“This is not who we are. We’re better than this.”
Wow. It looks like Joe Biden was wrong in saying that. As I write this, nearly 70 million Americans have disagreed with you by voting to re-elect Donald Trump. And while it doesn’t look like he will win, Republicans have apparently held onto the Senate and even gained a handful of seats in the House of Representatives.
It certainly seems as if one casualty of this election cycle ought to be opinion polling. Pollsters were even farther off in 2020 than they were in 2016. Apparently we have reached a tipping point where more and more people either lie to pollsters or refuse to talk to them at all.
That in itself is not a bad thing. Poll results have become far too big a part of the story, enabling the media to cover the horse race rather than the substance of a campaign. Covering elections less like sporting events would be a good thing.
The message is another important part of it. Republicans have done an excellent job in at least muddling if not disguising their real goals. Tax cuts that overwhelmingly favor the very wealthy are touted as “middle-class” tax cuts, and policies that favor big corporations are touted as “job creation.”
Yet Democrats are constantly getting in their own way. If you asked voters where the Democratic Party stands, you would hear about Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandra Ocasio Cortez. You’d hear about gay marriage, abortion rights and all sorts of other issues that don’t have much to do with the economy.
Instead of focusing on what made them the most successful political party in American history, they spend too much time talking about the issues that scare the hell out of working-class voters.
I can’t emphasize too much that Democrats are letting themselves be defined by their opponents, while Republicans seem to be able to define themselves. Part of that is ethical. Republicans have become a party more willing to distort their opponents’ positions than they used to be.
Of course it’s partly the Democrats’ fault for not keeping their eyes on the prize. There’s nothing wrong with the things Democrats are fighting for these days, but unless they want to be a fringe party, they need to focus on the major issues. No. 1 among issues is almost always the economy.
It’s certainly not the only issue. Racial inequity is a much bigger issue to Democrats than to Republicans, and Democrats are far more concerned that billionaires keep grabbing a higher and higher percentage of our national wealth.
Democrats are also far more concerned about climate change.
The fact that Republicans held the Senate is extremely problematic. Majority leader Mitch McConnell has already said he will continue his obstructionism in the future. The worst part of that is that McConnell has the power to refuse even to bring up things he doesn’t want to pass.
There has to be some way to get past that, to somehow bring McConnell into the discussion. Otherwise the Senate becomes an insurmountable problem.
And that just won’t work.