Hard-Hit Democratic Party Must Broaden Its Niche, in the Right Direction

by Brian Czech

We are in a brave new world, with an authoritarian as American president, a Senate ruled by his party, and a Supreme Court sidled up to them. This is a crushing defeat for the Democratic Party, immigrants, environmentalists, and women knocking on the glass ceiling. And it is truly bad for anyone concerned about their kids and grandkids, whether they know it or not.

The problem is not so much that our political leadership is Republican, conservative, or on “the right.” Rather, we are entering the most relentless, voracious pro-growth political cycle of all time. With Donald Trump at the helm, it’s going to be “drill baby drill,” literally and figuratively. He and his congressional cronies will pull out all the stops—environmental, social, and political—for the sake of GDP growth. We will be witnessing the phenomenon of “uneconomic growth,” or growth at all costs.

This is a time for deep reflection among Democrats. They will be tempted to wring their hands for days on end and blame Republicans for evoking racist, sexist, and nationalist instincts for the sake of winning an election. Perhaps a more productive response would be self-assessment. Why were Dems unable to obviate those negative instincts? Have they lost touch with their neighbors?

Following such self-assessment, the next thing for Democrats to consider is how they might right their sinking ship. In my opinion, the answer is going to be quite ironic: Democrats should turn to the purest, truist sense of conservatism, which the Republican Party has just as ironically forfeited. I’m referring to conservation, essentially the antithesis of uneconomic growth. Done correctly—communicated correctly—conservation is the path to reclaiming territory in that vast swath of red on the political map.

But let’s start with the self assessment…

Threats to American Culture: Real or Perceived

Given our brave new world, let us wrestle with reality, and damn the torpedoes of political correctness. Let’s face up to the key trends that scare so many Americans into voting for an authoritarian ruler, who they hope will protect them from these trends. Without further ado, we find at least four:

• Gayness
• Transgenderism
• “Latinxation”
• Muslimization

None of these trends are addressed in the exit polls of the mainstream media. While the gay vote is counted, for example, pollsters don’t ask voters how increasing gayness impacts their voting or their party affiliation. Even noting these trends, I suppose, is not for the politically squeamish.

Before wading into these political rapids, let’s make one thing perfectly clear: No one has to be opposed to, repelled by, or in any way against gays, transgender people, Latinos, or Muslims in order to recognize their increasing presence and the political implications thereof. Every single member of Homo sapiens in the United States has rights that must be respected pursuant to the American Constitution. And, for that 70% of Americans who identify as Christian, gays, transgender people, Latinos, and Muslims are supposed to be loved as one’s self. In fact, all others are supposed to be loved thusly (a calling which is not for theological lightweights).

Yet it might help Democrats, politically if nothing else, to empathize as well with Americans who have concerns about the trends listed above. Let’s start with gayness and transgenderism, which are often lumped under the “LGBTQ” label. The percentage of LGBTQ Americans has doubled in a mere dozen years. This apparent demographic explosion probably reflects more of an openness—a “coming out”—than an actual doubling. No one knows for sure. All we know is that the LGBTQ cohort has become prevalent enough in American society that it is impossible to miss, with its colorful flag and penchant for advertising.

At issue here is not the “rightness” or “wrongness” (if there is such a thing) of gayness or transgenderism. Rather, the salient point is that very many Americans are uncomfortable with LGBTQ trends. This discomfort, too, is trending, and the trend is surprisingly pronounced among younger Americans, especially young females.

Another key point is that the LGBTQ demographic is inextricably linked to the Democratic Party, fairly or not. The Trump campaign reminded us of that in spades just prior to Election Day.

“Latinxation,” meanwhile, is a term coined here because “Latinization” is already taken (as a historic term pertaining to the spread of classic Latin and the Roman Catholic Church). Latinxation, then, builds upon the pan-Latino term “Latinx” and simply means the increasing proportion of Latinos in the United States. The relevance of this trend in presidential politics is obvious, with Trump’s Latino bashing and brash promises to wall off the southern border and deport immigrants.

Trump’s loathsome rhetoric notwithstanding, let us persist with our empathizing, and with Political Science 101. The fact is, “When the supply of workers goes up, the price that firms have to pay to hire workers goes down.” That’s about as basic as economics can get. As the esteemed labor economist who wrote those words (George Borjas) elaborated, the economic implications are not all bad for the country. However, the bad part is almost all felt—and keenly so—by blue-collar workers and their spouses. That pretty much puts the blue-collar vote on Republican autopilot.

Next, for those who fear cultural change, Muslimization is probably the biggest boogeyman of them all, for at least three reasons. First is the sheer math, as Islam will likely become the second-largest religion in the United States by 2040. Second is the visibility of Muslims, the garb of whom accentuates their cultural distinctiveness. Third is the stridency of anti-Semitism and anti-Christianity in politically Islamic regions of the world (from which many American Muslims have emigrated). And, once again, we find that Muslim interests have tended to manifest primarily in the Democratic Party.

I am reminded of the Green Party of the United States, whose leftward stance on every issue that comes along has boxed them into a tiny corner of the political arena, seldom to be heard, much less seen or felt. They’ve meant well, but they can’t do much about it.

Political vs. Economic Growth

None of this is to suggest that the Democratic Party should abandon its principled support for disadvantaged folk who may otherwise be subjected to gay bashing, gender shaming, racism, or Islamophobia. The problem is, principled support is too easy to portray as foolishness. The Democratic Party won’t get anywhere by doubling down on its 2024 political strategy, nor by sitting idly by while the Republicans frame them as another left-at-all-costs party. If it wants to return to power, it must develop a broader niche than the one it has endangered itself with.

In other words, the Democratic Party needs to grow politically, but it needs smart growth. It needs the right voting blocs; not just any new ones it can tap into. It needs to reclaim some of the political middle.

Most of all, the Democratic Party needs cultural repair and maintenance. While it can defend LGBTQ rights, in a court of law when necessary, it doesn’t have to proactively host pride parades. It can defend a sensible migration policy—which clearly includes moderate levels of Latino entry—and slowly but surely reclaim the moral and political high ground on immigration. It can thoughtfully defend Muslims from religious persecution without unwittingly taking on the “Party of Islam” label Republicans have tried to pin on it.

It is crucial that the Democratic Party take these measured, eminently sane approaches to the hot-button issues with candid transparency and utmost honesty, even when inconvenienced by the truth. Dems have too often dabbled in win-win rhetoric that just doesn’t resonate with the voting public. Take, for example, “there is no conflict between growing the economy and protecting the environment,” a central message dating back to the early 1990s. This see-through rhetoric (somewhat dampened now, but not yet dismissed) was the beginning of the end for the Clintonian campaigns, including those of Al Gore and Hilary Clinton. It identified the Democratic Party as sneaky, playing loose with the truth, and willing to issue pie-in-the-sky proclamations to persuade voters that they could have their cake and eat it too, as long as the Clintonian candidate was elected.

Conservation Could Be the Cure

What if the Clintonians had said, instead, “We fully realize that there is a natural tension between economic activity and environmental protection. We need jobs, but we also must protect the environment if we care about our kids and our grandkids, including their economic opportunities. So, we can’t keep pushing for the rapid rates of GDP growth our parents had in those decades after World War II. Look around; our resources are stressed. It’s so obvious. Water, soil, forests, rangeland, minerals… land itself is getting scarce and expensive. Then there’s the pollution that comes with all this economic activity, along with endangered species and biodiversity loss. But, it’s not all doom and gloom! Our population is starting to stabilize, so there is plenty of hope for a healthy environment. The thing is, it’s not enough to have a stable population; we also have to stabilize the size of the economy, the amount we produce and consume. That’s how we’ll maintain a sustainable economy—a steady state economy—along with a balance of nature and the resources our children will need.”

Such a speech can’t come out of nowhere, like a cloud of political magic dust. Not if we expect it to be politically impactful. For substantial impact, the speech must be delivered from the right place, by the right person, at the right time. The right time for such a delivery is toward the end of an economically stable political cycle, when the majority is generally satisfied with standards of living and not desperate to “drill baby drill.” The right person is a high-level politician; ideally a presidential candidate with a massive and captive audience. The right place is a campaign stage or, ideally, a presidential debate.

Imagine if Bill Clinton or Al Gore had uttered such a truth toward the end of Clinton’s second term. We might be living in a very different world today. Audiences would have exclaimed, “Wow! He actually told it like it is! We can’t have our cake and eat it too. Of course not! And I do care about my kids; I do care about my grandkids. This is unbelievably cool. I’m going to vote for this guy and be part of that steady state economy he talked about.”

Now you may think me a political neophyte, but I wonder how many others—in the middle of Bill Clinton’s second term—were conducting a nationwide poll on American attitudes toward democracy, economic growth, property rights, resources for posterity, and species conservation. None that I know of. But mine, which was published in Society and Natural Resources (and included in my first book), was an eye opener.

Guess which of those esteemed institutions (from economic growth through species conservation) ranked highest? If you guessed democracy, economic growth, or property rights, you were wrong. Resources for posterity ranked highest, with plenty of statistical significance. Americans really did—and do I suspect—care strongly about their kids and grandkids.

Now guess which one ranked lowest. If you guessed species conservation, property rights, or democracy, you were wrong again! Economic growth sunk to the bottom of the barrel. The Clintonian campaign team—Al Gore included—was either uninformed, unbelieving, or unwise in scraping that barrel bottom so hard to court voters with economic growth. They stuck with the win-win rhetoric, losing with Gore and later with Hilary, who never gave up on the win-win gimmick.

So, if Clinton (campaigning for Gore) or Gore himself had delivered such a speech circa 1998-2000, Gore probably would have been elected. In other words, George W. Bush would not have been elected by the hanging chads. The United States would be party to the Paris Accords and the Convention in Biological Diversity. The “American way of life” of Bush the elder would have evolved into “caring for creation” (for Christians) or a secular “conserving for the kids.” Instead, in 2020, Gore delivered his “Win-Win Speech” on the Washington Mall—on Earth Day no less (as described in Supply Shock)—and the rest is history, haunting us to this day.

The Democratic Party doesn’t have to couch its ecological economics in explicit terms of “limits to growth” if that causes too much angst. To put it in more positive terms, without resorting to win-win lies, the Dems can put it in terms of conservation. True conservation, that is, not the con-man conservation of having our environmental cake while eating it too for the sake of GDP growth. True conservation is guaranteed to broaden the Democratic Party niche by resonating loudly with farmers, loggers, ranchers, miners, commercial fishermen, and all who deal every day with limited natural resources.

True conservation will also resonate with all those who recoil at the sight of high-wattage lights left on all night in empty office buildings. It will resonate with those who despise the conspicuous consumption of the frequent-flying, mansion-residing, self-indulgent CEOs. That ironically red, blue-collar class will come off auto-pilot, after all, and realize that the Republican Party with its Big Money operatives has less in common with them than a down-to-Earth, truth-telling Democratic Party that wants to save electricity, water, soil, land, and jobs.

By reclaiming the root word “conserve,” Democrats can handily point out the ironic liberalism practiced by the conservatives-in-name-only, or CINOs. The CINOs want to liberalize drilling, all the way into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. CINOs blather about making America great again, while their neoliberal economic policies allow for the razing of our great American landscapes. CINOs are economic liberals on steroids: neoliberals who’d sell the American soul for the sake of GDP growth.

The Democratic Party has a much better chance than the Republican Party of freeing itself from the clutches of Big Money lobbyists and financiers. It could claim the best of the “conservative” label—the root word conserve—with true conservation. The key is to overcome its obsession with GDP growth—to leave that dubious distinction with the Republican Party—and to recognize that the 21st century brings with it a longing for stability, security, and a steady state economy.

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Brian Czech is Executive Director of CASSE.