The billionaire who took a photo at McDonald’s frying potatoes because he had never gotten grease on his hands is the one who has won a good part of the votes of the American working classes. Kamala Harris’ lopsided defeat against Donald Trump has confronted Democrats with a reality that is difficult to digest: they no longer connect with the common peopleas Pulp would say. Or, as Senator Bernie Sanders, one of the party’s most left-wing voices, has said: “We shouldn’t be too surprised when a Democratic Party that has abandoned the working class discovers that the working class has abandoned it.”
Trump returns to the White House driven by the vote of low-income and Latino men. The percentage of votes that Democrats obtained among the working and lower classes this election is the worst in 20 years. Among voters from households with incomes of less than $30,000 they obtained 51% (compared to the 65% they had in 2008 with Obama) and among those with incomes of $30,000 and $50,000 they only obtained 46%, while the Republicans took 51%. On the other hand, for incomes over $100,000, the voting percentage was 52%.
“While Democratic leaders defend the status quo“The American people are angry and want change,” Sanders wrote in his statement in reference to the Democrats’ inability to provide solutions to North American society. The clumsiness of Joe Biden’s administration to transfer good macroeconomic indicators to voters’ shopping baskets has been a determining element. The feeling that the economy was worse has translated into 39% of voters deciding their vote based on the economy.
The loss of the blue wall states, in the industrial belt, once again shows that the working class is seeking change due to the feeling that their situation has worsened. The inhabitants of this area, who saw how the region’s prosperity disappeared in the early 2000s with globalization and the relocation of companies, have once again elected Trump. The Republican has repeated the feat of 2016 and has managed to take the three swing states: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. He has won all three by a difference of 250,000 votes compared to Harris.
The party has realized that it was disconnected from the bases and that is what we have to learn now
“I think that in the case of the Democratic campaign at the national level, we did not have a clear answer to the question of the economic situation, particularly of the most affected populations. The answer was about economic growth and low unemployment, but at the end of the day the day-to-day costs were still very high, impacted by inflation,” Luis Ávila, who leads various organizations in Arizona with the Latino community and worked on the Obama campaign in 2008. Even so, Ávila also points out that the problem goes beyond Harris – “she was an excellent candidate with the little time she had” – and the legacy of the Biden administration: “ The party has realized that it was disconnected from the bases and that is what we have to learn now.”
Another aspect that Ávila points out about the Democrats is the “complexity” when it comes to addressing the communities. “Democrats have to learn, like all of us who work in community organizations, to communicate in simpler and more direct ways with the population. We have to make them see that we are also warriors and that we are going to fight for them, and not just that we are going to think for them,” he says.
Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton made a similar reflection on the defeat this Friday on the GBH network: “I think Democrats, as a party, spend too much time lecturing, condescending to people, talking down to them and telling them what they need, what they want, instead of just going out into the streets and listening to everyday Americans.”
The idea of “thinking for them,” to which Ávila refers, is exactly one of the reasons for the disenchantment of Bianca Gracia, the founder of Latinos for Trump, with the Democrats. “For 17 years I was a Democrat, but I got tired. The Democrats have infantilized the Hispanic community, as if we were dumber than others for being Latino,” Gracia explained to elDiario.es two weeks before the elections.
A “fracture” in the Latino community
One of the groups of voters among whom Trump has gained support, to the detriment of Democrats, are Latinos. Just as Trump has been able to gain ground among white working men since 2016, he is now beginning to penetrate among Latino men. In 2020, Biden received 59% of the votes of Latino men, while Harris has only received 44%. The change in trend is pronounced and for Ávila it has to do with two facts: fear and unfulfilled promises.
“Latinos are a younger group than the rest of the American population and many do not have the memory of having lived under Trump. In the case of Arizona, some have not lived under Sheriff Joe Arpaio – who earned a reputation as an immigrant hunter. If Trump is dehumanizing and fueling hatred against immigrant communities, people who are not immigrants and are Latino are going to want to separate themselves from that group so as not to also be the focus of the hatred and harassment that they are going to experience in the coming months,” he explains. Avila. In counties where more than 20% of voting-age Americans were Hispanic, Trump’s margin over Harris improved by 13 points compared to 2020, according to Reuters.
If Trump is dehumanizing and fueling hatred against migrant communities, people who are not migrants and are Latino will want to separate themselves from that group so as not to also be the focus of hate.
The approach of Latinos to the magnate can not only be explained from the perspective of the Republican message, but also from the disaffection with the Democrats that has been simmering for years. “Immigration reform is the most emotional policy for Latinos. It is something that the Democrats campaigned with, and I included myself because I was, promising the communities that we were going to elect people, that we were going to advance favorable immigration policies for our community. We elected Obama in 2008, with a majority in Congress, and he did not prioritize or advance the immigration reforms that we had promised to the community. In 2012, they lost the majority and the historic opportunity to make a radical change in the immigration system and from there we have been used as India pigs for the political assets of the parties,” he laments.
If the evolution of Latino support for Democrats is superimposed with the chronology that Ávila exposes, one can see how in 2008 67% of the Latino vote went to Democrats, reaching its maximum in 2012 with 71%, and from there It decreased to the current 53%. The figure is still higher than the 45% that Trump reaped. For Ávila, “if Democrats are going to want to regain the favor and support of Latino communities, they have to understand that the immigration issue is perhaps not a priority issue, but it is an emotional issue that impacts our families.”
Regarding the growing increase in Latino support for Trump, Ávila makes the following note: “The problem is that some of the alliances that we have had in other years of Latinos who did not live under Trump, who do not have the historical memory of Trump, were broken. what has happened in migrant communities and they are willing to take this risk because they do not know what the consequences may be. This is a moment of truth in which the Latino community either fractures or understands itself and talks again about what it is we want in this world, in this country.”
The little more than 90 days that Harris had as a candidate did not give much room to face a problem that is rooted in the very existence of the party. The vice president assumed the nomination, inheriting the low popularity of Biden, who had the worst rating since World War II as president, and still managed to overcome the polls. Some members of the Democratic Party also point out the president’s stubbornness in wanting to cling to the candidacy until the last moment. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who played a key role in Biden’s resignation, lamented the tempos in an interview in New York Times: “If the president had left earlier, there could have been other candidates in the race.”
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