Do Democrats Know How To Win Without Running Against Trump?

A Majority Report listener calls in to the show and asks the crew what they think about the apparent shift in electoral strategy in 2020 in comparison to what seems to be the prevailing wisdom for 2022. In 2020, Democratic Party strategists felt that it was not enough to simply fun against Donald Trump and Trumpism, that candidates also had to present clear policy preferences and positions on a variety of issues. The caller points out that the 2020 campaign strategies largely failed, and running against Trumpism in 2022, as Gavin Newsom did in his recall vote in California, is likely the best strategy. The Majority Report crew talk about negative partisanship and what the best electoral strategies for 2022 will probably look like.

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Caller: I noticed something interesting: The prevailing sort of narrative on the Left before 2020 was, you know, we can't just run against Trump. We have to talk about policy, we have to talk about material improvements to people's lives, and it seems like that strategy kind of failed, right. It failed in the primaries; it failed in the general. It doesn't seem like the normie Dems, the people that are turning out for these elections, aside from movement people, it just isn't a strategy that really worked out for us. So I noticed that Sam was kind of touting that he likes the strategy that they were trying out in California. Where they were tying the GOP to Trump and running against Trump in 2020. So I just wanted to kind of put a marker on that and see what you guys thought about that. That basically we've conceded that running on policy and running for people's material conditions is not a worthwhile strategy at this point in time at least, and that running against Trump or running against Trumpism is the successful strategy that's going to carry us to a victory in 2022. So I was wondering what you guys thought about that.

Emma Vigeland: I think it's both. I think it's both.

Matt Lech: I would agree that I think there was a bit of maybe hope that didn't turn out that talking about policy and Bernie's policies and how much they're better than Biden's would have an effect. And I don't think it had a great effect. And I do agree with the caller like look how Castillo beat Fujimori. That was negative partisanship, right. And I feel like negative partisanship is, if we're comparing the two things, it's good to have somebody that you can paint as very scary to the other. That's why it was just diabolically stupid that we ran Hillary in 2016.

EV: Right. And negative partisanship was also particularly helpful to the Democrats during the Coronavirus pandemic where people's lives were materially affected by the complete incompetence of the Big Bad so it was really a way to connect those two things, and it also created this bad incentive to vote for Biden because people perceived this is the time to not take risks.

ML: Yeah, and I think the Left needs to not be afraid to be... I think they need to own, "We're the ones who take on the hard Right." Not this being afraid of, "You're going at Republicans too much." I don't think that's really a concern. I think if you show that actually we're the people who take these threats seriously, like look at the way Biden and I guess we'll see if the reconciliation gets through, but the things he promised about being able to keep the party in line, it was clear that Bernie's solution was probably better in terms of like, you need to go at these people like Manchin, Synema, they're going to F you.