I won’t do a full post on the Monday session of the DLC’s National Conversation in Columbus until the transcripts and video of the major speeches are up on our web page, so I can link to them and you can figure out if I’m spinning or truth-telling. But I will offer a few quick observations. And you can check out some of the media reports on the event here.I guess the most notable common threads at the event were: (a) a very sharp and often angry critique of the Bush administration and the GOP; (b) a sense of agreement that security, opportunity, values and reform are the four big issues where Democrats ought to focus their work and their message; and (c) a concern that Democrats must soon begin to offer positive alternatives to the Republicans so that their pain will produce our gains (which isn’t much happening yet, according to most polls). Evan Bayh, generally considered a national security hawk, offered a truly acidic critique of the administration’s handling of the war on terror, concluding: “That’s not strength, that’s incompetence.”Tom Vilsack systematically decimated the GOP’s fidelity to values, especially that of community. Hillary Clinton squarely accused Republicans of trying to return the country to the policies and political practices of the 19th century. And Mark Warner scorned the Bushies for choosing to intervene in the medical decisions of the Schiavo family while choosing to do nothing about the 45 million Americans without health insurance. But the same speakers consistently warned that Democrats can’t simply offer negative critiques or counter-polarize, even if that makes unity a bit easier. Bayh described the need for positive alternatives as a party responsibility to the country. Vilsack suggested it’s the only way to truly contrast Democratic with Republican values. And Clinton argued that we need to remind voters Democrats did govern the country in a vastly better manner in the 1990s, and can do it again. I can tell you authoritatively that the DLC did not script these speeches at all. Their consistency on both the positive and negative aspects of the Democratic message are mainly attributable to objective reality, and the common conclusions that smart and principled pols tend to reach from their different perspectives. It’s a very good signpost for our political future.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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November 8: It Was a Change Election After All
I wrote this insta-reaction to Trump’s victory at New York in the wee hours of the morning, after many hours of staring at numbers and trying to understand them. It’s probably as good an analysis as I can manage days later:
We will be debating the contours of Donald Trump’s comeback presidential victory over Kamala Harris for a good while. Certainly among Democrats, this close but conclusive defeat will be interpreted as flowing from a host of party weaknesses and candidate and campaign mistakes. And Republicans, as winners do, will likely over-interpret their success as representing a watershed victory that will turn into governing coalition that will last for decades.
The simplest explanation, though, may be the most compelling: This was a classic “change” election in which the “out” party had an advantage that the governing party could not overcome. Yes, the outcome was in doubt because Democrats managed to replace a very unpopular incumbent with an interesting if untested successor, and also because the GOP chose a nominee whose constant demonstration of his own unpopular traits threatened to take over the whole contest. In the end Trump normalized his crude and erratic character by endless repetition; reduced scrutiny of his lawless misconduct by denouncing critics and prosecutors alike as politically motivated; and convinced an awful lot of unhappy voters that he hated the same people and institutions they did.
Nobody for a moment doubted that Trump would bring change. And indeed, his signature Make America Great Again slogan and message came to have a double meaning. Yes, for some it meant (as it did in 2016) a return to the allegedly all-American culture of the 20th century, with its traditional hierarchies; moral certainties and (for some) white male leadership. But for others MAGA meant very specifically referred to the perceived peace and prosperity of the pre-pandemic economy and society presided over, however turbulently, Trump. When Republicans gleefully asked swing voters if they were better off before Joe Biden became president, a veritable coalition of voters with recent and long-standing grievances over conditions in the country had as simple an answer as they did when Ronald Reagan used it to depose Jimmy Carter more than a half-century ago.
Just as Democrats will wonder whether a candidate different from Harris would have won this election, Republicans ought to wonder whether anyone other than Trump would have won more easily without the collateral damage to their principles, their sensibilities, and their long-term prospects. It’s true that their craven surrender to Trump made it possible for his campaign to present a unified front that took him far along to road to victory in a polarized electorate, despite all sorts of private grumbling over his countless conspiracy theories and insults to opponents. But it’s not clear at all Trump can bring the kind of change he came to represent to his voters. Indeed, the millions of people for whom inflation became not only an economic handicap but a symbol of government fecklessness could easily and quickly become disillusioned with Trump’s strange mix of protectionism and tax cuts if, as economists warn, it will rekindle inflation and spark global economic warfare. It’s a particularly troubling sign for the GOP that so many potential Trump hirelings and allies have wildly conflicting expectations of what he will actually do.
But for now, Trump’s unlikely comeback coincided almost entirely with an election in which voters wanted change enough to ignore or embrace the dark side of his legacy and agenda. It’s his luck and probably this country’s misfortune, but there’s nothing for it but to move ahead with fear and trembling.