“While voters this year declined to offer a stiff rebuke of the party in power,” writes Sirota, “they indicated via ballot measures, exit polls, and large preelection surveys that on key issues . . . the electorate is more progressive than elected officials and corporate media pundits care to admit.”
This is a perspective that I and others have long maintained (see, for example, here, here, and here.
What should this mean for the Democratic party? Continues Williamson:
The Democratic party now should align itself with its own progressive base, should align itself unabashedly with the traditional pillars – in an FDR-sence of what the Democratic party once was – of unequivocal support for the working people of the United States. . . . Only then will we be able to make a real dent in the authoritarian force field that’s coming at us and coming at us strongly.
Following is an excerpt from David Sirota, et al’s recent Jacobin piece and the 12-minute Rising segment featuring Marianne Williamson.
Corporate media, industry-funded think tanks, and Democratic operatives were chomping at the bit to blame the party’s anticipated midterm election losses Tuesday on progressives and a prefabricated narrative about Democrats’ supposedly extreme brand. Then, the results began rolling in.
It’s not clear yet which party will control the House or Senate, but this was not the “red wave” that polls had projected, nor the midterm bloodbaths that Democrats faced under President Barack Obama in 2010 and 2014. In recent decades, the party controlling the White House has almost always lost seats in the midterms, with the stark exception of the 2002 midterms when Republicans took back the Senate thanks to the momentum of President George W. Bush’s “war on terror.”
While voters this year declined to offer a stiff rebuke of the party in power, they indicated via ballot measures, exit polls, and large preelection surveys that on key issues such as abortion rights, health care, higher minimum wages, workers’ right to collectively bargain, and legalized cannabis, the electorate is more progressive than elected officials and corporate media pundits care to admit.
Many factors can explain the Democrats’ unexpectedly strong performance in a midterm cycle, such as the Supreme Court’s massively unpopular decision to strike down a constitutional right to an abortion and voters’ apparent rejection of Republican candidates closely tied to former president Donald Trump. But there is another equally important takeaway that Democrats should take to heart.
The results suggest that when the Democratic Party listened to its progressive flank and adopted bold proposals like the child tax credit, student debt cancellation, and massive climate spending, voters rewarded its politicians.
To read David Sirota, et al's’ article “8 Lessons From the Midterm Elections” in its entirety, click here.
Following is the November 10, 2022 segment of Rising featuring Marianne Williamson on “how the 2022 midterm elections were not about the Republican or Democratic Parties, but rather the American people delivering a message” that said, “Okay, enough with the crazy; let’s get back to who we are.”
Related Off-site Links:
How the Democrats Won and Lost the 2022 Midterms: What the Surprising Results Mean for the Electoral Left – Maurice Mitchell (In These Times, November 11, 2022).
Centrists Were Wrong: Left-Wing Candidates Won – Branko Marcetic (Jacobin, November 11, 2022).
Well, It Could Have Been a Whole Lot Worse – Marianne Williamson (Transform, November 10, 2022).
The Midterms Are No Victory for the Democrats, But They Are a Defeat for the GOP – Luke Savage (Jacobin, November 9, 2022).
The Right Did Worse Than Expected, But That Shouldn’t Satisfy Progressives – Austin C. McCoy (TruthOut, November 9, 2022).
Gen Z Showed Up in Large Numbers to Protect Climate and Thwart Red Wave – Juan Cole (Common Dreams, November 11, 2022).
Democrats May Lose U.S. House Because New York Democratic Leaders Were Too Focused on Defeating the Left – Demorcacy Now! (November 10, 2022).
The Peaceful Choice For All – Abby Zimet (Common Dreams, November 9, 2022).
Summer Lee and Maxwell Frost Among New Progressive Champions Heading to U.S. House – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, November 9, 2022).
“Young People Saved This Election” for Democrats, Say Progressives – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, November 9, 2022).
Robert Reich: Democrats Can No Longer Compromise with “Authoritarian” Republicans – Democracy Now! (November 8, 2022). Don’t Look Now But Progressives Are About to Expand Their Ranks in Congress – Branko Marcetic (In These Times, October 31, 2022).
UPDATES: Where to Now? – Marianne Williamson (Transform, November 13, 2022).
Higher Young Voter Turnout in Midterms Changes Approach to Major Political Issues – John Yang and Saher Khan (Newshour, November 24, 2022).
Ranked Choice Voting Won the Midterms – David Daley (In These Times, November 30, 2022).
New Polling Shows Democracy Mattered in the 2022 Midterms – Paul Blumenthal (The Huffington Post, December 1, 2022).
Sen. Raphael Warnock Wins Runoff Election in Georgia; Democrats Will Have 51-Seat Senate Majority – Areeba Shah (Salon, December 6, 2022).
“The People Have Spoken”: Sen. Warnock Wins in Georgia in Victory Over GOP Voter Suppression Efforts – Democracy Now! (December 7, 2022).
A New Day? Voters Stood Up for Democracy — and Now We Have the Data – Chauncey Devega (Salon, December 7, 2022).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• “It’s Simple . . . Vote For the People You Love”
• An Essential Read Ahead of the Midterms
• Marianne Williamson on the Current Condition of the U.S.
• Jim Naureckas: Quote of the Day – October 26, 2022
• Republicans Don’t Care About American Democracy
That's a great example of cherry-picking that is self-soothing, the kind of thing ideologically oriented people frequently resort to after elections where their utopia was not achieved.
ReplyDeleteIt's much much much more instructive to consider the *least* congenial lessons that might be drawn from the election results, the lessons that spotlight the greatest vulnerabilities of your preferred positions. Too many progressives hate to do that. It's a big problem.