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Voters in Norcross, Ga., Nov. 8.
Photo:
JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS
My colleague
James Freeman,
who writes the Journal’s Best of the Web column, noted earlier this week that the term “progressive” might be falling out of favor with some Democrats following the midterm election results. If so, it wouldn’t be the first time.
The Progressive era of the early 20th century produced such presidents as
Woodrow Wilson
and such intellectuals as the British economist
John Maynard Keynes.
Following World War I, however, voters began repudiating progressivism, and by the time the political left was ascendant again in the 1930s under
Franklin D. Roosevelt,
erstwhile progressives had rebranded themselves as liberals. That label would stick though the 1980s until calling a candidate liberal became almost a smear, and by the end of the 20th century Democrats on the left were self-describing as progressives again.
One of the things that progressive elites in both eras share is an outsize role in promoting racism. Keynes co-founded a eugenics society at Cambridge University. Wilson hosted a White House screening of “The Birth of a Nation,” a movie that glorifies the Ku Klux Klan, and one of his first acts as president was to segregate federal employees.
Madison Grant,
a lawyer and leading conservationist, wrote the 1916 bestseller “The Passing of the Great Race,” a pseudoscientific screed arguing that blacks, Native Americans, Jews and the peoples of Eastern and Southern Europe were members of inferior races.
Today’s progressives advocate preferential treatment based on race and ethnicity. Boston University professor
Ibram X. Kendi,
one of the most celebrated progressive thinkers in the country, openly supports racial discrimination. “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination,” he asserts. A hundred years ago, progressives attributed racial disparities to genetics. Today, they blame racial bias. In both cases, they’ve taken one factor and convinced themselves that it alone is the determining factor.
Democrats have long sought to win elections by fueling racial resentment. And while
Donald Trump’s
recent verbal assaults on former Transportation Secretary
Elaine Chao,
a native of Taiwan, show once again that Democrats don’t have a monopoly on racism, today’s Democrats are far more reliant on identity politics to get their voters to the polls. That’s why President Biden likens his political opponents to
Jefferson Davis
and Bull Connor and refers to Republican policies as “Jim Crow 2.0.” And it’s why Democratic candidates in last week’s election spent so much time trying to paint Republicans as not only wrong on the issues but bigoted to boot.
The good news is that it didn’t seem to work. According to exit polls, every major racial and ethnic minority group voted more Republican this year than in 2018. Compared with four years ago, “Hispanic and Asian support for the GOP jumped 10 and 17 points respectively, while Black voters shifted about 4 points to the right,” Politico reports. Among black and Hispanic men, Republican gains in recent elections have been even more pronounced.
Democrats continue to pay a price for catering to upscale white progressives while giving short shrift to the concerns of their minority base. Increasingly, these neglected voters see the GOP as a viable alternative. The Asian and Hispanic shares of the electorate are growing. Democrats can bleed only so much minority support, particularly in battleground states and swing districts, and still win elections.
In Georgia’s gubernatorial race, Democrat
Stacey Abrams
lost her rematch against Republican incumbent
Brian Kemp.
Georgia had record turnout for early voting, yet black support for Ms. Abrams, a progressive superstar who has made phantom voter suppression her signature issue, ticked down from four years ago. In the state’s Senate race, meanwhile, incumbent Democrat
Raphael Warnock
is facing Republican
Herschel Walker
in a runoff election. Notably, Mr. Warnock has campaigned as a pragmatist rather than a progressive, which is one reason he performed so much better than Ms. Abrams and still has a shot at holding his seat. If Democrats are rethinking the progressive label, candidates such as Ms. Abrams are the reason.
Whether Democrats call themselves liberals or progressives, the bigger problem is the policy behind the label. Defunding the police gives the upper hand to violent criminals in poor communities who target their mostly law-abiding neighbors. Opposition to parental choice forces children to attend schools where little if any learning takes place. Living-wage laws harm job prospects by making would-be employees too expensive to hire. Expanding the welfare state has a long history of expanding dependency rather than reducing poverty. The political left’s support for such policies undermines upward mobility among the very groups they claim to champion.
More minority voters are giving the GOP a look because they want more effective representation from the political class. Who can blame them?
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the November 16, 2022, print edition.
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