and at “honks and waves.’’ She looked like she was working really really hard. You didn’t get that from any of her opponents.
Lesson 2: A few months ago I wrote a piece about Vermont’s senior senator Patrick Leahy and his bad Internet service at his house. The piece could have been interpreted as critical of Leahy. It wasn’t. But guess what happened. Less than 24 hours after the piece ran, my phone rings and it’s Leahy.
He chats me up for 20 minutes, fills me with cool insider stuff about the Senate, and away he goes. That conversation was a combination of good staff work and years of practice by Leahy who knows that after that call, I told everyone I ran into that week that I spoke personally to Pat Leahy. Mission accomplished for him.
Democrats don’t seem to do that kind of showing up as much as they used to. And it shows. It doesn’t matter whether you are a progressive like AOC or a moderate. You show up and talk about making better the lives of your constituents. That’s what they care about. And too often Democrats think it’s a policy lecture.
The legacy of Trump is that the tension between Trumpism and the Democratic Party, between high-minded policy objectives and racist, authoritarian bigotry hiding behind faux-free-market values, will be with us for the next generation. And the people who best help their constituents will be the victor.
