Remember This: Elections Are Decided by the Answer to a Simple Question

Having been on the political playing field for a little more than a half century, you learn there are some fundamental truths. Most elections hinge on the answer to a simple question.  Do you want more of the same, or is it time for a change?  Specific issues at any given time serve to establish the contours for the decision reached on Election Day.  

Issues change, but the basic question remains the same.  If your side is arguing for change, it has to be change voters are seeking.  Currently progressives as an ideology, and Democrats as a national political party, do not have a satisfactory answer to the basic question.

The important point in all of this is that voters actually do decide based on the relationship between the reality they are experiencing and the policies they associate with that reality.  Do normal people get into the weeds on all of this?  Not hardly.  What must be kept in mind at all times is that if the policies you advocate are unpopular, it matters little how you frame messages around those policies or who the messenger is.  That is the case whichever side you are arguing (more of the same or change things).

This has been the case throughout our history.  As much as it would be fun for me to go back to John Adams against Thomas Jefferson, I will try and restrict the observations to a couple of examples.

The Great Depression started in 1929.  Incumbent Republican President Herbert Hoover was widely seen as opposing meaningful direct intervention by the federal government to fix things.  Franklin Roosevelt promised big changes involving the government in that 1932 contest.  More of what people were witnessing versus a new approach.  Not a close call.  

In 1936, FDR ran against Alf Landon when the economy was still in the toilet. The Republican’s proposed solution was seen as reverting to old and already rejected policies, thus cross-pressuring any change message.  More of the same beat turn back the hands of time in a landslide victory even when times were tough.

Do yourself a favor.  Open a real history book and examine the elections of 1968, 1980, and 1992.  There is not enough space here to do them justice.  All of these are worth your time, as are so many others.

By the time you get to 2016, the fight was between a genuinely new sort of Republican and the definition of the establishment, Hillary Clinton. After eight years of President Obama, Americans chose something new, electing Donald Trump.  A confluence of events (Black Lives Matter, Covid, etc.), along with the last gasp of the mainstream media serving as the primary information gatekeeper, while suffering Trump Derangement Syndrome, combined to establish the framework for our basic question.   Joe Biden won, literally running a campaign from his basement.

In 2024, when the public resoundingly believed the train was off the tracks on the issues important to them—the economy, border security, and crime—the Biden Administration doubled down, telling Americans everything was fine and getting better.  At the same time, they continued to pursue positions on cultural issues that overwhelmingly were opposed by the “normies.”  The power of cultural issues is that you do not have to be an expert to have a strong opinion.  

Progressives refused to budge an inch on anything while being led by a President who clearly was not up to the task.  2024 became a contest between “we know best” versus “the hell you do.”  

In 2024, the dividing line separating the two sides underwent a historical change.  While there is indeed a great deal of overlap between the old dividing line—liberals versus conservatives—and the new line in the sand—elitists versus populists, we do now have a new ballgame.  Defenders of the status quo (elitists) versus change it a ton (populists).

In the midst of all of this, what have progressives chosen to do?  To make it even more clear their positions on issues, simple and complicated, are not being adjusted, unless it is becoming even more extreme.  Firing government employees?  A crime against humanity.  A large majority of Americans are yelling “it’s about time.”

No issue better sums up the current debate than transexual “rights.”  Recently, in a vote to stop biological males from competing against biological females, a total of two Democrats in the House voted for it.  That was better than the Senate where zero of them voted for it.  This is not complicated math.  80 percent of Americans support such a ban.  If you are trying to tell voters you got the message from the last election, that probably is not your best move.  The normies ask:  Have you lost your minds?  Same thing applies when it comes to Sanctuary Cities, cracking down on crime, and most of the other top issues.

President Trump recently addressed Congress.  Democrats booed, waived signs, and refused to stand and applaud a 13-year-old cancer victim.  How did the public see the speech?  76 percent approved.  In other words, the Democrats continue to make it easy to conclude they are out-of-touch.

So long as Democrats stick to their guns in defending policies opposed by big majorities, they will remain stuck in the mud.  The only caveat being if the economy tanks worse than under Biden.  Then, all bets are off.  For now, however, so long as they persist in arguing they have it right, and the voters have it wrong, progressives are dead men walking.

Back to the thesis of this piece.  Progressives are blocking themselves from being positioned as offering any acceptable change voters might want.  They need new policies to become a credible option.  They also need the breaks to go their way on the important issues.  That does not even take into account about finding themselves totally in no man’s land should the Trump Administration continue to produce policies and results the public want.

Remember this.  It will always get down to our basic question.  If you are on the change things side, you need to be proposing solutions the public agrees with.  Currently, progressives do not reflect what the public desires.  Hard to see them winning.  What do you think?