Stop being weird

A gathering of moderate Democrats met in Loudon County, Va., last week to assess how to get the Democratic Party back on track. As usually happens when Democrats meet to assess a loss, even the moderates presumed that the message, not the policies, are to blame. But even these moderate Democrats concluded that Democrats need to touch some grass.

The gathering included congressional staff, Democratic consultants, elected officials, and supposed party leaders. It was organized by Third Way, a group that supports moderate Democrats. According to Politico, which had the story, these Democrats decided they are disconnected from the working class due to, among other things, “weak messaging and communication, failure to prioritize economic concerns, overemphasis on identity politics, allowing the far left to define the party, and attachment to unpopular institutions such as academia, media and government bureaucracy.” In other words, the party’s problem was its message. Seriously?

On Monday night, soon after this meeting, Democrats in the United States Senate filibustered a measure that would have prevented men from competing in women’s sports. The measure had the whole of the Republican Party on board. No Democrat supported it. Not one.

What the self-described moderates believe is that Democrats should “embrace patriotism, community, and traditional American imagery,” but not traditional American values. They want the picture of the family at a table eating, but not a family at a table praying—and certainly not a two-parent heterosexual nuclear household as the gold standard image. They also want Democrats to “move away from the dominance of small-dollar donors whose preferences may not align with the broader electorate.”

A “small-dollar donor” means a voter. The Democrat elites are actually progressive engines pushing the party to the left on most social issues. It is certainly true that Democrat small-dollar donors do not align with the broader electorate, but that is because the Democrats chose to abandon the working class. To get them back, Democrats need new policies, not just a new message. If Democrats want to build up a dominant pool of small-dollar donors aligned with the broader electorate, they need to push policies similarly aligned, but that would anger many of the billionaire donors of the Democratic Party.

Hilariously, these moderate Democrats also believe Democrats need to “get out of elite circles and into real communities (e.g., tailgates, gun shows, local restaurants, churches).” They did not mean eating at the local Michelin star restaurants with foie gras on the menu, but the local barbecue joint. This is far out of the comfort zone of most Democrats now. The only time they go to gun shows is to protest. They only go to churches where the pastors preach leftish politics, not the gospel of Jesus Christ. Again, the moderates are fixated on changing their message and image, without changing their policies.

If Democrats really want to win convincingly, and not just have a fleeting midterm rebound, they need to unshackle themselves from teachers unions that preserve the failing public school monopoly. They need to favor innovation instead of regulation. They also need to reconnect to the values of the working class. One is now more likely to find a pro-abortion and pro-transgender Republican than to find a pro-life and pro-normal person Democrat. The Democratic Party has become so monolithic in ideas that even, I suspect, many of those who participated in this meeting have their pronouns in the signature lines and think men can become women.

In Campaign 2024, Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz tried to define the GOP as “weird.” Instead, voters concluded the Democrats were weird. The Democrats, as a whole, think it is weird to believe in a resurrected Lord and weird to believe in the inerrancy of scripture. But most Americans actually think that is far more mainstream than believing men can have periods and battery powered tanks can win wars. Democrats will not rebuild voter trust by chugging beers and shooting guns. They will rebuild trust only by changing the policy positions that voters find weird.