David Michael Miller
In a complicated world, there are often multiple plausible explanations for why something happened the way it did. And the plausible explanation we choose is like a Rorschach test, saying more about us than about the explanation itself.
And the chosen explanation — the story we use to explain an outcome — is also important because it dictates how we’ll go forward.
To illustrate, I’ll use an obscure event that won’t provoke any strong feelings: last November’s elections.
Now, you might recall that Donald Trump won that election and, in fact, the Republicans won more total state legislative seats across the land than they have controlled since the 1920s. They did that with the help of blue-collar voters who live outside of major cities. (To describe them as “rural” is a little misleading. Trump did very well in places like Kenosha, which is rural only in the view of The New York Times.)
A widespread explanation of that phenomenon adopted by liberals is that these blue-collar voters are dumb, voting against their clear economic interests. Or they’re racist, misogynist and xenophobic, voting for someone who promises to fight the cultural changes they don’t like.
Here’s a third explanation: They’re voting their legitimate values. CNN commentator, former Obama administration official and certified liberal Van Jones made that point at the end of a recent appearance in Madison. Speaking at the People for Bikes conference at Monona Terrace in June, Jones said that, “Liberals vote against their economic self-interests all the time. We vote for higher taxes for things we’ll never use. It’s because we’re placing our values over our self-interest.” He paused there for effect. “Huh,” he said to a little nervous laughter from the mostly liberal audience.
I wrote “legitimate” values because I don’t see racism, misogyny or xenophobia as legitimate. But hard work, self-reliance, personal responsibility, resilience, reverence for institutions and preservation of one’s cultural traditions are or can be positive values.
And, of course, to make matters more complicated, people hold all kinds of values, some legitimate and some not so much. It’s entirely possible for a person to be a hard worker, to take personal responsibility, to be a good parent, to help out in his community and then to also harbor attitudes that some of us would regard as racist. And even that individual probably couldn’t say exactly which of his values primarily motivated his decision to vote for Trump.
All of which is to say that the liberal tripe about blue-collar voters going against their own self-interests or going for their worst instincts just isn’t a useful explanation, no matter its accuracy. And it’s not useful because what’s the answer if you adopt it? Talk more slowly so that people will understand how brilliant your policy solutions are? Look into people’s souls so that you can somehow fix the wiring that causes them to be intolerant?
So here’s the explanation I find useful and, by the way, probably true as well: The Democratic Party does not lose elections because voters are too dimwitted to understand how great the party’s policies are and it doesn’t lose elections because of race or gender.
The Democratic Party loses elections because it doesn’t share the legitimate values of blue-collar voters. Let’s take income inequality as an example because it’s probably at the root of the problem. In order to maintain the same middle-class lifestyle that their parents had, a family of four today would need an annual income of about $130,000, according to historian and presidential biographer Jon Meacham. But the real average is only $57,000. These numbers alone could explain the widespread frustration that produced Trump.
And what’s the Democratic answer? Well, the first thing out of the gate would be an increase in the minimum wage. Wrong.
Sure, blue-collar voters would take that and as a policy answer it’s fine. But it does not speak to their values. Nobody wants a minimum wage job, no matter what that wage is. People want to hear that you will help create (or get out of the way of creating) good, family-supporting jobs that don’t need to be propped up by a minimum wage. That’s exactly what Republicans say even as they oppose the minimum wage increases that would give people an immediate income boost. And they win elections while we don’t.
So, the answer for the party is not in some new government program. In fact, the answer isn’t in policy at all. The answer is in connecting on the level of values; the answer is in what the party emphasizes and how they talk about it.
I’m sorry, folks, but a party that seems obsessed with who uses which public bathroom is just not going to succeed. Even for people who might not harbor any ill will toward transgender people, the bathroom issue seems like trivia compared to the real issues in their lives.
What’s the prospect? Mixed. I still think the Democrats will do well in 2018 just because it’s an off year for the party in power — which are the other guys — and liberals will remain motivated. But if the party takes the wrong message from that (and it almost certainly will) then it won’t deal with the underlying problems that weaken it. If it doesn’t figure out how to reconnect with the blue-collar people it once knew how to champion, it will keep losing elections in the long run.
