I realize that some of us are vastly outnumbered by folks who think that Democrats should move to the right to accommodate the swing voter, whoever he may be. Many sins emanate from this strange dogma, not confined to discounting gay, black or women candidates in 2024, a willingness to soften demands so as to appeal to the swing voter, or a failure to defend marginalized Americans — as we saw play out during the budget ceiling negotiations last week.
In fact, most Democrats probably saw last week’s fight as a win for pragmatism and centrism. But I see their conclusion as a gross miscalculation.
Rather than being the party of ideas and principles, the Democratic Party is mainly, as Robert Reich once characterized it, a vast “fund-raising machine” that has lost its way if not its soul. The comedian Lewis Black once quipped that the Democratic Party is the party of “no ideas” while Republicans are the party of “bad ideas.” Black’s joke was only funny because it was true.
Unlike the GOP, which operates on an uncompromising and visceral level (and, it must be conceded, very successfully), Democrats operate like a house thermostat, adjusting a blast of cold here or a jet of hot air there to maintain some abstract perfect “middle” temperature that pleases no one. Ask your spouse if you don’t believe me.
A 2019 study by the Pew Research Center actually looked at this mythological being, the swing voter. It turns out that the 40% of voters who identify as so-called “independents” are not really all that independent. 13%, in fact, are pretty much reliable Republicans while 17% are fairly reliable Democrats. This leaves 7% — mostly young and male — who are politically unmoored.
This should be no great revelation in a polarized political landscape in which the “middle” has largely eroded. And yet it is an article of faith of centrist Democrats.
What’s especially significant, however, is that, of these 7% only a third actually vote, which reduces the actual percentage of “independents” to about 2.3% of the American electorate. Democrats might actually appeal to some of these disaffected young voters if they chose a progressive candidate under 70, but in the last election most of the Democratic Presidential candidates thought they could appeal to the unicorn by bashing the social safety net, going weak on abortion, or alienating minority voters by slamming “identity politics.” Last week the same Democratic centrists alienated minority voters even further, not to mention the left wing of the party.
Steve Phillips is the author of How We Win the Civil War and Brown is the New White. In the latter book he argues, and I agree with him, that it would be a much smarter move to woo reliable Black and Brown voters and progressives than a mythological creature. The numbers are simply better.
Rather than trying to lower themselves to GOP standards, Democrats ought to be doubling-down on issues that distinguish them from Republicans. And redoubling fierce opposition to the fascist train barreling down upon us. Instead, while the Democratic Party insists on poll-testing and calibrating a perfect room temperature, its right wing will likely flirt with RFK Jr. and then end up voting for a GOP candidate.
And — let’s not blame them when they do — some percentage of the Democratic left wing will end up voting for Cornel West out of disgust — a disgust borne out of the Democratic Party’s limp and vacillating policies and neglect. And because West will raise many of the festering issues that Democrats are simply too frightened to deal with.
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