How the Democratic Party Lost Its Way and What It Means for This Election

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now, one challenge that faces Democrats is securing working class votes. The party is increasingly viewed as being for the educated and the elite. But this wasn’t always the case, so how did they get there? Author and historian Timothy Shenk provides some answers in his new book, “Left Adrift,” which explores how the Democratic Party has evolved over the past 50 years. And he speaks to Michel Martin about its impact on the upcoming election.

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MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Christiane. Tim Shenk, thank you so much for talking with us.

TIMOTHY SHENK, AUTHOR, “LEFT ADRIFT”: Thank you for having me.

MARTIN: So, your book is very much an argument against what you see as the prevailing narrative about the direction of the Democratic Party. So, just to get us started, would you tell us what you think that dominant narrative is? And then, I’m going to ask you obviously why you think it’s wrong.

SHENK: So, the core understanding of how Democrats got to where they are today, which is a party that does really well with educated professionals and often with poor voters, but struggles with the working and lower middle class. I think that the core story often argues that this happened sort of loss of support with working class voters took place because Democrats wanted it to, that somewhere in the ’60s or ’70s that Democrats win it all in on the pursuit of affluent college educated suburbanites, and that therefore, today, they’re almost being punished for their sins. And that’s a story that, to me, made a lot of sense before I started digging into the research for this book, but that started to fall apart almost right away.

MARTIN: OK. So, what do you think is right? If that’s wrong, what is correct in your view?

SHENK: What I found — and really the characters who the book focuses on, are Stan Greenberg and Doug Schoen, who are both political advisers at the upper levels of the Democratic Party, and both of them were advisers especially to Bill Clinton during his two presidential campaigns. Now, Greenberg and Schoen might not be exactly household names, but their partners are. So, for Greenberg, it’s James Carville. The two of them work together for the first time on Clinton’s ’92 campaign, then go into business after that. And for Schoen, it’s Mark Penn, who — they were longtime partners, Penn and Schoen, they go into Clinton together. And then, Penn really becomes a celebrity figure after Clinton’s ’96 campaign. Now, the useful thing about Greenberg and Schoen is that in addition being strategists, they were also academics, or at least they both wrote doctoral dissertations that come out in the ’60s and the ’70s that are looking at struggles with working class voters that Democrats and other center left parties like Labour in the U.K. were looking at those struggles taking place in real-time. And they come up with theories to explain what’s happening, big picture explanations of the type that you don’t normally get from consultants. Now, Greenberg and Schoen disagreed about a lot of things, and the book is to an extent about their disagreement, but one area where they did converge was the sense that, coming out of the 1960s with the rise of a whole host of culturally polarized, really divisive social issues moving into the center of politics, that this put Democrats in a really awkward position with a lot of their historic base in the working class. And neither of them took working class support for granted. In fact, they thought that would be essential for Democrats to win. So, the fact that these advisers to Bill Clinton, who’s often cast as the key figure in this neoliberal transformation of the Democratic Party, the fact that his key strategists are saying no, no, no, working class voters are really crucial, to me, this indicated that something a lot more complicated than just Democrats say farewell to the working class. Therefore, they lose working class votes. Something more complicated was going on.

MARTIN: And, you know, your book was really interesting because it does revisit some of the ground that we’re sort of plowing now in the current campaign. The thing, though, that really stands out, though, is the way that the Republicans really have leaned in on these cultural issues, right. I see your argument that this wasn’t intentional, but is the conclusion here really that some people have to get left on some of these culture war issues, that that’s the only way to keep coalitions together?

SHENK: So, one important point to keep in mind, I think, is that one reason why the Trump appeals to that are leaning into the culture or one reason why he has an opening today is because there were some real failures in the Biden years and especially, the fact that for a lot of Americans real incomes fell in those first two years, that the transition from pandemic life was really hard for lots of people and that a lot of Biden folks were saying at the same time, though this is the best economy in the world, that the economic recovery is the greatest story never told, that that sort of tone deafness costs them a lot. And then, I think the other point to keep in mind is that some my own politics are often they — this book is partly about how once upon a time the Democratic Party’s base was in unions, now it is universities, like, listen, I’m a college professor, I have all the standard issue, college professor, blue America opinions, but, one of the arguments of the book and something that I got to by seeing how Sam Greenberg and Doug Schoen, for all their problems, whatever faults you want to point out, at their best they were really committed to trying to figure out just what ordinary voters were thinking about the world. And one reason why they did this, listen, they are consultants. It made for a good life. But they also had an argument. And the argument was that in a democracy, whatever else it has to be, it should be a system for turning public opinion into public policy. Because in the long run, you’re just — there’s no other real alternative. Because if you ignore the public for long enough, then eventually someone is going to come along who responds to voters on an issue they care about. And if you’re someone progressive politics, there’s a good chance it’ll be someone from the right with a lot of positions that you don’t like. Where I think a lot of progressives fall into a trap is that they assume that it’s either capitulation to the worst parts of politics or standing up boldly in defense of ideals that maybe they won’t be supported by the public at large now, but you’ll be vindicated by history eventually. And I think those either-or framings often do the very people we want to help a disservice. And that if, for instance, on immigration, you adopt this or more of a both and perspective where you assume that there are a lot of people out there who don’t want ultra-draconian measures of deportation, camps, armed troops, roving cities, they don’t want that, but they do want order at the border. I don’t think that’s an insane position, even if it’s not my own. And it is a way for progressive politicians to meet voters where they are now on their concerns so that you can persuade them over the long run.

MARTIN: So, let’s go back to civil rights, because that is generally understood as sort of the first great realignment, right? I mean, it was an explicit strategy of Richard Nixon and his supporters to, you know, persuade working class whites that — you know, that the Democrats had gone all in on civil rights and that those aren’t your people. So, I guess my question is, can you look back at civil rights as like that first great kind of realignment and say, is there something that Democrats should have done differently that would basically instruct us for today around these issues that are so — you know, that are so emotional and so deeply ingrained for some people, even if those aren’t your politics?

SHENK: And so, one important point to keep in mind is that even if 1968 is the election where you see the crack up of the New Deal coalition taking place, where it’s Richard Nixon and George Wallace, who is running as a third-party candidate this year, combined, they went about 57 percent of the vote. So, that is a sign that this New Deal coalition, something is going wrong there. But another point to keep in mind, the 1964 Civil Rights Act passes in 1964. What happens almost immediately after, Lyndon Johnson, who signs that act, wins one of the biggest majorities in American history with the support of most of the south. Barry Goldwater does pick up some deep South states, but Lyndon Johnson does — turns in a historically strong performance that year. And coming out of that experience, the great civil rights strategist Bayard Rustin writes an article called “From Protest to Politics,” and his argument there is that with the major gains of the first wave of the civil rights movement having been achieved with — because of legislation like the Civil Rights Act, now the movement has to move on to the harder and but ultimately, more significant work of basically redistributing economic resources. From civil issues, it has to move to economic issues. And the only way Rustin argues that the movement can pull this off is by embracing electoral politics, working to create a majority that’s grounded in working class voters, a bottom-up coalition that crosses racial lines that will be devoted to leveling the playing field in a game that’s tilted toward the rich. And what’s striking to me is that broad vision, it’s something that influences among others, Stan Greenberg, this key character in my book, who is a grad student in Harvard at the time, he volunteers for Bobby Kennedy’s ’68 campaign and writes a report about how he sees that Rustin style working class coalition taking shape for Bobby Kennedy. And it’s also influential, among others, on Barack Obama, whose own campaign strategy in both 2008 and 2012, oh, it’s a lot more to this Rustin vision of how to campaign effectively than I think is often recognized. It’s really the 2016 Clinton campaign that marks a departure from this strategy that United figures as different as Stan Greenberg, who’s architect of the it’s the economy stupid ’92 campaign all the way to Barack Obama. So, one argument for the book, and this is just tied up with my own politics, is that if we’re thinking about ways that we can make a difference, especially for working class people, for poor people, it is reforms that promote greater access, greater equality for jobs, housing, education, healthcare. This matters for people’s — it matters profoundly for people’s daily life. And the way that you get there is with a big majority coalition that can push through all the restraints that exist in the lawmaking process in the United States and really make a difference.

MARTIN: Do you think there’s something fundamentally wrong with the Democratic Party at this point in our history? Is there a fundamental critique of the Democratic Party that you would make?

SHENK: So, one reason why the book is called “Left Adrift” and not left in a ditch somewhere where no hope can ever penetrate is because I don’t think that either electorally speaking that Democrats are in this disastrous state. No, no. They’ve won the popular vote. And what is it? It will — if Kamala wins this year, it will be something like eight of the last nine elections. That is a historic run. They are capable of winning in states as diverse as Kentucky and Kansas, states that you might write off as the reddest of red will elect Democratic governors. We see, again, the success of abortion rights measures across much of the country. So, it’s not as if the Democratic Party is an electoral shipwreck. And I don’t think it’s the case that the left is in ruins either. I think adrift captures the state of the party and the state of the left because, to me, it suggests that both a party and a movement that have many, many competing goals that it values, but no sense of real priorities. What it means to be a Democrat, that very simple answer. I think for a lot of people, what it means more than anything now is resistance. That ever since Donald Trump got on that golden escalator, Democrats have become the party of resistance. They’ve been opposed to whatever Trump is, which means that you end up letting Trump set the agenda. And I think that a party like that, no matter what its structural ambitions are, one, I think it’s going to have a hard time winning the big majorities that you need to push through structural change. And two, I think it is kind of an inherently conservative party, where you’re giving up on the energy that comes from taking on the status quo, when you say the status quo must be defended against Donald Trump at all times. And while I understand the electoral rationale behind this kind of thing Charli XCX to Liz Cheney coalition right now, I think that the future of a stronger Democrat Party would be one where it had a much clearer vision of what it stood for, which would be a Democrat Party that could explain where it went astray in some of the Biden years with presiding over this sort of — this spike in inflation that resulted in this downtick in standard of living for so many Americans. So, the failure of Harris to be able to clearly and succinctly explain why she would be different from Biden, why voters who feel so angry right now, I think that you can’t speak to that anger unless you can acknowledge that there are more things that have gone astray in our politics than just Donald Trump. And until Democrats get that right, I think they’re going to be facing a big problem.

MARTIN: One of the things you say in the book is, today — you’re speaking more generally about the left, you write, today, it owes more to universities than to unions, and its coalition looks like an alliance between professionals and the poor, where the virtues of diversity are obvious but solidarity is harder to come by, especially with the middle of the electorate. So, OK. I know it’s going to sound like a — but what’s so terrible about having a party that cares a lot about what educated people think?

SHENK: Well, as one of those educated people, I’m in no position to say that we should be completely ignored. But what I would say to my fellow college educated blue leaning professionals is that we get to be on the bus and it is hard to imagine a winning Democratic Party that doesn’t have our votes at this point. So, yes, we get to be on the bus, but we don’t get to drive the bus, and that we don’t have the numbers to justify this, and that it’s very easy for us to forget that our good intentions might not map on to a lot of people’s daily lives, and that if we are as empathetic and educated and understanding as we say we are, then having empathy for people who are just trying to make it through a daily life where things are really hard for lots of people, and who — a lot of working class Americans who understand that they’re playing a game that is rigged against them. If you believe in democracy, that’s something that’s really noble too. So, having progressive college educated Americans get out of our own heads on this stuff, that is also part of what means to believe in democracy.

MARTIN: OK. But what is the evidence that this drift toward universities or progressive college educated Americans is leading the party astray? Give me an example of that.

SHENK: All right. So, one point is that we do see that a shift like this is happening around much of the world today, and that as the left has picked up ground with college educated voters it often struggles with working class voters. And you can see, for instance, the climate change bill recently. While this is good, important, long-term legislation on climate change, it’s also a fact that for a lot of disproportionately working class Americans what they care most about is the price of gas at the pump, the cost of electricity because paying that heating bill, especially when you have a family to feed, that is difficult stuff. And I think forgetting to deal with the cost of energy in the short-term is one case, while you are building up climate policy over the long-term, again, it’s about delivering in the immediate run that those of us who don’t worry about the heating bill in the same way, it’s easy to ignore.

MARTIN: So, as you and I are speaking now we — just — there’s just no way to know what the outcome is going to be, even if the election is actually going to be decided on November 5th. But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Kamala Harris does win, what should she do to get the ship right as it were? To put the Democratic Party on course for a more lasting electoral victories, not just at the presidency, but in state legislatures, for example, and the Congress, where things — you know, where things have real meaning for people as well?

SHENK: So, I think keeping up some of those important Biden administration measures that are building up power over the long runs or keeping up the turn toward a more pro-labor politics, for instance, I think that’s essential for long-term — the long-term health of the party. But I think it’s also crucial for Democrats to pay more attention to those crisis over the cost of living that’s been unfolding around rising cost of housing, rising cost of health care, rising cost of child care, making sure that you can show that government can make a real difference in people’s daily lives while making sure that those macroeconomic conditions, keeping up low unemployment, and making sure that inflation really is behind us. If you have a party that can do that while also delivering on the improvements in immigration that have taken place over the last year, that these are great of immigration and legal immigration in particular has fallen under Biden. I think one reason why Republicans aren’t in a stronger position right now is really they are running against the United States of 2021 and allowing Democrats to consolidate the gains that they’ve made in the last couple of years, putting a fresh face on those policies and moving with serious solutions to address the cost-of-living crisis. There’s no guarantees in politics, and there’s a lot that could go wrong. But those issues, I think, to make a real difference for the party.

MARTIN: OK. Let’s do the other thought exercise and say that Donald Trump is elected president again. What did the Democrats do then?

SHENK: So, one advantage that they’ll have is just the nature of the party in opposition, especially when that opposition, if you’re right about Donald Trump, and I think you are, if he’s coming into office with a team of bureaucrats behind them — who, behind him, who actually know how to get stuff done, it is basically inevitable that they will overreach and that will put Democrats in a really strong position to speak for, again, that middle ground of opinion, that on issues like immigration, not happy about what’s happened at the by the border under Biden, but also doesn’t want to go back to family separation, being able to point to the excesses of the Trump administration and making sure that they stake out a position, Democrats do, where they are speaking for those concerns for the majority of the country, as opposed to just assuming that whatever Donald Trump says, the maximally opposite position is always wrong, — is always right. And that if the electorate didn’t work out — if voters didn’t give us what we wanted this time, then the answer is ramping up on the lawfare pursuit of the Trump administration. You know, go after Trump illegalities when they’re justified, but make it clear to Americans that your concerns are their concerns and that your position meets them where they are.

MARTIN: Five years from now, what do you want to see? If we have a conversation about where the Democratic Party is, what do you want that conversation to be?

SHENK: A party that has moved beyond just the party of resistance and that has gone against this natural tendency to just further double down on making — on winning the suburbs to make up for losses with working class voters, yes, in rural America, but also increasingly with African American and Hispanic working class voters and cities where even if they’re not supporting Donald Trump, they’re not showing up at the polls. So, a party that has not just gone further down the road to this suburbanized gentrified coalition of opposition to whatever a Trumpified Republican Party is doing, but a party that has found its voice and reconnected with a broad swath of its former electorate.

MARTIN: Tim Shenk, thank you so much for speaking with us.

SHENK: Thank you so much for having me.