What Is A Democrat Good For?

Since January 20, 2009, the Democratic Party has lost 958 state legislative seats, 12 governorships, 62 congressional districts, 12 Senate seats, and 1 White House. All of these losses amount to the greatest decimation of a political party’s power in American history, with the Democratic Party being at its lowest point in almost one hundred years.
While Democrats everywhere were losing, we were told by liberal thinkers that the future was left of center— that demographic trends in the U.S. favored the party and would usher in an era of Democratic rule. There were even those who wrote eulogies for the Republican Party, predicting that in a matter of years it’d be obsolete. Now more than ever, it has become quite clear that none of this has taken place, and that demography isn’t necessarily destiny.
While I am not dismissing the notion that demographics will be a major factor in the party’s future, it is the definition of naive to expect it to be the solution to the party’s current problems. The country’s minority populations are growing and becoming a larger portion of the electorate, as are younger millennial voters. Both of these groups tend to have left of center views that more closely correlate with the Democratic Party. However, they tend to be concentrated in urban pockets throughout the country which limits their impact come November due to both partisan redistricting as well as personal preference. This is why Hillary Clinton still lost the latest presidential election even though she garnered nearly 3 million more votes than her opponent.
Reams of articles have been written trying to analyze the factors that led Democrats to their crushing defeat last November — Jim Comey, a “lack of message,” not visiting Wisconsin, Russian interference, etc. — but at the core of it all is that the Democrats have forgotten that the primary reason why a party exists is to win elections. This issue has been raised most recently when discussing the four special congressional elections that were held to replace the vacancies left as a part of President Trump’s cabinet appointments. The Democrats failed to win the seat vacated by CIA Director Mike Pompeo in Kansas. They went on to lose to Greg Gianforte, who famously body-slammed a reporter on the night before election day, in the contest to replace Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke as Montana’s at-large representative in the House. Most recently, Democrat Jon Ossoff squandered more than $30 million in his attempt to replace Health Secretary Tom Price in Georgia’s sixth congressional district, and while Archie Parnell came closer than everyone expected, he was unable to defeat the Republican in South Carolina in the race for O.M.B. Director Mick Mulvaney’s old seat.
While it is true that all these races were waged in Republican-leaning districts, and that Democrats managed to narrow their margin of defeat in these races, in our political system a loss is still a loss. At some point we need to look past the lengthy explanations and address our primal urge to win. At some point we have to recognize that close enough is just not good enough, not when the stakes are this high.
Within a democracy, political parties are formed with the objective of winning elections. Very often, they consist of like-minded interest groups banding together out of a recognition that they are more able to advance their respective agendas as part of a governing coalition as opposed to finding themselves perpetually out of power due to their inability to make compromise. The wider net that they cast, the bigger tent that they prop up, the more appeal their party has in a diverse electorate, and the more likely they are to win political power and thus be able to institute or change policies that benefit their members.
Today, certain factions of the Democratic Party have forgotten this elemental concept, opting to instead demand purity from all who choose to associate themselves with the party. The most ironic part of this phenomenon is that many of those criticizing the Democrats as not liberal enough, are not even formally registered as members of the party, such as Senator Bernie Sanders. Furthermore, a lot of these purists have taken it upon themselves to criticize Democratic candidates and officeholders that are running in districts and states all over the country. They fail to recognize that every community has different needs and different priorities and unless you live in them, you should allow them to judge their own candidates based on those needs. Very often, these critics are too busy worrying about what’s going on across the country that they fail to make an impact within their own communities.
The end result is that while the Democratic Party has become consumed with what positions it should require its candidates to hold, they’ve been losing in election after election. Binding these candidates to strict party doctrine and purity make it impossible for them to adjust their positions and priorities based on the communities they hope to serve. Furthermore, arguing over which candidate is liberal enough often results in the election of one that isn’t liberal at all. All of this has led to an exodus of conservative, and even moderate, candidates and members away from the Democratic Party towards the Republicans or even towards complete disengagement from the political process altogether. In their search of purity, liberal critics are shaping a party that is both homogenous and unable to field winning candidates. This should not be the case.
The Democratic Party labels itself as the party of diversity, yet many of its members have taken it upon themselves to excommunicate any and all who dare not to tow the liberal line. All of this goes completely against the party’s history, which has always succeeded electorally when it functioned as a grand coalition of people from all walks of life, with varying political and social views, from all across the nation. Purist thought has whittled the party, not just ideologically, but also geographically and also in terms of social-economic status. The outcome of all of this is that the tent has narrowed, the net has shrunk, and many people who would normally be inclined to pull the lever for Democrats bear resentment for a party whose base insults their intelligence and intentions and simply no longer represent them.
Of course, there should exist overarching principles for which the party stands for and works towards. I am not arguing that in our pursuit to regain power, we should betray the fundamental tenets of equal opportunity and justice for all. What I am saying is that we need to stop counting beans over our small differences when we all desire the same overall objectives. Instead of arguing over the 10 to 20 percent on which we disagree on, we should see past these differences in order to ensure that the candidate who disagrees 100 percent with both of us isn’t the one that ends up in office. There will be more than enough time for us to return to our infighting once we are back in power.
This week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell finally succeeded in advancing the repeal of the Affordable Care Act past the initial motion to proceed after several fruitless attempts. During this entire ordeal, and during the latest vote in the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, along with the rest of his caucus and his party, could do nothing but sit on the sidelines while nearly 1/5th of our economy is at the mercy of Republican impatience. It’s tough, and frustrating, to be out of power, unable to do anything but beg for mercy that most likely will not come. Yet, this is the reality in which we currently find ourselves, and which will continue to exist if we continue to fight among ourselves instead of banding together in common cause. Until we cease our petty differences and suppress the urge to install purity within the party, we will find ourselves asking the same question and receiving the same response:
What is a Democrat good for?
Well, not much if they can’t win.