Democrats' disconnect with the working class paved GOP's path to victory

Often journalism is described as writing the first draft of history. But political science analysis is the second draft. As we think about Donald Trump's triumph and Kamala Harris's loss in the 2024 United States presidential election, the question is, what happened? And why?

There are both longer-term structural reasons explaining the rise of Trump and Trumpism, as well as short-term issues that are altering the composition of the US electorate.

Political scientists such as Walter Dean Burnham have talked about the concept of critical elections and realignments in American politics. At periodic points in US history, elections are so critical and so defining that they puncture the political equilibrium of politics.

They produce new governing coalitions and voting alignments among the electorate. In the United States, the country has seen the gradual unravelling of what initially was the 1930s New Deal, Democratic Party coalition consisting of the working-class unions, minorities, Catholic, Jews, and farmers.

Political realignment

That coalition was rebuilt in the 1960s and 1970s, transforming it after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade into the party of minority and abortion rights.

The cultural roots of Trumpism begin here, with first Richard Nixon in 1968 and then Ronald Reagan in 1980 running as the candidates opposed to the cultural revolution of the 1960s. They appealed to a forgotten white middle class and workers who felt ignored by the changes in society.

Moreover, during the 1970s and '80s, the US economy, which had been built around manufacturing and labour, was disrupted. More than 37 million manufacturing jobs disappeared, some because of outsourcing, some because of technology.

Workers, those without a college degree, or even a high school degree, who once were able to economically succeed and thrive now suddenly perceived themselves as the losers in an economy that was increasingly becoming high tech and service-oriented. Economic inequality during this era exploded to unprecedented levels, yet the Democrats abandoned class as an issue.

The Democratic Party under presidents Bill Clinton and eventually Barack Obama failed to speak to these individuals. They opted to restructure the Democratic Party around the college-educated elite, capable of doing economically well, with concerns less about paying the mortgage and more on post-material concerns such as identity politics.

When the 2008 recession hit, Obama made a strategic mistake. He and his administration opted to bail out the banks and not the homeowners and the working class. As a result, in 2016 Donald Trump made his appearance.

The rise of Trump

Trump argued that the Democrats did not care about the white working class, and the Republican Party similarly so.

Trump spoke to the fears and economic anxieties of many Americans who felt ignored. Yes, his message was widely seen as xenophobic and racist, but it tapped into the ethos of many Americans as he positioned himself as the alternative to mainstream politics.

Sexism in part doomed Hillary Clinton in 2016, but she had her own political failures, ultimately running a campaign full of missteps with a bad message and strategy.

Trump only lost in 2020 perhaps because of his mishandling of the pandemic, and the demands for political stability.

Democrats reassembled one more time the fading political coalition of their party behind President Joe Biden and narrowly beat Trump. But had 43,000 votes switched across the three swing states of Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin, Trump would have won again.

By the time we got to 2024, the failures of Biden and a Democratic Party were evident. Biden was a weakened president because of his age and his apparent cognitive failures.

Additionally, the structural inequality of the American economy that had been building for 50 years persisted. Many saw in the last four years the price of milk, bread, eggs and other necessities go up, and were struggling.

Even though the elites were proclaiming that Wall Street and the US economy were doing well, everyday people living on their own streets had trouble paying the rent or mortgage.

Meanwhile, shifting racial and demographic forces made some people feel uneasy, and cultural war extremism and the hyper media and informational fragmentation reinforced those feelings.

When Biden's failures became apparent and Harris replaced him, she was unable to fix the basic problems that he and the Democratic Party had laid before her. She was perhaps the wrong candidate with the wrong message and strategy, but perhaps no Democratic Party candidate was going to win this election.

No compelling strategy

Personally, she lacked a compelling narrative for why she should be president outside of perhaps that Trump was evil. She and the Democrats depended too much on abortion and reproductive rights as issues and ran a culturally elite campaign. Sexism and racism might partially explain her loss, but more happened.

The election results show the US has shifted to the right. Even women, while concerned about abortion, moved away from her because of economic insecurity issues.

Trump's hyper-masculine campaign certainly helped him bring male voters to his side, but underlying his message was one that appealed across races about how many individuals were still being forgotten.

While Harris never explicitly ran as a female mixed-race candidate, central to her campaign was her background, which carried a demographic message. But demographics are not destiny. Underlying economic forces and a sense of social alienation are powerful determinants of voting behaviour.

What resulted in this election is not a short-term, but a longer term critical structural realignment of the electorate. Democrats have lost the working class, including younger voters and many women who continue to worry about their economic status.

It remains unclear whether Republicans can also hold on to this segment of the electorate, depending on how the Trump administration addresses their concerns in the coming years.

But until such time as Democrats learn how to talk to these individuals - and appeal to them - they will continue to lose. Perhaps not by much, but still, they will lose.