The Democratic Party's Wilderness: A Path Forward Through Authentic Messaging

The Democratic Party is currently struggling to find its way out of the "wilderness" of a post-election reality where Donald Trump has unexpectedly become the next president. The party's internal debates over messaging and persuasion are reaching a crescendo, with some arguing for a more centrist approach and others pushing for a more progressive stance. However, the party's problem is not just about messaging, but also about its inability to appeal to a broad swath of the population, including those who are indifferent or inaccessible to its messaging.

Key Takeaways:

• The Democratic Party's internal debate over the "abundance" idea, which argues that government red tape inhibits growth, has become a proxy fight between centrists and leftists, representing different centers of power within the party.
• The party's reliance on college-educated voters has led to an overemphasis on university-style pontification and lecturing, making it increasingly deferential to pontification and less effective at appealing to a broader audience.
• A study by Matthew Yglesias, a leading centrist voice, suggests that Democrats should study public opinion accurately and adopt views that align with public opinion, but this approach has been proven ineffective in the past, such as in the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris.
• A detailed assessment by G. Elliott Morris, former head of 538, argues that politicians should take popular positions on policies that matter, but this approach is not foolproof and can be influenced by changing public opinion and issue salience.
• The party's messaging efforts have been hampered by its failure to appeal to a broad swath of the population, including those who are indifferent or inaccessible to its messaging, as evidenced by the overlap between Trump support and podcast consumption.
• The party's attempts to find common ground with the right, including insisting that the party has been irredeemably tainted by language policing or an emphasis on issues of race, carry the aroma of triangulation and have been largely ineffective.
• The party's burden of appealing to a broad range of Americans, including urban and rural, White, Black, and Hispanic, young and old, has made it difficult to craft an agenda that resonates with a wide audience.

Statistics:

• According to American National Election Studies data, the Democratic Party has become increasingly reliant on college-educated voters at the national level.
• A YouGov poll from last year showed that there is little partisan overlap in trust in news sources, primarily because Republicans express so little trust in the media.
• Podcasts have become a central focus of the conversation since the election, with a perceived overlap between their audience and young men.
• Trump's victory in 2016 was partly due to his willingness to step outside of the confines of honesty and provability.

Sources:

• The Atlantic's Jonathan Chait
• Matthew Yglesias, writer
• G. Elliott Morris, former head of 538
• American National Election Studies
• YouGov polling
• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York)