UK poll lessons for US Democrats
There is a saying that generals always fight the last war — and those who do, lose. The current danger for the US Democratic Party is that they rerun their failure in the 2016 presidential election, partly through drawing the wrong conclusions from the UK general election this month.
Labour’s resounding defeat may well reverberate across the Atlantic, and especially affect the way voters in the primaries see the candidacies of Bernie
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who represent the more leftleaning ranks of the Democratic Party. A number of leading commentators in the US saw the election battle in the UK as one between Left and Right populism in which the latter was bound to win, mainly because the Right is inherently better at manipulating populism to its advantage.
Labour’s strategy under Corbyn was to answer populism with populism, which, even when it addressed pressing issues in British society, came across as too radical, too threatening to even their core voters, and unimplementable. If Sanders and Warren would like to draw a lesson from Labour’s failed approach in presenting a more social-democrat, or even socialist, program for a more equal and just society, it has to be presented more in Churchillian style — one that invokes “blood, toil, tears and sweat” (minus the blood) — and less as a fanciful cost-free socialist paradise.
A better regulated Wall Street that served a modern economy without satisfying only the very rich would resonate with many voters, as long as it were not perceived as liable to bring the stock market to collapse and compromise the jobs, savings and pensions of many millions of Americans. It should be presented not as an objective in itself, but as part of a comprehensive plan that has costs and risks, not only benefits.
Labour was not necessarily punished at the ballot box for its radical manifesto, but more for its weak leadership, its lack of a decisive and coherent approach to Brexit, the anti-Semitism in its ranks, and remaining aloof from its core voters. Whatever the Democrats choose to make the centerpiece of their election campaign they must learn from Labour’s failure by being straight talking in their campaigning and talking to people at eye level.
Democrats who are liberalleft leaning candidates should acknowledge, respect and take at least some responsibility for the fact that that many hard-working, decent Americans feel left behind by globalization and by liberal-progressive trends that clash with their values — trends that come across as an elitist imposition on their way of life. This should not deter them from pursuing a campaign that advances far-reaching changes to the health system and taxation, the approach to climate change and immigration, and the role that the US plays in the world; but their plans must be presented in a manner that resonates with the voters, and does not patronize them.
Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations at Regent’s University London, where he is head of the International Relations and Social Sciences Program.
Twitter: @YMekelberg