Ezra Klein is the author of Why We Are Polarized, which is a good, insightful book, and which I highly recommend. His article this morning in The New York Times, Democrats, Here’s How to Lose in 2022. And Deserve It, is well worth reading. I don’t agree with all his points, though some of my more liberal friends might, but I think he is absolutely correct in his core argument that Biden has only the two years before the midterm elections to turn things around, and he had better focus his effort in those two years on things that make immediate improvements in ordinary people’s lives, or the populist revolt will defeat him.
His immediate focus on the COVID pandemic and the resulting economic distress is certainly a good start. But I resonate particularly with this part of Klein’s article (emphasis mine):
“Among the many tributaries flowing into Trumpism, one in particular has gone dangerously overlooked. In their book “Presidents, Populism and the Crisis of Democracy,” the political scientists William Howell and Terry Moe write that “populists don’t just feed on socioeconomic discontent. They feed on ineffective government — and their great appeal is that they claim to replace it with a government that is effective through their own autocratic power.”
Donald Trump was this kind of populist. Democrats mocked his “I alone can fix it” message for its braggadocio and feared its authoritarianism, but they did not take seriously the deep soil in which it was rooted: The American system of governance is leaving too many Americans to despair and misery, too many problems unsolved, too many people disillusioned. It is captured by corporations and paralyzed by archaic rules. It is failing, and too many Democrats treat its failures as regrettable inevitabilities rather than a true crisis.”
For all his many, many failings, Trump did one thing right – he acknowledged the hopelessness and misery and economic distress of the whole underclass of America that has been decimated by globalization, outsourcing, growing inequality, and automation, He didn’t talk down to them, or disparage them as Obama and Clinton so famously did. He didn't accuse them of being ignorant or dumb or evil, as so many of the far left have been doing. He didn’t really do much to address their problems, but at least he acknowledged their plight, and that was enough to win in 2016 and almost win in 2020. Democrats would do well to learn from that.
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