The billionaire who took a photo at McDonald’s frying potatoes because he never had grease on his hands is the one who won a good portion of the American working class vote. Kamala Harris’ lopsided defeat by Donald Trump has confronted Democrats with a difficult reality to digest: They no longer have a connection to the ordinary peopleas Pulp would say. Or, as Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of the party’s most left-leaning voices, put it: “We shouldn’t be too surprised when a Democratic Party that has abandoned the working class discovers that the working class has abandoned it.” gave up. »
Trump returns to the White House thanks to the vote of Latino and low-income men. The percentage of votes that Democrats received among the working and working classes in this election was the worst in 20 years. Among voters from households with incomes below $30,000, they obtained 51% (compared to 65% in 2008 with Obama) and among those with incomes of $30,000 and $50,000, they obtained only 46 %, while the Republicans obtained 51%. On the other hand, for incomes above $100,000, the voting percentage was 52%.
“While Democratic leaders defend status quo“The American people are angry and want change,” Sanders wrote in his statement in reference to the Democrats’ inability to provide solutions to North American society. The clumsiness of the Joe Biden administration in transferring the right macroeconomic indicators to voters’ baskets was a determining element. The feeling that the economy was worse translated into 39% of voters deciding to vote based on the economy.
The loss of the blue wall states, in the industrial belt, shows once again that the working class is seeking change because of the feeling that its situation has become worse. The people of this region, who saw the region’s prosperity disappear in the early 2000s with globalization and corporate relocation, once again elected Trump. The Republican repeated the feat of 2016 and managed to win all three Swing States: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. He won all three by a margin of 250,000 votes over Harris.
The party realized that it was disconnected from the basics and this is what we must learn now
“I think that in the case of the Democratic campaign at the national level, we did not have a clear answer to the question of the economic situation, particularly that of the populations most affected. The answer was economic growth and low unemployment, but ultimately daily costs remained very high, impacted by inflation,” Luis Ávila, who leads various organizations in Arizona with the Latino community and has worked on Obama’s campaign in 2008. However, Ávila also points out that the problem goes beyond Harris – “she was a great candidate with the little time she had” – and the legacy of the Biden administration: ” THE party realized that it was disconnected from the basics and that is what we must learn now.
Another aspect that Ávila highlights about Democrats is the “complexity” when it comes to addressing communities. “Democrats must learn, like all of us who work in community organizations, to communicate in a simpler and more direct way with the population. We have to make them understand that we are also warriors and that we are going to fight for them, and not just that we are going to think for them,” he says.
Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton made a similar reflection on the defeat this Friday on the GBH network: “I think the Democrats, as a party, spend too much time lecturing, being condescending to the people, to denigrate them and tell them what they need, what they want. they want to, instead of just take to the streets and listen to ordinary Americans.
The idea of “thinking for them”, to which Ávila refers, is precisely one of the reasons for the disenchantment of Bianca Gracia, the founder of Latinos for Trump, with the Democrats. “For 17 years I was a Democrat, but I was tired. The Democrats have infantilized the Hispanic community, as if we were stupider than the others because we are Latino,” Gracia explained to elDiario.es two weeks before the elections.
A “divide” in the Latino community
One group of voters among whom Trump has gained support, at the expense of Democrats, are Latinos. Just as Trump has managed to gain traction among white workers since 2016, he is now starting to make inroads among Latino men. In 2020, Biden received 59% of the vote from Latino men, while Harris received only 44%. The change in trend is pronounced and for Ávila it is linked to two facts: fear and broken promises.
“Latinos are a younger group than the rest of the American population and many do not remember living under Trump. In the case of Arizona, some did not live under the leadership of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who developed a reputation as an immigrant hunter. If Trump dehumanizes and fuels hatred against immigrant communities, people who are not immigrants and who are Latino will want to separate themselves from this group so as not to also be at the center of the hatred and harassment they will experience in the future. coming months,” he explains. Avila. In counties where more than 20% of voting-age Americans were Hispanic, Trump’s margin over Harris improved by 13 points from 2020, according to Reuters .
If Trump dehumanizes and fuels hatred against migrant communities, people who are not immigrants and who are Latino will want to separate themselves from this group so as not to also be the focus of hatred.
Latinos’ approach to the tycoon is not only explained by the Republican message, but also by the disaffection towards Democrats that has been brewing for years. “Immigration reform is the most emotional policy for Latinos. This is something that Democrats campaigned on, and I included myself because I was promising communities that we were going to elect people, that we were going to advance immigration policies that were friendly to our community. We elected Obama in 2008, with a majority in Congress, and he has not prioritized or advanced the immigration reforms we promised the community. In 2012, they lost the majority and the historic opportunity to make a radical change in the immigration system and from then on, we were used as Indian pigs for the political assets of the parties,” laments- he.
If we superimpose the evolution of Latino support for the Democrats with the chronology exposed by Ávila, we can see how in 2008 67% of the Latino vote went to the Democrats, reaching its maximum in 2012 with 71%, and from there it decreased to the current level. 53%. This figure is still higher than the 45% obtained by Trump. For Ávila, “if Democrats want to regain the favor and support of Latino communities, they must understand that the issue of immigration may not be a priority issue, but it is an emotional issue that impacts our families.”
On the growing rise in Latino support for Trump, Ávila remarked: “The problem is that some of the alliances we’ve had in other years between Latinos who didn’t live under Trump, who do not have the historical memory of Trump, have been broken by what happened in migrant communities and they are willing to take this risk because they do not know what the consequences may be. It is a moment of truth in which the Latin American community fractures or understands itself and talks again about what we want in this world, in this country.
The little more than 90 days Harris had as candidate didn’t leave much room to deal with a problem rooted in the party’s very existence. The vice president assumed the nomination, inheriting the low popularity of Biden, who had the worst rating since World War II as president, and still managed to beat the polls. Some members of the Democratic Party also highlight the president’s stubbornness in wanting to hang on to the candidacy until the last moment. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who played a key role in Biden’s resignation, lamented the tempos In an interview in New York Times: “If the president had left earlier, there could have been other candidates in the running. »
