Republican and Democratic Party pins are displayed at a venue as guests watch a television broadcast of U.S. elections.
Chan Long Hei/AP
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Chan Long Hei/AP
Republican and Democratic Party pins are displayed at a venue as guests watch a television broadcast of U.S. elections.
Chan Long Hei/AP
Since Donald Trump won the presidency last week, Democrats have been pointing fingers, laying blame and second-guessing themselves.
Crucial Blue Wall states went red. Democrats have no obvious leader. And many of the voter groups the party relied on shifted to the right last week.
All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro talked with three political strategists who have different ideas on the future of the party:
- Paula Begala, who worked on the Bill Clinton campaign and in the administration as a White House advisor.
- Adrianne Shropshire, the executive director and founder of the political action committee BlackPAC.
- Waleed Shahid, a senior advisor to the Uncommitted Movement.
From the economy to foreign policy, the three of them have different perspectives on how Democrats can regroup.
They’re all looking ahead and asking: Where does the party go from here?
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Appealing to middle class voters
The economy was one issue at the top of voters’ minds this election cycle.
And to Begala, Democrats’ loss last week is a clear call to action. “Democrats have got to rebuild their connection to the working class,” he says. “It is the most heartbreaking result of this election…that the Democrats lost the middle class”
Shropshire warns it may not be that simple, and the party shouldn’t lean too much on the economy. Democrats lost some parts of the working class, she says, but other parts remained supportive of the party. “There is some party building that actually needs to take place,” she says. “I think the Democratic Party actually doesn’t understand its base.”
She points to abortion rights as an example. Trump — whose Supreme Court appointments led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade — won several states that also passed abortion protection measures. “That’s not economic anxiety,” Shropshire argues.
Shahid says Democrats need to strike a compromise on multiple issues if they want to win back middle class voters. He says they need to deliver economic gains for workers while not shying away from other topics like rights for transgender people.
“Americans learned about a new pronoun a few years ago and no one is talking to them about they/them pronouns except the Republicans,” he says.
“We need to do the same thing that we did in the struggle for gay rights, which is fight these battles and persuade not just in election season, but in the years before election season. And I think we lost to the oldest playbook in human history, which is divide and conquer.”
How the party moves forward
The last time Democrats were deep in the political wilderness, Bill Clinton won the presidency by focusing on the economy and appealing to center voters. Will the same tactic work for Democrats this time around?
To Begala, it all comes down to the middle class, and distancing Democrats from the extremes of the political spectrum. “[Voters] think the Democrats are the more extremist party. And that makes my head want to explode.”
Shropshire doesn’t think the old playbook will work for Democrats again. “We’re in a fundamentally different world than we were then,” she says.
“We have to address the issues that are fundamentally dividing Americans. And that is not just the economy…We are incapable, unable or unwilling to address the sort of central issues that have created our inability to get to a more perfect union. And that is absolutely racism.”
To Shahid, Democrats will need to tackle a much wider range of issues than just the economy to regain control of the government.
“We do need to be able to speak to Americans to the mood that they’re in. And the mood that they’re in today is one of change, one of wanting to understand the cultural changes that are happening in the country around race and gender and sexuality. And also their pocketbooks, their pocketbooks are empty. Things cost too much. And so we need to do all of the things.”
This episode was produced by Alejandra Marquez Janse and Connor Donevan. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.
