Harris’s task of self-definition

Fifty-nine days to go….

As the national political center moved to the right in the 1980s, with the ideological consolidation of the Republican Party around a group of conservative ideas, the Democratic Party was forced to reckon with this development.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the two Democratic presidents of the period after Reagan and before Donald Trump, both recognized they would have to court the political center.  Clinton tightened restrictions on welfare by a variety of measures including limiting the amount of federal funds available to welfare recipients.  Obama came down firmly on illegal immigration and was less stringent than progressives of his party would have wished with regard to fossil fuels. His success passing the Affordable Care Act – making health insurance available to many more people – was a milestone for government action to help the disadvantaged, though, again, progressives wanted Obama to go further and make health insurance available to all. 

Secondly, we saw in the 1990s a new tilt towards “identity politics.”  As Democrats pursued civil rights and inclusion for blacks and immigrants, identity became a way to mobilize groups that had experienced systematic oppression.  In the minds of its critics this new discourse became extreme, privileging the issue of the rights of identity groups over the general cause of addressing economic concerns. The left soon applied the language of civil rights and identity to homosexuals in the military, gay marriage, and gay rights more generally.  This theme was followed by a crusade for the rights of transgender people, creating dilemmas for people who wanted to be tolerant but who also felt that gender change was taking up too much of the political space for the numbers of people affected.   Those on the right of the political spectrum would now say that morality has become, for the left, a matter of choice, and in the process, the moral order of the country has been compromised.  Those on the left would respond that justice is the essential value of their moral order.

A third feature of the emerging Democratic Party after Reagan was its growing correlation with the college educated population. The Democrats, whose numbers of college graduates have steadily grown in comparison with stagnating numbers of college graduates in the Republican Party, are looking more and more like a self-perpetuating privileged class who get the university teaching jobs and prevail in journalism and the civil service.  This group has been able to influence the national conversation about many issues, skewing the discourse towards their own preoccupations, and leaving those of a conservative mindset feeling ignored. At the same time, left-wing populists like Bernie Sanders have criticized the Democratic leadership for giving in to the interests of the corporate world.  Anyone trying to lead the Democrats has to weave their way through all of this.

Several other factors have contributed to the polarization of the two main parties in the past forty years.

First, the rescinding of what is known as the “fairness doctrine,” by the Reagan administration in 1987.  This Federal Communications Commission doctrine set a standard for broadcast licenses, requiring those holding licenses to devote some broadcast time to controversial issues and to cover both sides of the debate.  The doctrine’s removal meant that broadcasters could concentrate their message on one political party’s outlook.

Secondly, the economic situation of the high-school educated lower middle class worsened in recent decades, thanks to the growing tech economy and corporations’ choice to send manufacturing jobs overseas, devastating areas in the center of the country that had long survived on these jobs.  Statistics from 2017 show men dying by suicide 3.5 times more than women, with middle aged white men being a particularly susceptible group. according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.  The loss of dignity and meaning linked with traditional jobs, coupled with the awareness that soon white people will be a minority in the country, have created alienation and anger.

While college educated Democrats in government believe they are using their privileged positions to encourage resource distribution and a more just moral order, those who might gain by such resource distribution are easily convinced by suggestions they are  not part of the decision-making process, that the deciders do not know about their lives, and the deciders are more interested in promoting their own positions.These have been the themes of Donald Trump’s populism, which feeds on discontent and argues the government has been hijacked by self-serving elites who are alien to the people whose interests they are supposed to represent.

Donald Trump’s strategy to dismiss Harris will be, inevitably, to try to characterize her as a member of the elite, perilously liberal, inept in the face of immigration problems, and tied at the hip with President Biden.

Can Harris define herself in a way that side-step’s Trump’s accusations, and convinces independents that she truly represents a new way forward? Can she demonstrate that she puts the interests of working persons ahead of elitist concerns?  Can she do this while at the same time spearheading a campaign to protect reproductive rights and marriage equality?  Can she challenge large corporations that resist climate policy and have capitalized on inflation to keep prices high, and at the same time keep big donors on board? Can she offer a meaningful container for Americans of all backgrounds, while reassuring those white Americans who fear a loss of status and privilege, making them feel that they will have a dignified place in an America that serves the needs of all its citizens?  Can Harris overcome a deep belief that the American dream has died, that anger and alienation is the only path, and that government will never make things better?  Can she demonstrate her strength as a prosecutor in formulating a workable policy for the southern border? Can she capitalize on President Biden’s successes – particularly his left leaning economic policies that promise to be hugely beneficial to all Americans on the long term, and at the same time assert her independence by demonstrating that she departs from him markedly on key issues?

Next Tuesday, September 10, Vice President Harris will have an excellent opportunity to define herself when she and Donald Trump debate.  Americans will be watching.

Correction from last week’s blog: I mistakenly cited the failed constitutional amendment – the Equal Rights Amendment - instead of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v Wade decision, as the pivotal moment in creating the federal government’s requirement that states permit abortion. This has now been corrected in that blog.