FANTASY DEMOGRAPHICS

The future is keeping you out of the present time. ~ Van Morrison 

It’s now less than 100 days before the November 6 midterm elections. The media is keen to show its viewers and readers their prognostications about who the election winners and losers will be. Media doyens have been hyperbolically stating how our world suddenly will change after this the most important midterm election since 1066.

I exaggerate. William the Conqueror’s victory in September 1066 did change British history, but he wasn’t elected subsequently. He ascended to the British throne as William I on Christmas day after he, as a Norman, had laid waste to the Anglo Saxons at Hastings.
Maybe our upcoming midterm elections might possibly slip into the “top 10 historic midterm elections” listing, beginning with the one in 1858. Does anyone remember that top 10 election? However, the ephemeral nature of midterm election victories, like those in 1986, 1994 and 2010, means you shouldn’t get your hopes up beyond 93 days.

Nevertheless, it is notable that the Democrats are now confronting a within-ranks struggle for authority. Not too long ago it was the Republicans who were fighting internecine battles between extremist, hard-right factions, like the tea partiers and House Freedom Caucus, and the more “establishment” conservatives. But now Congressional Repubs are seemingly one all too big, content political family under the erratic and solipsistic leadership of the president.

In contrast, the Dems are having their own identity crisis, skirmishing between progressives and centrist “establishment” liberals. Several primary election victories by hard left candidates have blown leftish gusts into the Progressives’ sails. A widely-publicized example is the New York City primary victory of newly-coronated political prom queen, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28 year old former campaign organizer for Bernie Sanders. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is an active member of the Democratic Socialists of American and unburdened by any previous government service.

Are Progs ascending in influence and dominance within the Democratic Party? It seems so, according to the liberal media. In the 2018 primary elections so far Progs represent 41.1% of all Dem candidates. Nevertheless, the Progs’ primary success rate (the number of Prog primary winners relative to the total number of Dem candidates) is just 11.9% to date. So far, more centrist Dem candidates are winning much more than Progs, but that’s apparently not really news. The news is all Progs.

In their move leftward the Dems have aimed at a set of assertive constituencies, including millennials, women and minorities. The Progs’ mantra emphasizes expansive government action in the name of socio-economic justice. Progs are heavily promoting policies like Medicare-for-all healthcare; abolish ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement agency); $15/hr federal minimum wage; preserve the Roe v. Wade decision; remedy income, wealth and evermore types of inequality; restore open internet (net neutrality); reestablish open borders; stop discrimination and promote equity based on gender, race, ethnic heritage, age and sexual preference; and support the LGBTQIA2S+ community. Community has become a significant new Blue identity word.

This mantra can be powerful and although individual pieces are eminently worthy, as a whole it’s divisive. It’s contentious because the Dems’ and Progs’ divergent “Big Tent” objectives attempt to juggle deviating racial/ethnic/social groups along with distinct socio-economic clusters of voters. Having this multi-faceted mantra often divides rather than unites their coalition of identity groups.

David Hopkins, a political science professor at Boston College, believes that many voters can simultaneously take a liberal position on one or more individual socio-cultural issues and may still believe more generally that the liberal vision, like the Progs’ mantra, requires changing the country too much and/or too quickly. Repubs no doubt will raise this issue in their campaigns, as well as how we can pay for all the federal government’s expansion. A recent cost estimate for favorite Prog programs is $42.5 trillion over the first ten years; that's almost equal to the federal government's total expected tax revenues ($44T) in the next decade. 

I believe this mantra, together with the media’s prominent airing of it, helps explain why the percentage of voters describing Democratic candidates as “in the mainstream” fell from 48% to only 33% from 2016 to 2018. The percentage describing Democratic candidates as “out of step with most Americans’ thinking” rose from 42% to 56%. In contrast, over the same two-year period the public assessment of Republican candidates somehow remained essentially unchanged, 59% “out of step” in 2016 and 56% in 2018; 31% “in the mainstream” in 2016, 33% in 2018. These alarming numbers do not bode well for the Dems’ political goal of returning to the majority in the House and the Senate.

Adding more challenge to the Dems’ difficult goal is the continuing issue of election participation for their crucial, targeted voters. In a word, it’s dreadful. Key constituencies of the Dems, like younger and minority voters, have disproportionately not shown high voter turnout in either presidential or midterm elections. This is not a new issue. Hispanic voters in the 2016 presidential election comprised only 9.2% of the electorate and 7.0% in the 2014 midterms. More concerning is that analysts have estimated between 11% and 28% of Hispanic voters cast their ballots for Trump. Black voters were 12.4% and 11.9% of the electorate in 2016 and 2014 respectively. Young voters, aged 18-29 years, were 15.7% and 10.0%.

In contrast, white voters in the 2016 presidential election comprised 73.3% of all voters; in the 2014 midterm election white voters represented 76.9% of the electorate. Citizens 60 years and older have cast ballots much more consistently than other voters. They accounted for 33.6% and 39.4% of the electorate in 2016 and 2014 respectively. The Progs and Dems ignore white and older voters at their own peril, as they learned in 2016.

Fervent progressive advocates, glowing from their 11.9% primary success rate, dismiss actual recent voter behavior as passé. Instead, they paint a set of fantasy demographics for this November (and in 2020) where expected future demographic changes miraculously appear now which magnify millennials’ and minority voters’ potential importance. In this invented vision, young and minority voters across the US (especially in non-urban areas) will shake off their ballot-filling lethargy and vote progressive Dems into political power.

This Dem, and now Prog, imagined vision has been created more than once, but has yet to produce electoral success. Could it happen in 93 days? Maybe, but to ensure victory I ardently hope the Dems’ promote a less divisive policy agenda that doesn’t cause more centered voters to jump the Democratic ship, or just sit out the midterm. The Progs and Dems need to remember Van Morrison’s apt song lyric, so the future doesn’t keep them out of the present. 

A Post-Election Addendum. It’s Wednesday, August 8, the day after the latest set of primary elections in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington. Oh yes, there also was a special election in Ohio’s 12th Congressional district that the media obsessed about, even though the same two candidates will be campaigning against each other again for the “real” two-year House seat in just three months.

Once again, Democrat-Progressive candidates lost by big margins. In the Michigan gubernatorial race and in a Missouri House race Progs went down to defeat, despite much media play and personal appearances by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Neither election was close; each Prog candidate lost by about 20 points. The victorious Dem gubernatorial candidate, Ms. Gretchen Whitmer a former leader in the Michigan State Senate, said during her campaign she refused to support Medicare-for-all, and instead ran with the slogan “Fix the Damn Roads.” Ah, infrastructure.

The Ohio 12th Congressional district election remains “too close to call;” naturally, both candidates are declaring victory. The Repub candidate is leading by a slender 0.7 points, with provisional ballots still to be counted. Despite his apparent defeat, the Dem candidate’s run is being called a “triumph” in the liberal media. Nevertheless, elections aren’t played by horseshoes’ rules, being “close” to victory doesn’t provide any electoral benefit. In defeat, the Dems say this election will spur the Dems’ hopes and represents an ominous omen for Repubs in November. Why; because District 12 has been a true blue Repub stronghold for decades; their 2016 victory margin in the 12th exceeded 36 points. Today the Repubs are  pleased since their full-on Trumpist candidate is actually ahead of his Dem rival, and expects to be victorious after the remaining ballots are counted. So it goes…