‘Democrats Need to Stop Blaming Trump’s Voters and Admit the Party Must Change’

“We’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way” was the refrain from a country song by Toby Keith which stormed the charts in 2001, a few months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The song’s formal title was ‘Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)’. Even at the time, it was a polarising song, with some of the lyrics rubbing people up the wrong way. But, for many, it captured the sense of American rage after the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

Keith, who died earlier this year, said he wrote it in part to fire up US troops and boost American morale. “I knew it would be a lightning rod, and I prayed about it,” he observed in a 2021 Fox interview. “But at the end of the day, it was a battle cry for our guys to go win and get back home safely and go do what Americans really do.” 

I feel some of that same sentiment among Trump supporters today – their anger in this case not directed at foreign terrorists, but at the people they deride as the Washington elites, or out-of-touch liberals, who look down on people like them as ignorant, bigoted hicks. This election was, in part, a big ‘f**k you’ to the establishment.  

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Both events were driven more by ideological conviction – than rational analysis – and against the advice of most experts, writes former diplomat Alexandra Hall Hall

Alexandra Hall Hall

They didn’t vote for Trump because of his obvious flaws – his blatant misogyny, racism, foul mouth, criminal record, disregard for the law, and so forth. They voted for him, despite these flaws.

They voted for him not because they approve of his character, but because he successfully managed to come across as more in-touch with them and their concerns than any of the Democrat policy wonks crafting Kamala Harris’ campaign messages and strategy, or the celebrities who endorsed her.   

Many words will be written in the years to come about how the Democrats managed to get it so wrong, and blow the election, against a candidate who was so manifestly unfit for presidential office.  

President Joe Biden’s decision to overstay his welcome, despite his failing mental and physical abilities, leaving it too late for the party to battle-test a successor in a proper primary contest, certainly played a large part.  

So did the party’s wilful blindness to the fact that a majority of voters disapproved of the direction of the country under Biden’s tenure. As his Vice President, it was always going to be hard for Harris to distance herself from his unpopular record.  

The administration’s virtually unwavering support for Israel in its devastating assaults on Gaza and Lebanon also cost Harris dearly in key constituencies such as Dearborn, Michigan, where 55% of the residents are of Middle Eastern descent. Trump won there with 42.48% of the vote over Harris, who received only 36.26%. In 2020, Biden received 68.8% in Dearborn while Trump received 29.9%.  

But blaming his voters for being racist, sexist, selfish morons – as many anguished commentators have done in the immediate aftermath of the result – is the surest way to ensure even more Democrat defeats.  

‘Lady Chatterley’s Brexit’

Not accepting or being able to discuss the damage caused by Britain’s exit from the EU leaves the country in a unsustainable position, writes Chris Grey

Chris Grey

A sampling from the exit polls tells the story:

• Only 26% of voters said they were satisfied with the direction of the country; 72% were dissatisfied.  

• Six in 10 voters disapproved of Biden’s performance as President.  

• 67% of voters thought the economy is in bad shape; 45% said their own financial situation is worse now than four years ago – twice as high as in 2016 and 2020; even higher than it was in 2008 during the global financial crisis (42%).  

• Women overall broke for Harris, but more narrowly than expected –  52% of white women and more than a quarter of women of colour (26%) supported Trump.  

• Among young voters, men aged 18 to 29 voted decisively for Trump. 

• Among minority voters, nearly one in five Trump voters were people of colour. Trump won 54% of Hispanic men, 20% of black men, one in five self-identified LGBT voters, and one in five voters who self-identify as non-binary.  

• 55% of Trump voters said they preferred him as a candidate – they voted for him, not against her. By contrast, 60% of Harris voters said they voted for her primarily because they opposed Trump.  

• Abortion played less of a factor in people’s votes (14% said it was their top concern) versus the state of democracy (34%), the economy (32%), and immigration (11%). Foreign policy only factored in for 4% of voters.  

• By decisive margins, voters trusted Trump more than Harris to handle these issues, including the economy (52% Trump; 46% Harris); immigration (53% Trump; 44% Harris); a crisis (52% Trump; 46% Harris).  

• Even on the issue of democracy, which many assumed was a winning issue for Democrats, given Trump’s disregard for democratic conventions or constitutional niceties, it turned out that if you thought democracy in the US was threatened, you were more likely to vote for Trump than Harris (51% to 48%) .

This wasn’t a narrow election victory for Trump. It was a decisive sweep, in which he won the popular vote as well as the Electoral College votes, and which saw Republicans win back the senate, while they may even retain control of the House.  

I am as horrified as anyone at the prospect of a second Trump term, one in which he will have control over all branches of the US government, given the conservative majority in the Supreme Court as well. His Cabinet will be staffed by loyalists. The backing of billionaires such as Elon Musk will tilt media coverage and impede proper scrutiny of his actions. There will be few guardrails in place to check his wildest impulses.  

But Democrats must understand the message voters sent in this election if they are to survive the next four years, let alone have a chance of winning back office in 2028.

It was Trump’s lead on the core issues that matter to voters that won him the election. The Democrats’ condescending assumption that minorities will always break decisively for them was wrong. Their focus on women’s issues was wrong. ‘Identity politics’ does not work. Causes dear to progressives, such as LGBTQ rights, are less important for voters than pocketbook issues.  

Voters didn’t think they were voting for a Nazi or a rapist or a felon. They thought they were voting for a ‘real’ American, who speaks for people like them. The more Democrats targeted their election on Trump’s moral character, the more it looked like an attack on America’s moral character, deeply insulting for the millions of voters who see themselves as hard-working patriots.  

In sports, when you lose a game, a successful coach does not spend their time handwringing about the other team’s supposedly unsportsmanlike behaviour or dastardly tactics, but figuring out what their own team can do better.

Democrats must stop blaming the voters, and take a look at themselves.