Dangers tied to Democrats' California supermajority
In a recent column, I wrote about what it would take for the Republican Party to again be viable in Marin and across the state if they continue to believe wrongly that the bulk of voting Democrats sit on the party's far-left progressive wing.
Whether Republicans can (or even want to) return to a philosophically conservative center-right party or remain a far-right populist redoubt is the question. Since politics abhors a vacuum, eventually a center-right fiscally prudent, socially moderate party will emerge.
The Common Sense Party is making a valiant effort to fill that role. So far it's been slow going. Either they eventually succeed or another center-right movement will fill the gap.
Democrats have a reason to be cocky. With 62.3% of Marinites registered Democrat and only 12.2% with the GOP, what could go wrong?
Let's start with those independents registered as “no party preference” who intentionally shun both the “red” and “blue” labels. They compose almost 20% of county voters. Then there's the curious statistic from the last general election where about 6,000 Marities who are not registered with the GOP cast votes for multiple Republican candidates. Their biggest showing was in favor of state controller candidate Lanhee Chen — a well-qualified Republican challenger who ran against a mediocre Democrat, Malia Cohen.
Note that Chen indicated he never voted for Donald Trump, itself a lesson to Republican leaders. Chen got 30,772 Marin votes, despite there being only 12,299 registered Republicans.
Democratic Party honchos tend to be heavily congregated in the party's progressive left. The intra-party feedback loop threatens to give them the erroneous impression that the bulk of their party's voters mirror their own orientation.
A survey by the Pew Research Center indicates only 12% of Democrats are “progressive left.” They are “the only majority White, non-Hispanic group of Democrats.”
That group is followed by “establishment liberals” at 23% and “Democrat mainstays” majority, which is an even more moderate category and includes many who identify as Black, Latino and Asian American. They are far less secular than the progressive left.
To stay in power, Golden
State Democrats need to do two things: deliver a competent government that addresses the issues the majority of voters care about, and do so in a manner that doesn't appear ideological.
To progressives, those issues lead with transgender rights and reparations, with climate change third.
For the vast majority of establishment liberals, not to mention moderates and independents, the homelessness crisis and the pervasive feeling of lack of security in big cities, plus climate change, are the real day-to-day concerns.
Clearly, Democrats have a dilemma: The supermajority party is dividing into factions.
Anyone who knows San Francisco politics understands, Republicans there play no role. The City has two political parties at war with each other: progressive Democrats and establishment liberals. The fact they all are Democrats is irrelevant.
Marin Democrats are not as obviously divided. Here, politicos usually successfully straddle the progressive-liberal divide. Rep. Jared Huffman has done his best in this regard, but the far left has always suspected Huffman was an “establishment” Democrat ever since Huffman blasted progressive Norman Solomon out of the water in his first run for a seat in Congress.
The division between progressives, liberals and moderates, plus an unrealistic understanding of where voters are headed (particularly in Latino and Asian communities), could spell longterm trouble for the Democrats' supermajority — if the GOP or a new center-right party ever get their act together.
Like in the GOP, the leadership of California's Democratic Party, from county to state level, is led by those in their party's most ideological wings.
The issues that appeal to Democratic activists often don't resonate with the majority of their party's voters. Party leaders forget that their party's base is no longer composed of White bluecollar workers. Trump took that demographic's support.
Democrat honchos also forget the crucial role suburbanites play in their coalition. Those folks find San Francisco Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener (aka “Mister Housing”) and his allies anathema. Offer suburban voters a socially liberal alternative and they'll jump ship.
I'm not predicting that California Democrats will soon lose their dominant role. Yet stranger things have happened, especially if their leaders and office holders fail to keep their eye on the ball carried by the establishment liberals and the center-left.