Wayne O'Leary

The Democratic Crack-Up

The wonder is that almost no one saw it coming, least of all the Democratic Party and its supporters in the media and the donor class. Signs of the impending 2024 crack-up were everywhere, if anyone cared to look.

There was the obvious, of course. I’m speaking here of Joe Biden’s personal deterioration, which was evident at least as early as 2023, but about which his partisans remained in denial for far too long. Like Reagan and perhaps Trump (we’ll see), he finally reached his long-sought goal (the presidency) when he was past his prime and on the downside.

Human nature being what it is, Biden refused to recognize the encroachment of time and refused to step aside until the midnight hour. But even had he promptly honored his implied promise to be a transitional, one-term president, Biden at his best was never the answer for a Democratic Party mired in centrism and the conventional politics of the past. He was always the captive of his excessive devotion to compromise, his aversion to risk taking, and his reluctance to innovate or accommodate new ideas; incrementalism was his in-bred approach to governing.

Much was made of Biden’s connection to the working class, but it was obviously not enough to offset a generation of pro-corporate policies under Clinton and Obama. This was despite the fact that Union Joe was marginally to the left of both his Democratic predecessors. In addition, Biden’s working-class bona fides were always more rhetorical and symbolic than real; he walked a picket line, yes, but also broke the rail workers’ strike.

Biden’s biggest political weakness, however, was his woeful inability to articulate his vision for the country or inspire a followership. This left his economic policies, some of which were reasonably good, without a rationale or a philosophical leg to stand on after their enactment.

Moreover, despite his reputation as a political operator, Biden was bad at one important aspect of politics: dramatizing his proposals and accomplishments, and energetically selling them to the voting public. Many of his programs will not even kick in for several years, allowing none other than Donald Trump to take credit for them.

Perhaps the most immediate failure of the Biden administration heading into the 2024 election, which carried over into the Harris campaign, was to ignore economic discontent, especially with respect to prices and inflation. (News reports on the eve of the election indicated rents and groceries were still 20-25% higher in cost than four years earlier.) On top of that, there was the egregious mistake of not dealing seriously with an untenable immigration situation, permitting it to fester. And, unforgivably, there was the decision to turn Middle East policy, in effect, over to Benjamin Netanyahu. Objectively speaking, Democrats really deserved to lose.

Ultimately, in a self-administered coup de grâce, the Democratic president belatedly agreed to leave and accede to an undemocratic selection of a successor, one who shared many of his weaknesses (principally, a lack of vision) and possessed no first-hand experience in running a national campaign, or contesting party primaries or caucuses. There could have been an open selection process, even on short notice, but party elders, led by ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and backed by a hallelujah chorus composed of a compliant Democratic National Committee in hock to its demanding billionaire donor class, quite obviously didn’t want one.

The result was Kamala Harris, the weakest Democratic presidential nominee in recent memory. The party establishment was pleased, however; Pelosi pronounced herself “thrilled” with the choice leadership had foisted on the party and the country. Nevertheless, Harris’ nomination by acclamation was really a step backward, a return to the centrist, market-oriented party of Clinton and Obama, and, by implication, a rejection of the slightly left-leaning populist-lite administration of Joe Biden.

From the start, Harris was out of synch with the times. She exhibited little interest in, or knowledge about, issues directly affecting everyday Americans, such as immigration, climate change and the economy. Oblivious to the political class realignment that was causing the ground to shift beneath her feet, she ran a campaign revolving around elitist “woke” sensibilities, fears and alarums about Donald Trump’s perceived fascist tendencies, and, most especially, abortion and reproductive rights, the one and only issue that seemed to truly engage and motivate her. (Election Day exit polls revealed abortion to be the key issue for only 14% of voters, and no higher than fourth among their concerns.)

An inordinate amount of time was wasted (as it was during Biden’s term) fruitlessly attacking Donald Trump for his questionable personal behavior and moral failings, rather than outlining a coherent positive program of economic change. Surely, working-class voters who possessed no investments would be gratified by the stock market’s booming performance under Biden-Harris; everyone knew the economy was “great,” didn’t they? Some expensive proposals for social spending were hastily thrown against the wall to see if they would stick, along with a big middle-class tax cut. Somehow that didn’t jibe, and voters knew it. There was, above all, no discussion of inequality.

What’s worse, it became clear that Harris’ ties to corporate America, especially Big Tech, which is antiunion, antiregulation and pro-free trade, suggested her administration would be to the right of Joe Biden’s on economics. Harris advisers reportedly included Wall Street financial gurus Gene Sperling (Goldman Sachs) and Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase). The candidate herself offered an “opportunity economy” with no specifics other than lower capital-gains and corporate-income taxes. Nothing much there for the estranged working class.

We’ll now have the inevitable postmortem of the Democratic Party. Centrist wise men (and women) will likely counsel moving to the right, as they did after Reagan. But the Democrats are already somewhat on the center-right; except for issues of race and gender, they’re the party of the status quo. Bernie Sanders said as much in his searing, anger-stoked post-election commentary denouncing Democratic abandonment of workers. Indeed, Trump defeated Harris by 4% among voters under $100,000 in income — roughly two-thirds of the electorate.

For Democrats, then, it’s back to the drawing board. There is one hopeful sign. MAGA claims notwithstanding, this was not a landslide election. Trump won barely 50% of the popular vote to Harris’ 48%. By comparison, FDR’s margin over his Republican opponent in 1936 was 61% to 39%. Now that was a real landslide.

Wayne O’Leary is a writer in Orono, Maine, specializing in political economy. He holds a doctorate in American history and is the author of two prizewinning books.

From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2024

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