The Democratic Party’s Blue MAGA Problem
Acknowledge It And Fix It
The most troubling take on the 2024 election that I have frequently heard is the notion that Vice President Kamala Harris ran a “perfect” campaign. This argument, which is believed by some of the most diehard supporters of the Democratic Party, argues that Harris did the best possible, but the headwinds of soaked-in misogyny, racism, and disinformation were just impossible to overcome.
I think this worldview is the liberal world’s funhouse mirror reflection of the MAGA cult mindset that surrounds Donald Trump and the GOP. In Blue MAGA mind, the party did nothing wrong. The party fought the good fight and there wasn’t anything that could have been done to change the election results. In Blue MAGA mind, Americans are just dummies who went the wrong way and the best that we can do is mock the people who voted for leopards as they wail while the leopards gnaw away at their faces.
This approach lets the party off the hook for rank incompetence. Not just under Biden, but for decades of operation. The party is not okay, not by a long stretch and embracing the Blue MAGA argument avoids a tough internal conversation about how the Democratic Party keeps failing its members and the country.
To be clear I absolutely acknowledge the forces acting against Harris that were beyond her control. The nexus of disinformation from right-wing and mainstream media, misogyny, racism, et cetera is all real. Maybe there is nothing the party could have done to win and the loss was already baked in no matter what. That still isn’t an excuse to avoid all the mistakes the party keeps making, particularly on the basic stuff of American politics.
The Democrats are a party that stands on the right side of most issues but are piss-poor at communicating those notions to the American people. The party lacks any sort of cohesive information architecture or strategy and leaders of the party holding elected office are lackadaisical about communicating with the public – and when they do bother to speak out, the language and methods are archaic most of the time. Even if the media and social environment were perfect, the party would have problems communicating in this mess, so it’s even worse since the environment is a toxic garbage dump.
When they’re not communicating competently the party is also governing and legislating incompetently. Democrats may be America’s liberal party, but they are beholden to a conservative approach. The party is disinterested in proposing legislation designed to advance its ideological goals, preferring instead to only back legislation that has a realistic chance to pass, rather than backing bills designed to fail which would elicit friction with the other side – activating support from voters. At the same time, the party legislates as if bipartisanship is the end goal, rather than providing policies and services to help people. And then it stinks at communicating the benefits of those policies to people.
This was the party that Biden then Harris led, and it had these same problems – or some variation of them – under Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, as well as the eras when it was out of the White House and in the minority.
Acknowledging these problems and working to fix them is not undermining the party. America is (for now at least) a two-party country and it needs a competent Democratic Party to hold off the menace within the Republican Party. We can’t get there with a defensive posture that assumes the party can do no wrong and can only be failed by insufficient loyalty to the party.
Blue MAGA mindset hobbles the Democrats and therefore hobbles the country. Is it anything like the destructive forces behind MAGA within the Republican Party? Of course not and it would be silly to argue such a thing.
But if winning the fight is important, you can’t win with both hands tied behind your back. Reflexive defensiveness embraced by Blue MAGA does just that. It allows the party establishment to get away with doing things the same failed way over and over again, only winning elections after Republicans have gotten thousands of people killed and set our country (and the world) back decades.
I don’t think soothing the egos of powerful people leading the party, arguing that they ran “perfect” campaigns, is worth that cost. Any kind of MAGA mindset hurts America, whether it is wearing a red hat for Trump or making excuses for decades of failed Democratic Party operation.
If you like this newsletter, please consider becoming a paying subscriber by clicking here to join. I won’t be putting any of my regular columns behind a paywall and they will always be free. Thanks to everyone who has subscribed so far!
— Oliver
Follow me, Oliver Willis, on BlueSky @owillis.bsky.social
Exclusive Kal-El Photo
Toy time is serious time for Kal.
There is no liberal media to speak of. I can drive anywhere in Ohio and get right wing radio. I can drive nowhere in Ohio and get left wing radio. After Obama won Ohio the second time, the last left wing radio station flipped and was gone. We had a protest march to I Heart Radio. I mean literally. You can think of the seven mountain strategy as diabolical or you can look at it as a blueprint for any political movement. Air America launched Al Franken and Rachel Maddow. We let Air America die. We did that.
We can wait for a future campaign like Obama for America to build this infrastructure from the ground up. Again. Or we can take the 20 year plan to be relevant again and start with creating sustainable liberal media.
Great post as usual Oliver. Just to be clear, both things can be true: Harris did about as well as she could inheriting a campaign from Biden with just 3 1/2 months to go AND the Democratic Party has failed in its duty to communicate effectively and legislate cleverly for decades. We really need folks like Soros to step up and do what the right has accused them of all along: setting up a true "liberal media" operation to counter the decades-long head start right-wing talk radio and cable "news" has enjoyed.