Memo to Dems: Call The GOPs Populist Bluff – The Bulwark

To: The Libs; Interested PartiesFrom: A New FriendRe: Wedging the crap out of the new working-class party phonies

If you havent seen it yet, my padna James Carville is on one this week. In a Honey Badgeresque Vox interview, which was helpfully transcribed for the faculty-lounge Yankees who cant decipher his clipped Cajun, Carville laid out the problems he sees with his party in the wake of a narrow victory over a world-historical buffoon that also resulted in the loss of congressional seats.

Carvilles concern is a practical one: An imbalance in the Senate, Electoral College, and to a lesser degree the House gives working-class white voters disproportionate sway in our politics. Thats just a fact. And it isnt going anywhere, no matter how it makes you feel.

Democrats who want to win campaigns need to come up with a plan to address this fact and not just fantasize about Joe Manchin getting hit by falling piano, suffering amnesia, and waking up wanting to end the filibuster, add three new states, and coin a new tagline for Ocean Breeze soap.

As Carville says:

Heres the deal: No matter how you look at the map, the only way Democrats can hold power is to build on their coalition, and that will have to include more rural white voters from across the country. Democrats are never going to win a majority of these voters. Thats the reality. But the difference between getting beat 80 to 20 and 72 to 28 is all the difference in the world.

The last sentence is the key. Hes not suggesting Democrats try to dominate rural America. But he recognizes that, as a matter of national political survival, Democrats must claw back part of their old coalition.

His advice for doing it:

I concur on all three, but Id like to revise and extend the third item. Because Democrats dont just need to do a better job branding the benefits of the Biden agenda.

They need to make the working class Republican party pay for opposing them.

From my vantage point Republicans are giving the left a massive opportunity to wedge them.

Consider:

Following the 2020 defeat the Republicans plan for moving forward is to

Wink.

In sum, the Republican plan is to stick with the Trump coalition, hope to attract some working-class minorities, and make it harder for Democratic groups to vote.

You might not like that plan, but its viable. Theres a path to victory for Republicans thereespecially in the midterm but absolutely in 2024, too. Theres only one weakness in it. Are you ready?

Republican politicians tried to stop Bidens (popular) programs which help working-class voters.

Sure, they have gone hard-populist on cultural issuesas God is their witness, theyll never cave on trans athletes (well, almost never). They will rant and rave about Dr. Seusss self-cancelation. But what are they gonna do? Tell voters, Vote for me and Ill pass a law forcing the Seuss estate to publish everything, forever. Promise to hold a hearing about drag-queen story hour?

On the real parts of populismthe parts where legislators vote on bills that change the tax code or give working parents a benefit to help pay for the cost of raising kidsRepublicans are in large part still stuck in the Tea Party / Chamber of Commerce days.

If anything, Republicans are sitting in the sour spot of populist economics. You get Marco Rubio tweeting that he wants to use the government to punish woke corporations if they dont support his conception of the common goodbut then hes going to oppose Bidens attempt to raise the corporate tax rate in order to fund a bigger social support network for workers.

If Democrats cant make a guy like Rubio pay for those conflicting positions, then theyre going to lose at least the House. And theyll deserve to.

Because Republicans are going to be in the position of being anti-corporate when it comes to popular companies endorsing popular issues and pro-corporate when it comes to companies keeping the former guys tax breaks.

At least Josh Hawley is putting some meat on his kayfabe, proposing a $1,000 cash bonus for families with kids under 13 (alongside his lonely vote against legislation aiming to address anti-Asian hate crimes). But thats not going anywhere. And the main body of the GOP will never get behind itespecially not when it would be Joe Biden signing the deal in the Oval Office.

This disconnect between the Republicans new coalition and what they are willing to actually support hands the ice pick to the Democrats and begs them to use it.

Politics is about expanding your coalition while creating wedges in the other side.

A Navigator poll in February showed that half of Republicans making less than $50,000 a year were worried that the government would not do enough to help regular people suffering from COVID-19 fallout.

And then every Republican voted against Bidens American Rescue package.

How do Democrats take advantage?

(1) It starts with Carvilles suggestion about branding the Biden agenda. Yes there were the $1,400 checks. But what else was in the COVID package? What are the three items in either the rescue package or the infrastructure bill that workers can grasp and know are improving their lives? Can non-political obsessives answer that question right now? I dont think so. Democrats need to change that ASAP. Biden will have a first crack at that in tonights big speech.

(2) Dare the Republicans to live up to their rhetoric. Cant get a $15 minimum wage through Manchin and Sinema? Then cut a deal that gets them on board for a smaller number. Call Cottons bluff on his $10 minimum wage proposal by offering a $12 or $11 compromise and watch him buckle. Do the same with Ernst, Lee, and Rubio on Paid Family Leave.

(3) Find the most tangible, popular items with working-class voters. Not bullshit pablum about economic securitywere talking about actual benefits. Get them into legislation, get them voted onand then relentlessly crush any Republicans who opposes them. In the case of the popular stuff that was already in the American Rescue Plan, every single R is already on the hook.

(4) Figure out how to tell this story inside the R information bubble. Yes, that means adsbut if you wanna get really crazy, go on Fox and talk about it. If the host badgers you about fiscal responsibility and pay fors then youre doing the wedge thing right.

Put in a more Twitter friendly format:

Push economic agenda items that are popular with working-class voters. Watch Republicans vote against them. Beat them over the head with these votes. Ignore all the faculty lounge/Latinx bullshit.

Every single day Democrats should wake up and ask themselves, What am I doing to make sure working-class voters know exactly how we helped themand how Republicans tried to stop us?

As a former Republican, is this my dream politics? Not really, no.

Do I wish we could create a big, beautiful technocratic centrist party that was restrained in its view of what government could do effectively? That paired new programs with cutting wasteful ones? Sure thing.

But at the moment, thats just a fantasy, no more realistic than the progressive dream of killing the filibuster and moving 150,000 liberals to Cheyenne.

Make the GOP own the insurrection and the bigoted, conspiratorial crazy in the suburbs. And make them own blocking economic help in working-class communities. Be relentless about it. Thats the whole ballgame.

Because heres the thing: Republicans are betting that working-class whites only care about the culture-war populism and dont actually give a crap about populists economics.

Now maybe thats right and maybe Republicans will be able to ride online cancel culture to victory while also fighting to make sure that Mark Zuckerberg never pays a dime more in taxes.

And if they are right, then youre probably screwed.

But if Democrats are going to have any hope of growing their coalition further, the best move on the board is to try to bring the R-margins among working-class white voters down a few points. Shift the GOP margins with these folks from Saddam Hussein-level blowouts to normal levels of dominance. Move from 80-20 to 72-28.

If it works, that shift, combined with maintaining the existing Democratic majority would be enough to net a few Senate seats in 2022 and go into 2024 with a winning coalition that Joe Biden is better suited to hold together than basically any other living politician.

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Memo to Dems: Call The GOPs Populist Bluff - The Bulwark