A good bit of literature has studied the problem and arrived to recommendations that overlap in parts & depart in others with this playbook.
A former parliamentarian of the Hungarian government studied its slide into illiberalism, and suggested remedies for the current, similar trend in the US. Resist in the courts & media, and build a powerful social base at the state & city level throughout the country. The latter means
the Democratic Party must reconnect with the working class to preserve liberal institutions
Doing that means
- “creating new and strengthening existing local organizational structures, especially labor unions”. Do not “on issues important to the active base only” such as “media freedom or democracy”: this leads to “failures of mass mobilizations”. “[E]ngage with [ordinary people] outside elections, focusing on issues that matter to them”.
- “[T]o push through popular reforms that elites oppose”, free “the party from elite capture” by shifting financing “from the corporate elite to small and micro-donations”.
- “[C]ommit to left-populist economic policies”.
- “[L]earn symbolic class politics”, “embrace the mundane and be down to earth”.
you don’t protect democracy by talking about democracy — you protect democracy by protecting people
I’m seeing the playbook overlap a bit with points 1 & 4, diverge from point 2, and not treat point 3.
Another article reviews research observing a decades-long trend of class dealignment: workers abandoning the left-wing party & joining the right. As unions have weakened and Democrats abandoned them, the party has increasing relied on & shifted appeal to urban middle class professionals & minorities. The review names 4 paths researched or discussed to reverse dealignment.
- inclusive populism: “appeal to working-class voters’ sense of resentment at economic elites and stress how elites use racial resentment to divide segments of the working class that share a common interest in economic justice”
- anti-woke social democracy: make “a clean break with factions of the party that embrace unpopular social and cultural messaging that alienates working-class voters”
- deliverism: “pass and implement large-scale economic reforms that benefit working Americans”
- institutionalism: “[reinvigorate a] labor movement capable of advancing working-class interest in politics and [re-embed] Democratic and progressive politics into the lived experiences of working-class communities”
It looks like the playbook is going with anti-woke social democracy & institutionalism, rejecting inclusive populism, not mentioning deliverism.
They seem to think the way to win the working class is to go more MAGA-like (anti-woke social democracy) instead of trying a competing strategy like inclusive populism. It also looks like they’re choosing not to break from elite capture, which seems like a huge mistake.
No, it’s the ‘do the things that consistently poll at 80% but will piss off your donors’ strategy. People will vote for you if you do popular stuff.
Bro, things that poll well with republicans. Do you know who a Republican is going to vote for, given the choice between a Democrat and a Republican? The fucking Republican. And in 2024, we’re going to be hearing even more dipshits whining about how the left didn’t turn out to vote blue no matter who just because the democrats were in favor of slow LGBT/Latino genocide, when everyone knows that no genocide is a really unpopular platform with the right of center. I mean, look, we lost ground in every demographic, but we flipped a whole twenty republican voters!
Something something they came for the Palestinians and I did not speak out.
That’s what they’re doing, yeah. Instead they should do the things laid out. In the post, but they won’t, because they’re democrats.
I’m calling bullshit. OOP laid out the four strategies that could reverse working class dealignment. Democrats are courting the ones that require the least effort and will actively alienate more people.
inclusive populism: this is the strategy that would grow their support base the most and would gain them landslide victories. It would also alienate big donors and take a large amount of work, so they’re avoiding it.
anti-woke social democracy: Dems currently embrace the veneer of social justice without doing anything. This strategy is “just drop the fake veneer”. Brilliant(/s), takes very little work and looks insanely bad to the minority base that is the Dems’ Powerhouse.
deliverism: materially making Americans lives better would, again, deliver massive election blowouts. But requires getting people in line, too much work, best abandon that
institutionalism: fantastic! Blame unions for our failures and make their failures why we’re failing! Excellent! No accountability! Let’s do that, but bare minimum level shit. Like vocally supporting unions but strike busting.
They’re just picking the easiest shit that lets them still rake in the most amount of money.
Dems lost this last election because the average American is hurting and their brilliant messaging was “let’s keep doing what we’ve been doing” like a bunch of fucking nonces. They were making actual gains when Harris was acting progressive, but they’re strategists told them to stop and then their polling fell.