It is happening…again…
-The Giant, Twin Peaks
Democrats suffered a historic national defeat in the 2024 election. In response, rather than conducting a sober analysis of what went wrong, some Democrats have begun punching down, blaming the people who had the least control over the outcome and have the most to lose from it.
Donald Trump won the popular vote against Kamala Harris (the first time a Republican has done so in decades) on top of his 312-226 electoral college victory, while Republicans took full control of Congress. Trump will have free rein to reverse all of the Biden Administration’s executive actions, fill the federal judiciary with conservative judges, pass legislation, and use the vast instruments of American executive power to his own ends—he has promised to start with the largest mass deportation in US history.
For Democrats, this was not only devastating politically, but emotionally. The 2024 election struck at the heart of many Democrats’ bedrock assumptions about American politics. Donald Trump was supposed to be finished after the 2020 election, even more so after January 6th, and beyond any doubt after his string of indictments. “Our long national nightmare is over,” declared a litany of commentators after Biden’s inauguration (quoting President Gerald Ford’s speech following President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974). Instead, Trump won his biggest victory ever, undermining Democrats’ deeply-held faith that American institutions would never let such a figure back into power. And, for good measure, for the second time he dashed the hopes of those who looked forward to seeing the first woman president.
Democrats are well aware that the way a party metabolizes such defeats will define how that party will move forward. Thus, the takes have flown. Many have called the outcome inevitable, arguing that there are no meaningful lessons to be had (and, therefore, Democratic consultants and party apparatchiks should keep their jobs). Others have argued that, had the party simply focused on my particular pet issue, the outcome would have been different. Still others have argued that the outcome reflects the deeply ingrained racism and sexism of a country that simply cannot accept a woman of color as president under any circumstances.
These explanations are all flawed to some extent. But some have offered a much more insidious take: blaming trans kids.
Several prominent Democrats have argued that the reason they lost was that they “pandered to the far left” by defending trans rights, particularly the rights of trans children. Republicans certainly exploited this issue, pouring around $200 million into ads hammering Democrats on being “out-of-touch” on this issue (as anyone in Ohio, subjected to Bernie Moreno’s onslaught, can attest). After the election, Democratic Congressmen Seth Moulton and Tom Suozzi, for example, both argued this was one of the reasons Democrats lost (the latter said “I don’t want to discriminate against anybody, but I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports.”). On November 6th, Matt Yglesias, a prominent center-left columnist, posted a widely-shared set of “principles for Common Sense Democrats”, which included “While race is a social construct, biological sex is not.” New York Times opinion writer Pamela Paul echoed this line, declaring “On Transgender Issues, Voters Want Common Sense” and praising Moulton and Suozzi for their “nuanced and humane” criticism of gender-affirming care.
The biggest problem with this argument is its fundamental nastiness. The trans community stands to lose about as much as any other group from the outcome of this election, as Republicans aim to restrict gender-affirming care and further crack down on trans rights. Not only is it cruel to blame them for this outcome, but it also legitimizes right-wing attacks on the LGBTQ community, turning “trans panic” from a partisan issue into a mainstream opinion.
It’s also just incorrect. There is little evidence to suggest that Republicans campaigning on trans issues had any meaningful effect on the outcome. While the American electorate has complicated opinions on trans rights, polls have shown that a majority of voters are less likely to support a Republican who focuses on the issue. Compared to issues like inflation, immigration, abortion, and democracy, trans rights barely registered as a motivating factor in voters’ decisions. If anything, focusing so much time and money into trans issues may have hurt Republicans, as it took the focus away from their best issue—inflation.
Three examples are illustrative. First, take Colin Allred, the Democratic Senate candidate running against Texas Senator Ted Cruz in 2024. Like most Democrats, Allred was hit with attacks over “biological men in girls’ sports.” Most Democrats just ignored these attacks, but Allred responded with an ad where he stated “Let me be clear: I don’t want boys playing girls’ sports, or any of this ridiculous stuff Ted Cruz is saying.” Polling averages showed Cruz ahead of Allred by four points; Cruz ended up winning by nine.
By contrast, take Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. Beshear won the Kentucky governorship in 2019 as a Democrat, despite Kentucky being an overwhelmingly Republican state. In 2020, Beshear took a photo with a group of drag queens at an LGBTQ rights rally at the state capital building. A Republican politician attacked him for it, claiming he was corrupting the values of children. Rather than apologizing for taking the photo, he demanded that the Republican apologize, called his remarks “homophobic,” and added that the drag queens “are as much Kentuckians as anyone else.” Beshear went on to win reelection in 2023 (in a state which then voted for Trump by more than 30%).
Finally, here’s an even more relevant example. One of the main reasons Kamala Harris chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for Vice President was Walz’s brilliant run of media appearances in July deriding Republicans as “weird.” Rather than conceding that Republicans represent “mainstream” or “common sense” opinions on culture war issues, Walz framed Republicans’ obsession with women’s bodies and children’s genitals as bizarre and out of touch. Republicans were thrown on the defensive, Walz’s approval ratings shot up, and the Harris campaign saw a boost of momentum once he was selected as her running mate. After the convention, though, “weird” was put on the shelf, and the polls began trending toward Trump.
I won’t go so far as to say that campaigning on LGBTQ rights guarantees victory—far from it. But by conceding the issue altogether, Democrats gain nothing, put themselves on the defensive, lose the moral high ground, and make it easier to attack an already extremely vulnerable community.
Unfortunately, this was to be expected. When Democrats face a political setback, they often punch down. “Men in girls’ sports” has become the new “defund the police”—a handy way to scapegoat a vulnerable group which, ironically, had very little say over the party’s strategy (can you recall a single moment when Kamala Harris even mentioned trans rights in 2024? Or Joe Biden called for defunding the police in 2020?).
This is a useful strategy. Democrats can avoid answering tough questions about why they spent years willfully ignoring President Biden’s obvious signs of cognitive decline—indeed, claiming that anyone who pointed them out secretly wanted Trump to win. Or why, after getting the chance to redefine the race around a new candidate, that candidate failed to offer a single reason why she would be different from Biden (under whom an overwhelming majority of Americans felt the country was moving in the wrong direction). Or why, as millions of voters were furious over Biden’s unconditional support for Israel’s war on Palestine, Democrats refused to let a single Palestinian-American speak at the Democratic National Convention or even entertain the possibility of limiting arms shipments to Israel. Or why Kamala Harris campaigned more with Liz Cheney, an extremely unpopular conservative Republican who applauded the Dobbs decision and whose father left office as Vice President with a 13% approval rating, than with United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, one of the most effective leaders the American working class has seen in decades.
This was always going to be a tough campaign for Democrats. Biden’s historic unpopularity, persistent economic hardship, and a general feeling of malaise presented significant headwinds. Indeed, in nearly every major country that has had an election this year, the incumbent party has lost votes.
But that should not obscure the fact that the Democratic party, and its candidates, made mistakes. Indeed, even if one considers the presidential outcome to have been inevitable, given the razor-thin margin in the House, it was certainly not inevitable that Republicans would control Congress.
How the party reckons with the defeat of 2024 will, indeed, define how it moves forward. Blaming trans kids for the outcome sends a troubling sign. Not only that the party may abandon its support (however muted and insufficient) for the LGBTQ community, but that the party will fail to ask the important questions about its own mistakes. If it fails to do so, in four years Democrats may well be in the exact same position, having the exact same arguments.
Citations
Kommentare