by Rick Wilson
Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, showing a little ideological daylight between yourself and the edge cases in your own party during the general election is helpful and smart politics. As a rule, your base is with you by that point, but you need more than the base to win. Winning politics is about addition, not subtraction. The shrinking, but still sizable, pool of independent and undecided voters is a nontrivial target in the key Electoral College states, and a winning Democratic candidate who understands them will rather quickly realize that these folks aren’t exactly Chapo Trap House listeners.
In 1968, Roger Ailes helped shape Richard Nixon’s campaign as the candidate with a secret plan to end the Vietnam War and restore peace. He ran as a technocratic centrist with a culture-war underpinning. The eggheads and libs were out protesting the war and dropping acid; Nixon was the candidate of the silent majority. There’s a lot of Ailes/Nixon DNA in the 2020 race for Trump.
In 1980, Reagan walked back from the Goldwater edge with a tonal shift in how Republicans ran. The optimistic, big-picture, economic-uplift message wasn’t tailored to the “drown government in the bathtub” faction. It was the cultural comfort the avuncular Reagan brought—and the unapologetic pride in America—that helped move the famous Reagan Democrats into pulling the R lever.
George H. W. Bush ran largely on his own biography (and rightly so), but his 1988 campaign promised to soften the harder edges of the Reagan Revolution. He talked about volunteerism, dignity, and compassion. It didn’t please the Pat Buchanan wing, but it helped win a contentious, hard-edged election in 1988 against a perfect exemplar of the East Coast liberal elite in the form of Michael Dukakis.
In 1992, Bill Clinton understood that the broad “Reagan Democrat” coalition was up for grabs because of economic changes and a changing global landscape. His push on topics like enhanced penalties for drug crimes, government reform, changes to welfare-to-work rules, and the revival of manufacturing hit a moment in the culture when a centrist good ole boy from Arkansas didn’t—and this is important—scare the shit out of people. He made it nearly impossible for my side to turn him into a Dukakis or, worse, a Ted Kennedy.
I know it gets lost in the events of 2001 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign talked a lot more about education and “compassionate conservatism” than people recall today. It was enormously appealing in suburban districts and regions for a reason: It was built in a lab to be just that. The message was “better schools,” not “bomb Iraq back to the Stone Age.”
Barack Obama ran and won in 2008 as a technocratic centrist, essentially scanning as a liberal Republican. Trust me, we tried to scare the shit out of people on him, and it frankly just didn’t work because he knew the value of his cool, charismatic, pleasant, “welcome to my TED Talk” demeanor. That part about scaring the shit out of people? Not so much.
Don’t get me started on Trump—I know, it’s too late not to get me started—who detonated every GOP orthodoxy under the sun. You can disagree all you like on the details of the policies his Republican predecessors used to get there, or whether those policy choices are resonant in the 2020 moment. The point is clear: As candidates, they all understood how to expand their voter pool. Math is your friend, and so is some even token independence from the hard edges.
One trick I and many others have used to win races against the left is simply to treat the Democratic base as it is, not as the Democrats think it is. DSA members won’t believe this, but not every Democrat is a screaming progressive with a knife in their teeth ready to board the USS Plutocrat and start slitting the throats of the idle rich. Not every Democrat thinks abortion is without a single moral question. A hell of a lot of Democrats own and carry guns. Some Democrats aren’t sold on government as the solution to every problem or tax increases as a universal good. Many of the 110 million holders of private insurance are Democrats and want to keep it, thank you very much.
Some of my liberal friends are hissing through their teeth right now, “Well fuck them. Traitors. Filthy counterrevolutionary kulaks. Wreckers! Saboteurs!” They look at centrist and moderate Democrats as worse than Republicans. They’re worse because they’re unwoke. Woke liberals believe that if only Democrats feed the progressive edge of the party they’ll magically discover a turnout model that sweeps the electoral board. This is a delusion that won’t die. (And yes, Republicans who believe that just winning enough white non-college evangelicals will ensure a majority play the same dumb game.)
By all means, if you want to reelect Trump, treat the very real cohort of moderate, centrist, and even—I know, you’re shocked that these words exist together—conservative Democrats like outcasts. If you want to know why the GOP beat your asses sideways across the South and West, it’s not racism; it’s that you piss off 25 percent of your own base, over and over, and the GOP scoops them up.
Let’s look at the numbers, shall we?
First, the big picture from reputable public polling. Knowing the composition of your own base is the most fundamental skill in data-driven politics. If you understand your base, you know how much you need to do to push the needle to 50 percent plus 1.
The conventional wisdom on the Democratic Party is that it’s gone so far left that JFK would be a conservative Republican and Bill Clinton a RINO squish, and even Barack Obama would have his political priors questioned at the monthly All-Party Congress of Ideological Purity and Swift Justice to Unbelievers.
The Hidden Tribes of America project dove into the American electorate in a seminal 2018 study that examined the deep political divisions in the country today, in both major parties. It’s worth a look when it comes to the Democrats’ choices and campaign in 2020. This will involve numbers, not just pissy righteousness, so bear with me for a moment.
The analysis of the Hidden Tribes project built a typology of Democratic voters with five broad categories and three divisions. The categories, in decreasing order of liberalism, are Progressive Activists, Traditional Liberals, Passive Liberals, Moderates, and the Politically Disengaged. The three divisions into which each fall are their percentages in the total population, in the Democratic electorate, and on social media.
The powerful distortion field of Twitter (and trust me, I live there far too much of the time, so I fully confess to its shitty power) and other social-media platforms is driving candidates to positions that have political costs down the line. Again, I’m not judging your positions, progressives. I’m telling you the numbers aren’t what you think they are. Math is a cruel mistress.
Let’s break it down:
Progressive Activists are the center of the woke universe. They’re the ones who think, “Has Media Matters sold out? Is there someone like Bernie, only really committed to the struggle?” They’re young, educated, and super-white. Here’s how Hidden Tribes describes them:
Progressive Activists have strong ideological views, high levels of engagement with political issues, and the highest levels of education and socioeconomic status. Their own circumstances are secure. They feel safer than any group, which perhaps frees them to devote more attention to larger issues of social justice in their society. They have an outsized role in public debates, even though they comprise a small portion of the total population, about one in 12 Americans. They are highly sensitive to issues of fairness and equity in society, particularly regarding race, gender, and other minority group identities. Their emphasis on unjust power structures leads them to be very pessimistic about fairness in America. They are uncomfortable with nationalism and ambivalent about America’s role in the world.7
They represent just 8 percent of the American electorate, 22 percent of the Democratic voter base, but 39 percent of the social-media cohort. This is the most vocal, activist part of the base, and they scream loudest for the issues on the edge. If you’re worried they’ll stay home if Dems don’t check every one of their ideological wish li
sts, you should be. For this group, the more you make this a pure referendum on Trump, the better.
Just a pointer from a guy who has used the words, positions, and policies of the farthest left to divide Democrats in the past—they’re a gold mine for the Trump campaign and its allies. They’re the comical villains of the conservative cartoon hour; they’re free-access conservative agitporn. We highlight the policies the right and center find unacceptable and claim they’re what otherwise centrist and electable Democrats believe.
Traditional Liberals are Democrats of a certain age, which means they’re more likely to vote, and more likely to have a long record of loyalty to the older iteration of the Democratic Party. They’re gonna pull the D lever, trust me, but they’ll do it with a smile for a Joe Biden, less so for a Democrat from the far edge of the progressive side. Here’s the rundown from Hidden Tribes:
Traditional Liberals reflect the liberal ideals of the Baby Boomer generation. They maintain idealistic attitudes about the potential for social justice in America, yet they are less ideological than Progressive Activists. They also are not as intolerant of conservatives. They have strong humanitarian values, and around half say that religion is important to them. Traditional Liberals are significantly more likely to say that people “need to be willing to listen to others and compromise.”…Overall, Traditional Liberals respond best to rational arguments and are inclined to place more faith in the viability of American institutions, even if they are disillusioned with the country’s current direction.8
Traditional Liberals represent 11 percent of the country overall, 25 percent of the Democratic electorate, and 22 percent of the social-media cohort. In the age of Trump, they’re the real heart of the Democratic Party. For them, it’s not just our politics he’s damaging, it’s the country and its meaning.
The Hidden Tribes project’s Passive Liberals are less politically engaged, and more driven by the feel of the political climate than by deep policy or political questions:
Passive Liberals are weakly engaged in social and political issues, but when pushed they have a modern outlook and tend to have liberal views on social issues such as immigration, DACA, sexism, and LGBTQI+ issues. They are younger, with a higher proportion of females (59 percent) than any other segment….Passive Liberals are also the least satisfied of all the segments. They are among the most fatalistic, believing circumstances are largely outside their control. They are quite uninformed, consume little news media, and generally avoid political debates, partly from a general aversion to argumentation and partly because they feel they know little about social and political issues.9
Passive Liberals are 15 percent of the population, just 2 percent of the Democratic voter pool, and 1 percent of the social-media cohort. They’re a slightly harder target to turn out, and there is a small danger of their just staying home to tune out the noise, but a close focus on them in the target states could pay enormous political dividends.
The Politically Disengaged are the toughest nut to crack in the Democratic base, and were a rich hunting ground for Donald Trump in 2016. These are the Obama-Trump Democrats, and ignoring their anger or trying to sell them airy bullshit policies is a dead loser:
The Politically Disengaged group most resembles Passive Liberals in having lower levels of income and education and being less engaged in following current affairs. Fully 41 percent are making less than $30,000 per year, and approximately one in four have gone without food or medical treatment at least somewhat often in the past year. They diverge from Passive Liberals in being more anxious about external threats and less open in their attitudes towards differences. For instance, they are the most likely to say that being white is necessary to be American and that people who hold other religious views are morally inferior. They are more concerned about the threat of terrorism and are quite closed to the view that Islamic and American values are compatible. They are practically invisible in local politics and community life, being one of the least likely groups to participate in political rallies or vote in local elections. They are the least well-informed group on all measures of political knowledge. They are also the most pessimistic about the possibility of reconciling differences between the factions. Overall, this makes the Politically Disengaged a challenging segment to persuade.10
They make up 26 percent of the population, 14 percent of the Democratic vote, and just 3 percent of the social-media cohort.
These people are largely deaf to the hot arguments of social media’s political domain. You can bet your last bitcoin the Trump team has people looking at this group to find ways to split them from the Democrats again. You won’t win them with government-subsidized transgender abortion; you might win them by calling out Trump’s bullshit and making them understand he won their 2016 vote with the same kinds of lies that have left them cynical about work, education, and America itself.
Ah, Moderates, last on the list but first in my heart. Moderate Democrats in particular are reviled in the climate of today, but only because the progressive wing keeps believing this country is one single region, entity, value set, and belief structure. Here’s what Moderates look like in the Hidden Tribes study:
Moderates reflect the middle of the road of public opinion in America. They tend to be engaged in their communities, often volunteer, and are interested in current affairs, but uncomfortable with the tribalism of politics. They tend to be socially conservative and religion plays an important role in their lives. They feel conflicted on certain social justice issues, including same-sex marriage, and they are slower to embrace change. They mostly disapprove of Donald Trump as president and overwhelmingly believe that the country is headed in the wrong direction….They also think that political correctness has gone too far. They dislike the activism and what they see as extremism of both progressives and conservatives. While they think feminism has gone too far, they also recognize sexual harassment as an important issue. They support the notion of sanctuary cities and want undocumented immigrants to have better treatment. They tend to seek less radical solutions than Devoted or Traditional Conservatives, such as building a border wall. They are worried about the state of America and feel that American identity is slipping away.11
Moderates are 15 percent of the American electorate, 24 percent of the Democratic base, and 13 percent of the Twitterati. You read that right. There are more Moderate Democrats out there than hard progressives. This is especially true in—wait for it—the targeted Electoral College states. The pernicious idea that the Democratic Party’s voters respond only to messages on the purest left edge of the spectrum is as politically destructive as it is common.
These moderate voters may not be with the party line on every issue. In the targeted Electoral College swing states, they may roll their eyes at the far-left language and policy assertions so popular on the primary-debate stages, but they’re unified on one matter: Trump. This is why the battle is about America versus Trump, not progressive versus moderate or progressive versus conservative.
If you’re a pollster, strategist, or data scientist, the moderate cohort of voters is the most intriguing play in the game. Democrats could take them a message of restoring normalcy, tradition, and comity in our politics, but their reflex action is the opposite. The treatment of immigrants is a clear vector into the hearts, minds, and votes of this group. I call this group Biden Democrats, and they’re out there for a smart candidate unwilling to mouth every far-left shibboleth to snatch up.
SOCIALISM, NOW MORE THAN EVER
Some folks wondered why during his 2019 State of the Union speech Trump said, “Here in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. Tonight, we resolve that America will never be a socialist country.”
This wasn’t a mistake, or Trump being Trump. It was a deliberate decision based on polling, demographics, and an understanding of at least the Plato’s Cave version of the contrast betwe
en capitalism and socialism. Trump’s pollsters—even the ones he fired for telling him the truth about how bad his overall numbers are—are not idiots. They know socialism qua socialism is a hard, hard sell in America.
Now, the dirty but open secret of socialism in America, one conservatives tend to underestimate and liberals overestimate, is this: Americans are OK with a splash of socialism, but they don’t want to call it that.
In 2019, the same farmers in deep-red areas of deep-red states who would fetch a shotgun before letting their daughter date a socialist are lapping up the benefits of a benevolent state. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and now Obamacare are rickety, marginal, and on a path of catastrophic overspending and demographic disaster, but they’re exemplars of the eternal political-economy problem of Free Shit. Once voters are given a benefit—even a terribly managed, inefficient, unsustainable benefit—they will fight like hell to keep it.
People don’t think of government benefits as socialism, even if they are.
As a result of Trump’s train-wreck trade war with China and the rest of the world, Midwest farmers have lost many of their international markets; to mitigate the political damage, the Trump administration has showered them with “relief payments” to the tune of over $28 billion. It’s red-hat instead of red-banner socialism. But don’t dare call it that—it’s just the government redistributing wealth because of its failed attempt to manipulate markets and dictate production. Song as old as time.
