Best Post-Election Clips from the Washington Post
From Wash Post 11.8.24:
8 opinion columnists’ advice to Dems
From Karen Attiah: Start over:
“I am not terribly optimistic for the Democratic Party — which now feels lost to sea. The arrogant gamble to toss aside progressives, young people, and Arab, Muslim, Palestinian and Lebanese constituencies angry over U.S. support for Israel’s bombardment of Gaza fractured the Democratic base. The party will have to shake the perception that the people shouting about saving democracy are members of a party that people increasingly feel is beholden more to big-money interests and out-of-touch consultants than to its own voters — particularly when it comes to the economy. How can a party talk about democracy while alienating its base and talking down to voters? If they can’t get it right for 2026, honestly, tear the party down and start from scratch… I hope that this will be a time for reflection for the Democrats. Defeat carries deep and powerful lessons, if we are willing to look.”
Perry Bacon Jr.: Protect immigrants and trans people:
“In contrast, look at what Vice President Kamala Harris did in this campaign. She walked away from many of her pro-immigrant stances, bragged about owning a gun and refused to attack Trump’s mass deportation plans. She lost resoundingly — while also saying a bunch of things I doubt she really believes. Democrats are never going to outdo the Republicans in terms of being mean to minorities. Rather than moving to the right on social issues, they should focus on economic ideas that actually resonate with people… Democrats need their own story — something like, ‘You can have good health care and a steady job and not pay exorbitant prices for groceries and child care if we start making the billionaires pay their fair share and stop allowing them to take all of the profits from your hard work.'”
E.J. Dionne Jr.: Take a breath
Then the Democratic Party needs to start with these problems:
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The Biden administration’s policies were focused on uplifting noncollege voters in red states. None of this seemed to penetrate. Why? Was it because the benefits of investment programs take a long time to be clear? Or was it bad salesmanship? Or was it because prices so dominated public thinking that none of this got through?
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We know there is great diversity in the Latino community, particularly big differences between men and women and between evangelical and non-evangelical Latinos. Don’t be so shocked by what happened. George W. Bush got 40 percent to 45 percent of the Latino vote. What brought so many Latinos back to the GOP?
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Fight Donald Trump’s abuses with everything in your arsenal. But figure out why even a share of voters who saw him as extreme voted for him anyway. How can the dangers the former president poses be made more concrete for more people?
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Have a conversation on culture wars that is animated by an insistence that the party will not sell out women, LGBTQ+ people and people of color as well as by a desire to use language and arguments that are congenial to middle-of-the-road voters. This also means thinking more deeply about the role of religion in shaping political views.
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Don’t get obsessed by categories such as “center” or “left.” Most voters don’t think that way. You shouldn’t, either.
ALSO: What can we learn? By E.J. Dionne Jr. November 7, 2024
The honorable and remarkably successful “resistance” to Trump’s first term must be replaced by a new movement more attuned to the economic discontents Trump exploits. His populist bluff must be called again and again. His failure to offer remedies must be exposed, and Democrats need persuasive remedies of their own. The peril Trump represents to free institutions must be linked to the danger of corruption created by his dedication to friendly billionaires.
In broadening their coalition, advocates of cultural openness must remain steadfast in insisting on equal rights and equal treatment but avoid playing into the tropes and parodies created by their adversaries. Divisive culture wars are essential to Trump’s project. Harris understood this, and progressives should build on, not reject, her insistence on the values Americans hold in common.
Theodore R. Johnson: Compromise — then win:
President-elect Donald Trump is not returning to Washington with a conservative policy agenda but rather one of rapid and regressive change. And his election does not resolve the recent infighting among congressional Republicans or prevent the coming power struggle between the party’s factions. So, Democrats’ first order of business must be to assemble a governing coalition — even if they are in the House minority — to ensure the business of the country doesn’t stall out with partisan stalemates. They’ll need to be opportunistic in partnering with reasonable Republicans to modulate the administration’s worst impulses.
Their second order of business is finding a new winning electoral coalition. The Obama formula for victory — one that Biden successfully revitalized — was high-turnout elections coupled with lopsided multiracial support: upward of 90 percent of Black voters and more than two-thirds of those who are Latino, Asian or from another ethnic minority group.
That approach, which suggested racial demography was destiny, seems to have unraveled. Trump rebuilt George W. Bush’s winning coalition in 2004 by capitalizing on a set of cultural and economic grievances shared by people across races. But his solution is laden with intolerance, and it comes with threats of state violence. Democrats will have to show how progressive policies on immigration and the economy offer fairness and efficiency without MAGA’s room for despotism.
Also:
https://washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/08/trump-resistance-exhaustion-retreat/
https://washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/07/ballot-initiative-referendum-crime-voting/
Best Post-Election Clips from The New York Times