(L) Sen. Mitch McConnell, March 25, 2014. USDA photo by Lance Cheung. (R) Rep. Nancy Pelosi, July 28, 2019. Official U.S. Embassy photograph by: Archibald Sackey and Courage Ahiati.
At The Spectator, Stephen Millers suggests that voters may have rejected President Trump as a person, but that their down-ballot votes suggest they rejected the Democratic platform. He writes (abridged):
Voters appear to have rejected Donald Trump the person.
More importantly, they have rejected much of the Democratic platform as well.
There are the massive losses in the House.
Tuesday that she expected House gains in several races and to expand her majority.
At the state level, Democrats faired no better, failing to capture a single state legislative chamber. Republicans flipped the New Hampshire Senate and House, and the Alaska state House. Republican Greg Gianforte also captured the Montana governorship.
Joe Biden will enter the Oval Office perhaps the weakest Democratic president since 1884, with only one House of Congress.
Is it any wonder that voters seem dubious about the Democratic party? Pelosi’s pre-election COVID relief hardball tactics will surely come under intense scrutiny.
Trump’s gains within minority communities, especially Hispanics in Texas, threaten an entire coalition the Democrats have spent years decades developing. Trump and the Republicans also made historic gains with African Americans and even the Muslim community, carrying 35 percent of the vote according to AP’s VoteCast survey.
As the weeks and months pass, Democrats will agonize over their collapse and ask why it happened.
There will have to be a serious reckoning on whether or not to double down on the intersectional social justice ambitions of the young activist base, or distance themselves from a media obsessed with promoting them and the their fringe ideas. Can a 77-year-old President Biden rein those aspects of the party in?
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