This week, reality struck back against Democratic electoral utopianism. Since 2012, Democrats have been convinced that a new, durable, near-unbeatable political coalition was in the making: a coalition largely comprised of college-educated white voters, women, younger Americans, and racial minorities. This coalition would overtake the demographically shrinking “old, white majority” and win victory after victory. As Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin wrote for the Center for American Progress in the aftermath of Obama’s reelection, “Obama’s strong progressive majority — built on a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, cross-class coalition in support of an activist … is real and growing and it reflects the face and beliefs of the United States in the early part of the 21st Century.” CAP called this new strategy “the culmination of a decades-long project to build an electorally viable and ideologically coherent progressive coalition in national politics.”
Ever since 2012, Democrats have been chasing that chimera. Instead of seeing Obama’s 2012 victory as a testament to Obama’s unique political skill, they have doubled down on the CAP strategy: more progressivism, more race-based politics. When that strategy failed in 2016, they chalked it up to Russian election interference and Facebook propaganda. When President Joe Biden won election in 2020, they announced that their strategy had been vindicated — even though the election was rather obviously a referendum on former President Donald Trump personally, not proof of their strategic brilliance.
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