Lessons for Democrats from the British election
The takeaway for many observers of the United Kingdom's election was the surprisingly strong showing of the Labour Party. In a snap election called by Prime Minister Theresa May to add to her Conservative Party's majority, Labour actually gained 34 seats, robbing May of her majority and forcing her to seek partners for a coalition government.
The poor showing for Conservatives will raise questions both about how Britain will proceed on exiting the European Union and whether May will stay on as prime minister.
But the larger takeaway — at least on this side of the Atlantic — should be that Labour didn't win outright despite a golden opportunity to do so.
May's Conservative Party has been growing long in the tooth, having been in power since 2010, first as the head of a coalition government and then with an outright majority. May is widely seen as aloof and mistake-prone, and she ran on an unappealing platform of Brexit and fiscal austerity, amid a series of terrorist attacks. And yet she, or at least her party, will remain in power.
Members of the Labour Party are busy congratulating themselves for a night that few polls predicted.
But they should be asking themselves why they continue to be on the outside looking in.
Prime Minister Theresa May
They should know the answer. They positioned themselves so far to the left that you’d need a telescope to see them.
Long gone is Tony Blair and his optimistic centrism. In his place is the gruff Jeremy Corbyn, who wants to nationalize major industries and expand entitlements with higher taxes.
Democrats on this side of the pond should be paying attention. With the mess of things that President Trump has made, they have an excellent chance to win a majority in the House in 2018, and possibly to capture the presidency and the Senate in 2020.
That won’t happen if they follow the lead of Labour and adopt far-left policies or get behind peo- ple like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the 75-year-old self-proclaimed democratic socialist.
Many U.S. voters are desperately searching for a return to normalcy, and they'd richly reward any party that could plausibly claim to speak for mainstream American values.
They are not getting that from Republicans, who at the state level have been pushing a far-right social agenda and at the national level are intent on stripping millions of people of health coverage.
It remains to be seen whether they can get it from Democrats, who have trouble moving past identity politics or growing their appeal beyond minorities and urban elites. Expanding Social Security or vastly increasing health care spending — ideas pitched by Sanders and others — make them look even more fiscally irresponsible.
Americans intuitively understand this, even if many will resist changes that directly affect them. They are likely to reward leaders who can solve the problems of social spending and punish those who insist on creating new ones.
In Britain, May, who articulated no real agenda, survived a narrow election simply because many voters couldn't bring themselves to back Labour. Something very similar could play out here if Democrats don’t get their act together.