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Should Democrats change their tune on a few culture war topics?

People like me talk frequently about the fact that folks who are modestly right of center are obviously scared by a lot of the Democratic stands on culture war issues these days. Perhaps we should dial down the way we talk—or maybe even what we genuinely believe—about these things?

People to my left demand particulars. Just who should we throw under the bus? Trans people? Black people? Poor people? Let's name names.

Fine. Here are a variety of issues that might benefit from a rethinking. I'm not going to say anything dogmatic here. I'd just like to spur discussion. These are in no particular order.

  1. Defund the police. I find this one particularly annoying because lefties like to pretend that it's completely ridiculous and there's no evidence that it had any effect. Besides, we explained at length that defund the police didn't really mean defund the police anyway.
    xxx

    This is sophistry. Unless you're completely out of touch it should be obvious that this is something that puts off a lot of people. And as the old saying goes, when you're explaining you're losing. It's one thing to support police reform; it's quite another for activists to literally want to defund the police and for politicians to mumble into their sandwiches about it instead of having the guts to clearly say if they really support the idea.

  2. Critical Race Theory. I'm not quite sure what we should do about this, but what we've done so far doesn't seem to be working. There's not much question that Republicans have cynically used CRT, which is a graduate level legal theory, to tar elementary school education where it's simply not used. But that doesn't mean Republicans haven't hit a nerve.
    xxx

    Partly, that nerve is simple racism, and we just have to fight that even if it does lose some votes. But there are also legitimate questions about how far we should go in public schools about teaching modern progressive views of systemic racism and white supremacy. There are also legitimate questions of how much to emphasize the heinous parts of American history (primarily slavery and the genocide of indigenous Americans) and how much to emphasize the admirable parts of American history (democracy, economic dynamism, the right side of history during the Cold War, etc.). There are ways of talking about this that might not satisfy Nikole Hannah-Jones but would make sure that slavery and racism got their due in history courses but were not presented as the backbone of our country.

  3. Sex ed in lower grades. First off, this is nothing new. It's been a flash point for decades.
    xxx

    Today's flash point is different, focused mostly on gay and trans issues. It's frankly a little hard for me to accept that sex ed of any sort really needs to be taught much before middle school, but maybe I'm wrong. I haven't been in an elementary school classroom for 50 years, after all. Still, I guess I'd like to hear the argument. I wonder if this is something we should really be supporting at all.

  4. 1/6 commission. This one is a little different. When Republicans conduct an investigation they leak like crazy in order to keep media attention alive. But Democrats don't do that much. The 1/6 commission has leaked some stuff, but it's been seldom and low-key. Why is this? Is it because the commission hasn't come up with much new stuff? Or because they're just afraid to be as belligerent as Republicans?
    xxx
  5. Voting laws. Yesterday I casually mentioned that Democrats had tried to pass a couple of bad voting laws and promised to explain what I meant today. Here it is: Both of the voting laws, but especially the Freedom to Vote Act, focused on loads and loads of useless ephemera. Who really cares if voting drop boxes exist? Who cares if early voting is 12 days or 15 days? Who cares if voters are required to vote in the correct precinct?
    xxx

    Republicans complain that these are things that were put in place because of the unique demands of the COVID pandemic and are now being made permanent. And they're right. More importantly, these kinds of provisions (a) have virtually no effect on partisan turnout, (b) are not very popular, and (c) never had the slightest chance of getting Republican support. It was political malpractice to introduce these bills. A much better bet would have been a narrower law that focused on something voters really do care about: bills that give red states the ability to overturn, or at least affect, the official vote count after it's finished. When people hear about this they don't like it. And it's even possible that banning it might draw some Republican support. This is what Democrats should have done from the start.

  6. Afghanistan withdrawal. Why were liberals so afraid to rally around their president on this? The evidence on the ground gives plenty of support for the idea that it was handled pretty well under the circumstances. And Biden showed some guts by sticking to his guns on a liberal priority even under withering criticism. But Democrats failed to loudly support Biden. That was a huge mistake.
    xxx
  7. Trans issues. For the most part, liberal support for trans issues is fine even if it costs some votes—which is questionable anyway. But the trans lobby is ruthless and extreme. For example, should we really support without question allowing trans women to compete in women's sports, even given the plain evidence that this can produce unfair results? Should we shout down women who think that growing up female gives them a different perspective than someone who transitioned later in life—especially if the transition is after puberty? Is there really no legitimate concern about transitioning children who are likely too young to know for certain what their long-term gender identity is likely to be?
    xxx

    FWIW, I belong to several lefty listservs and I can tell you without question that there are plenty of lefties who are willing to talk about this stuff in private. They generally believe that the trans lobby has forced too many extremist positions on liberals and that this likely hurts them with voters.¹ And they really, really hate language that frames even the least divergence from extreme views as "murdering" trans people.

This is just half a dozen issues off the top of my head. There are others. But this is representative of the kinds of things that I think probably hurt liberals and that could be dialed down without really betraying liberal principles. Discuss.

In addition, it's worth noting that of course many of these things haven't been spread organically but are heavily pushed by Fox News and the Republican establishment. So what? They're pushing things they think will help them, and that's what partisans do. We have to accept the reality of how this affects voters regardless of where it comes from.

In a nutshell, both parties want to focus the media spotlight on things that are good for them and bad for the other guys. So Democrats need to do two things. First, settle on topics that are less policy oriented and have a big emotional charge. That means finding issues of our own that scare centrists about Republicans. Second, we need to stop giving Republicans such easy layups on their emotionally charged attacks. That means easing up on some of our most extreme positions.

¹However, there are also plenty of lefties on these chat groups who disagree. And no one has an awful lot of evidence about how much, if at all, this affects centrist voters. (Though it probably boosts turnout among strong conservatives.)

150 thoughts on “Should Democrats change their tune on a few culture war topics?

  1. n1cholas

    There are 70+ million Republican voters who support outright fascism.

    Get the non-fascists to the polls and start calling out the fascists.

    That's the only thing that can be done. Everything else is abstract political philosophy.

  2. Andrew G

    I think defund/abolish X just needs to be abolished. It serves no purpose (it's mostly a distraction from real police reform and seems like a dumb middle schooler's project that somehow got turned into a minor movement) and is particularly tone deaf during our current noted rise in crime, which we liberals pretend isn't real. Democrats did a real own-goal by not being more critical of "socialists" and the ideological far left starting way back in 2015. Now we're paying for it. This stuff triggers moderate conservatives like mad, pushing them into the racist/nationalist camp.

    Critical race theory is not as lefty as it sounds ("critical" is from legal scholarship, not "critical theory" in lefty political theory) but it clearly does rile up the bigots. We constantly hear about liberal millennial snowflakes, but the entire dynamic here is how talking about history makes conservatives uncomfortable. They need a nationwide safe space and have the means to get it, which should terrify you.

    Voting laws, 1/6, trans issues - these are things that Republicans have given us, not the other way around. And unfortunately they're not going away, and they're serious flashpoints in the future of American democracy (yes, including the trans issues). I say hunker down on these.

  3. spatrick

    First, settle on topics that are less policy oriented and have a big emotional charge. That means finding issues of our own that scare centrists about Republicans. Second, we need to stop giving Republicans such easy layups on their emotionally charged attacks. That means easing up on some of our most extreme positions.

    The problem is the topics that bring the most "emotional charge" i.e. to the base are ones that are unpopular with what is believed to be median voters. So you have the paradox of the topics which can bring the most voters who say they are aligned with you to the polls are the ones the mobilize the other sides voters as well and turns off whatever remains in the middle. The is, has been and probably always will be the dilemma of Democratic Party.

    Why? Because it is a diverse party both ideologically and in terms of race and economic background. It's much easier for Republican politicians and the media infrastructure that supports them to mobilize their "base" because it so homogenous both politically and racially. Diversity probably makes it easier for Democrats to win big elections (especially in diverse areas of the country) but makes incredibly hard not juts to govern but to do politics in general because everyone has their take on the age-old question: "What Needs to be Done?"

    That's why Democrats generally only do well electorally facing an unpopular GOP incumbent government, because its easier to bring the party's diverse elements together only when that happens in 1974, 1976, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1992 or 2006, 2008 or 2020.

    All of what you've mentioned are essentially strawmen because they're topics that few Democrats support or are questions that can only be satisfactorally dealt with on the local level. Why is it then do you extrapolate the party as having "positions" on these issues or why is that you think there's broad if any support for "defund the police" when there clearly isn't outside of a few outliers and when as policy goes, in nearly all communities, funding for the police is actually going up?

    The nice thing to know is the GOP has overreached on a lot of this even if its in their own backyard. And when real people get hurt in the process, as we saw in Texas, Republicans have to either back down or double down on the crazy. And it seems to me the best way for the Dems to handle this is not to talk about theories and other crap, but just calmly say "Real people, people just like you getting hurt by Republicans. Vote Democratic to stop it and save our democracy." Pretty simple right? Not much to explain there.

  4. spatrick

    There's a larger point too I wish to make. Either a diverse party exists or its doesn't. I mean, if those on the far Left or Centrists can do better without each other that's fine. They can be pure in their minority status, running nothing but their own consciences. A centrist party, a Left-wing (white) party, probably a Black, Hispanic, maybe even Asian Party too. Lots of little parties and lots of irrevelancies outside of district they have majorities in.

    Sometimes I'm amazed how Democratic activists get out of bed in the morning considering that for most pundits, political writers, the 2022 midterms are already over and the Republicans have won. Why bother? But if I can be a "contrarian" ( a popular thing it seems these days) I would point this out: For all the headwinds against the party in this election cycle for a variety of different reasons as we all know about, the summnation of the generic polls of the two parties only gives the GOP a mere two-point lead and races of individual candidates are close or at least reasonably close depending on the state and or region. Biden may be down in the polls but his numbers have seem to stabilized and can go up if they haven't gotten any worse in spite of all the bad news (and they can get a lot worse as Presidents Bush I, Bush II, Carter, Nixon, Ford, Clinton and even Reagan can attest too). Things are not as bleak as they may seem on the surface and if party people stop their whining, back Biden, and focus on popular topics and hit where the Republicans have overextended themselves, the maybe, just maybe, they'll survive 2022. What's survival? The House may be a lost cause but keeping the Senate and winning several governor's races (especially in key states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) would actually be a good midterm result.

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