Democrats’ “Tea Party” Moment
In 2010, a movement dubbed the Tea Party rocked Republican politics. As insurgent, sometimes reactionary primary candidates mounted — and sometimes even managed to pull off — primary campaigns against incumbents they deemed insufficiently conservative, the 2010 campaign season signaled the beginning of the GOP’s drift to the far reaches of the right.
Even though his party lost seats that cycle, then-President Obama made great political hay out of ridiculing the GOP as they abandoned the political center, and successfully parlayed that ridicule into a winning campaign message that staved off Mitt Romney and Republican congressional candidates in 2012.
Fast forward to today. Now, the shoe is on the other foot; it seems that the longer Donald Trump occupies the White House, the further and faster Democrats are fleeing the political center, essentially surrendering on economic and foreign policy issues to, instead, campaign on far-left solutions to a contemporary — but constantly shifting — slate of social issues like gun control, immigration and the Republican “war on women.”
The result has been the opening of a great chasm at the center of the American conversation, and in that chasm lies for the GOP great opportunity. As they gird for what’s certain to be a messy and nasty primary campaign and grasp for an effective message to deploy against emboldened opponents, Republican strategists, operatives and candidates would do well to focus on reseizing the American middle-right to capitalize on the Democrats’ collective abdication mainstream, bread-and-butter issues.
The truth is that there is very little left in the Democratic Party’s messaging or policy offerings that will appeal to so-called Reagan Democrat-type voters in the Midwest and in Appalachia come November. Over the years, these voters have see their local economies slow, their local industries suffer, their local communities and families struggle and their household incomes dwindle. Though they’ve traditionally voted for Democratic candidates, they’ve demonstrated an ability and willingness in recent years to vote for a Republican when that Republican has the right kind of jobs-and-families first economic appeal.
These are the voters who will decide the fate of candidates for statewide office in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Missouri, and while they’ve supported Democrats Tammy Baldwin, Debbie Stabenow, Joe Donnelly, Sherrod Brown and Claire McCaskill in the past, the Democrats’ collective abandonment of the political center presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Republicans to win them over by appealing to their economic sensibilities and speaking directly to the breakdowns that have hampered their communities and families.
The Republicans would be abetted in this undertaking by the fact that the Democrats’ national image stands to take something of a beating over the next few months as the country heads into primary season. The Democratic Party has, for years now, slowly but surely been moving away from the plainspoken, folksy relatability of politicians like Joe Biden and toward the left-wing, bomb throwing politics of outspoken culture war liberals like Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. Now, California Senator and liberal icon Dianne Feinstein is fending off a primary challenge from the left by State Senate Leader Kevin de Leon, and the California Democratic Party just last month dealt a blow to her campaign by declining to endorse her for a fifth term. Meanwhile, Chelsea Manning — who in 2010 leaked thousands of classified documents to wikileaks and spent seven years in prison before her sentence was commuted by Barack Obama — is running for U.S. Senate in Maryland on an unabashedly far left platform that’s likely more radical than any other in the country.
This massive lurch to the far left and the black eyes it will leave on the Democratic Party throughout 2018 gives Republicans across the country — and especially in Midwestern and Appalachian states — a golden opportunity to reclaim the discussion with a message and set of policies that addresses everyday voters’ most immediate concerns: safety, security and stability. That means a good paying job, a fair wage, and the opportunity to raise their family and pursue their American dream.
In a tough year, the Democrats’ leftward drift presents a real opportunity for Republicans — and if they’re smart, it’s one they will not miss.
