Behind the Curtain: America rejected soft liberalism

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn). tweeted Sunday that the left is "out of touch with the crisis of meaning/purpose fueling MAGA. We refuse to pick big fights. Our tent is too small."

• "We don't listen enough; we tell people what's good for them," he added.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from the Bronx, tweeted the morning after the election: "Donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left, which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like 'Defund the Police.'"

• "The working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far left is selling," Torres added.

The big picture: It's striking how dramatically the pendulum swung. A few short years ago, COVID caution, DEI activism, big-city drug decriminalization, police scrutiny, and tents to alleviate homelessness were fully ascendant. Not just with liberals.

• These ideas fused into Democratic orthodoxy that seeped fast and deep into companies and the media. They were seen as a new expression of compassion, inclusivity and penitence for sins of the past and present.
• Republicans who rebelled or recoiled were chastised as bigoted, anachronistic — or simply protecting a world dominated by the white men running their party.

Between the lines: Democrats sought to give voice to groups long marginalized and silenced in politics. But little by little, the backlash unfurled. In retrospect, the signs were clear, a number of top Democrats told us.

• It started with COVID, where the prevailing view was to listen to the government, and health professionals who demanded vaccines and lockdowns. But the cost of what a lot of people saw as acting cautiously hit hard for families: lost jobs or businesses, the sadness of isolation, kids growing more screen-addicted and distant.

The murder of George Floyd, by a white cop, preserved on camera, jarred the nation. Horrified, millions marched, protested, demanded swift change.

• A movement to defund the police caught fire, despite evidence that crime rises when officers leave. "We could never wash off the stench of it," Democratic strategist James Carville told the N.Y. Times' Maureen Dowd for a column with the print headline, "A Wake for Woke."
• Carville said "defund the police" were "the three stupidest words in the English language." Crime rose. Eventually, most Democrats who called to defund the police scrambled to undo the political and practical damage. It was too late.

The reality of liberal-run cities, gutted by crime and citizens fleeing — dotted with large tent communities for homeless people, ravaged by drugs — went viral. Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco were seen as case studies of unmitigated permissiveness.

• How people felt didn't always match the data: As Axios' Russell Contreras has thoroughly covered, violent crime dropped in major U.S. cities as the COVID-era crime wave receded.

But last week's elections rendered a harsh verdict. Political outsider Keith Wilson was elected mayor of Portland after campaigning against tent cities and drug freedoms. "It's time to end unsheltered homelessness and open drug use, and it's time to restore public safety in Portland," he said in his victory speech.

• In San Francisco, moderate Democrat Daniel Lurie won his mayoral race with similar promises. "We are going to get tough on those that are dealing drugs, and we are going to be compassionate but tough about the conditions of our streets as well," Lurie said at a press conference last week.

Zoom out: Something bigger had been exploding across society, politics and business. Democrats, business and the media pushed diversity, equity and inclusion from an aspiration to a de facto mandate.

• The new language of inclusivity included Latinx, a word that even many Latino groups rolled their eyes at. "Some Democrats are finally waking up and realizing that woke is broke," Dowd wrote.
• These topics stirred white college men to vote in unusually high numbers. College women, stirred by concerns over abortion restrictions, were expected to offset the male surge. It didn't happen.

While the political correctness spike was hitting its apex, millions of people were storming the Southwest border, believing the Democratic administration would let them in.

• Many watched as every Democrat, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, raised their hands on a jammed presidential debate stage in 2019 in favor of decriminalizing the border.
• This was the ruling view until Hispanic Democratic congressmen sounded the alarm that the borders were being overrun — and that their mostly Hispanic population was livid.

The earliest days of the Biden presidency showed what was to come. It was Democrats who said a radical shift was urgent to avoid peril.

• Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) told CNN in 2021 that Biden's policies were catastrophic: "I can assure you it won't be long before we have tens of thousands of people showing up to our border, and it'll be catastrophic for our party, for our country, for my region, for my district."

Zoom in: Eventually, Biden, Harris and most Democrats changed. But it was too late to undo the damage. Immigration dominated the campaign, mostly to Trump's advantage.

• Lots of Democrats want to chalk up defeat to inflation concerns and a global backlash against ruling parties. There's lots of data to back this up. People are too complicated to assign one cause of death in politics.

But if you look at the tone of Trump's ads in the waning weeks, it was dark warnings about crime and transgender rights. The combination produced a drop for Democrats that few saw coming.

• Did anyone think Trump would do 23 points better in the district of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)? Or romp in Hispanic-heavy areas, especially along the border? Or roll up much bigger support in big blue cities nationwide?
• Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), who co-chairs the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, told us: "Everything's a secondary issue when you're worried about paying your rent and feeding your family. We didn't convince them that we're laser-focused on the basics."

By the numbers: As Democrats stare into exit polls, they see the harsh reality with new clarity: Trump improved his margins with women by three points and young women by 11; Hispanics by 13 and African American men by 25.

• CNN's Harry Enten found Trump produced the GOP's best showing among younger voters (18-29) in 20 years ... among Black voters in 48 years ... and among Hispanic voters in the 52-year history of exit polls.

"Democrats need to take a hard look at our party's brand, because it is repelling too many voters that should be with us," Democratic strategist Doug Thornell, CEO of the strategic communications firm SKDK.

• "We used to be the party of working people, the middle class. Our story included everyone, including men. I believe we still are, but many voters aren't feeling it and we should find out why."

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