Clive Crook makes the common complaint that progressives tend to excuse their political failures by insulting the intelligence of the electorate. I agree that this is a frequent and often disagreeable tendency, but I’d ask for one substantial caveat. There’s a distinction between those who go vote and vote for candidates who are looking to screw them over and those who don’t vote because they incorrectly think that elections don’t matter. These are two different kinds of stupid, in other words, and both contributed mightily to the drubbing that the Democrats took at the polls. By far, the worse problem was the latter one, as voter participation was the lowest we’ve seen since half our sons were deployed overseas during World War Two.
Progressives have a lot more faith in a full, participating electorate than they do in a small electorate made up mainly of hyper-partisans. This isn’t just because the left does better with a fuller electorate, but because progressives are primarily concerned with helping precisely the kind of people who tend not to vote in low-participation elections. The kids who stayed home last Tuesday are being crushed by unaffordable college, poverty-level wages, and lack of investment in their future. Their opinions matter, and we can’t help them if they won’t band together to give us the power to help them. I think the vast majority of these kids would be totally onboard with a transformative politics that looks to change our society in dramatic ways because the society we have is stifling them and leaving them without hope. That’s why I don’t buy the following:
The constant emphasis on social injustice, economic inequality, class struggle and the existential perils of climate change advertises a far-reaching transformative ambition. Here’s the problem: Even putting aside the question of competence, U.S. voters aren’t sold on the idea of having their society transformed. They just want it made better. To be popular, the progressive agenda therefore needs to be plausibly delimited. The Democrats need to make clear what they won’t do as much as what they will. Without a clear program, that’s difficult.
It won’t do to say, “Trust us to dismantle this fundamentally broken society and build something new. You can leave the details to us.” That’s what Democrats were offering the country last week. The voters said, “No, thanks.” I wouldn’t call that stupid.
What the voters “said” was distorted because old people had a lot more to say than young people. Old people said “No thanks” to the left, and that wound up being the answer of the electorate. In 2012, a much fuller electorate expressed its opinion and it came up with a much different, less stupid answer.
