INDIANAPOLIS — Robert James stood outside the Carrier plant just before the president-elect addressed workers at the refrigeration and heating assembly factory.
“I feel a great swing of emotions that go from disbelief to satisfaction that this is happening in our community. An area like this can go from a stable middle-class area to foreclosures and urban blight in the blink of an eye,” he said.
James would never dream of voting Republican: “For all of my life the Democrats have been the party of the working guy, had my back. But if I am being really honest, and this is tough to admit, but I can’t remember the last time they did anything to improve the dignity and value of my job” — a point that didn’t really crystallize for him until it became personal: until his job was saved. By a Republican.
James, wearing a United Steelworkers jacket on a brisk afternoon, was in no way saying he’s found political religion in the Republicans. But the 57-year-old, African-American longtime Carrier employee did share the sentiment of many of his co-workers, Democrats who didn’t vote for Trump but felt their party was disconnected from their lives.
What is astounding, post-election, is the total lack of contrition Democrats have displayed for ignoring the workingman and -woman bloc that has been the party’s horn of plenty. The only regret they display is that they lost the election, not the voters.
What Democrats, academics and pundits keep refusing to see is that the loss was never about Trump’s candidacy; it was all about how Democrats have increasingly lost touch with their voters outside of coastal America — until those voters finally hit their breaking point.
“The Democratic Party has become a coastal elitist club and if there is any decision or discussion made to broaden that within the ranks, it is squashed,” said Dane Strother, a legendary Washington, DC-based Democratic strategist.
“We have completely lost touch with Middle America,” he admits. “How did we go from the party of the little man to the party of the elite?” Then he answers: “Yes, we rightfully should protect the rights of minorities, African-Americans, Hispanics, the LBGTQ communities and we always should — but we can’t forget the rest of the country along the way.”
But more and more, that’s what they did, starting at the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency. Al Gore didn’t remember. Nor John Kerry. Barack Obama was likable, charismatic and symbolic and so got a lot of votes. But many two-time Obama supporters went for Trump.
Back in 2002, Strother recalls, Texas Democrats thought they’d figured out the perfect slate to break the Republican stranglehold on statewide elected offices. “The ticket had a former black mayor of Dallas, a wealthy Hispanic businessman and a moderate white politician. We called it the Texas ‘dream team,’ and they were recruited to appeal to liberals, progressives and the state’s growing minority population.”
Oops: “We got our asses kicked.” The GOP carried every statewide office by even bigger margins.
Post-election analysis debunked the racial assumptions behind that progressive slate. The “dream team” was attractive to black and brown voters, but their turnout was still below expectations, and the message didn’t promise any tangible benefits to other voters.
“We kept waiting for the white working class to just show up, but we didn’t give them any reason to,” he said, adding that Democrats can’t just be the party that simply waits for minorities to become the majority.
Tuesday, a Politico/Morning Consult poll confirmed what Strother knows in his gut: Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s deal last week with Carrier is wildly popular with the voters. The poll showed Democrats, Republicans and independents heavily viewed Trump’s negotiations with Carrier as an appropriate use of presidential prerogative.
And a majority of Americans say the Carrier deal gives them a more favorable view of Trump. “It was magnificent, brilliant theater, and who gives a damn if he can’t replicate that everywhere?” Strother said.
“The fact that my fellow Democrats don’t get that has more to do with denial problems or the fact that they weren’t up there doing it themselves.”
How do Democrats get out of this mess? Shake the Etch A Sketch a lot, Strother says. “Don’t have the same three consulting teams all working for all of the Democratic committees,” he said: Having Planned Parenthood, AFSCME and Emily’s List centralized as the face, message and dispatch for everything that the party does isn’t working.
“What is the path out? I don’t know, but it ain’t this way. We have been walking down a shell path; we need to find some asphalt, quick.”
Eight blocks away at the Paragon restaurant, Walter Hart, the longtime assistant manager and a Democrat who didn’t vote for Trump, is willing to give him a second look. “I’d like to see the Democrats talk about the economy the way he does. I don’t care for half of the things he says, but on things like this, on shaking things up, you bet I do.”