Who Will Turn the Democrats Around?

Donald Trump’s sweeping presidential victory this month proved that his 2016 win was no fluke.  Like his populist-right counterparts in Europe, Trump is riding a working-class revolt against governing elites — a spreading brushfire the Biden-Harris administration failed to comprehend and effectively counter.

After losing the national popular vote in his two previous White House runs, Trump won it this time by about 2.5 million votes this time and is right on the borderline between winning an outright majority and a plurality. He made inroads in blue cities, suburbs and states while scoring substantial gains among independents and traditionally Democratic-leaning groups: young voters as well as Black and especially Latino voters without college degrees.

This convergence in the voting behavior of the white and non-white working class punctures the progressive myth that “voters of color” think and vote alike along reliably Democratic lines. Class, now defined chiefly by education level, appears to be eclipsing ethnicity as the nation’s deepest political fault line.

Harris, yoked to an unpopular incumbent, couldn’t withstand the public’s powerful appetite for political and economic change, which torqued the country rightwards. Her loss confirms Democrats’ status as a shrinking party that’s now in the minority because it has lost touch with working families across middle America.