More bread and butter and less Oprah.
That’s what some strategists suggest is needed to fix a demoralized Democratic Party recovering from its electoral thumping on Tuesday night.
The finger pointing, recriminations and soul searching has begun in earnest in the wake of the U.S. election, which saw former Republican president Donald Trump soundly defeat current Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris. Some Democrats are now calling for a reckoning within the party to determine what went wrong and what needs to change if they want to win future elections.
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“This was wholescale repudiation of the Democratic Party at every level,” said Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis in a phone interview with CBC News, noting the party saw a drop in support in every city, county and state. “We lost Democratic support across the board.
“We act like our product is great, why didn’t everybody buy it?” he said. “That product sucks — and that’s why people didn’t buy it.”
Some direct blame at Harris
With votes still being counted, Trump was on track to capture between 301 and 314 electoral college votes and become the first Republican candidate in two decades to win the popular vote.
He also made significant inroads with Black and Hispanic voters as exit polls suggested many voters were dissatisfied with both the country’s direction and its economy.
The Democrats also lost control of the Senate, but the House, which is currently controlled by the Republicans, is still up for grabs as ballots continue to be counted.
Some blame for Democrat losses has fallen on Harris, who was criticized that she was unable to define herself. Some Democratic strategists have suggested she spent too much time, especially in the final weeks of the campaign, emphasizing the potential dangers Trump might pose, which overshadowed her policies relating to everyday issues.
There’s also blame being placed on U.S. President Joe Biden for not stepping down earlier, leaving Harris with a compressed timetable to campaign.
But some pundits and party officials say the most significant problems lay within the party itself.
According to Kofinis and other political strategists and observers, the Democratic Party has either dismissed, minimized or stopped listening to issues that are most important to the average voter.
“The only issues that matter to voters are the economic bread-and-butter issues. That’s on top of the pyramid. And then you go down,” Kofinis said.
Defeated Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris said in her concession speech Wednesday that although many people may feel the U.S. is entering into a dark time, they should be encouraged to keep working in the face of setbacks.
Kofinis says the party spent way too much time talking about issues like democracy and gender identity and was too obsessed with Trump’s legal woes and investigations into his actions.
“If you’re spending more time talking about social and cultural issues than you do about economic issues, you’re going to lose,” he said.
Better messaging needed for blue collar voters
It’s a similar argument made by Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who, in a statement following the election, said that a party that has abandoned the working class shouldn’t be surprised that the “working class have abandoned them.”
Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s secretary of state and the highest-ranking Latino elected official in the state, said it’s a “hard political pill for Democrats to swallow” when their messaging runs counter to what the working class wants.
“Why are we losing these people? Why are we losing firefighters? Why are we losing cops? Why are we losing blue collar working men,” he said in an interview with Politico. “Because we’re very consistent in our messaging away from them — away from their traditional family values, away from their personal economic concerns and their family’s economic concerns.”
U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking after Donald Trump’s win, says he hopes Americans can see each other ‘not as adversaries but as fellow Americans,’ and praised election workers for their efforts.
To that end, Faiz Shakir, an adviser to Sanders and the founder of More Perfect Union, a progressive news media organization, told Politico that to rebuild its connection to America’s working class, the party needs to “recruit working-class candidates who reflect the pain and the understanding of people who live paycheque-to-paycheque.”
Jim Kessler, the founder of the centre-left think-tank Third Way, suggested Democrats should spend less time on issues like the potential threat Trump poses to democracy, because it’s more abstract than other concerns people may have.
“Democrats often make the mistake of focusing on long-term problems at a time when voters have immediate concerns,” he told ABC News. “And democracy seems like a long-term issue, and it’s not quite tangible.
“But gas prices, grocery prices, border crossings, a sense that crime is rising? Those you feel every day.”
‘Never hang out with celebrity elites’
The accusation that the party has lost touch with the average voter also ties into the criticism by some that it has become a party of elites.
“Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?” Sanders said in his statement.
And Kofinis says his biggest piece of advice for the Democrats would be to abandon their famous pals.
While Trump himself may be one of the most recognized names on the planet, Kofinis says a series of celebrity endorsements and the appearance of megastars like Oprah Winfrey and Beyoncé at Harris campaign rallies could signify a broader fundamental problem for the Democrats: it gives voters the impression the party has lost touch with the average person.
“If the Democratic Party continues to be the party of celebrity elites, we will continue to be a losing party.”