Should Republicans lose this election, it will be in some part due to the contempt Donald Trump has shown his opponent. Should Democrats lose this election, it will be in large part due to the contempt they routinely show tens of millions of voters.
The media is doing its best to play down Joe Biden’s casual insult of half of America as “garbage”—he was misunderstood, it was a “gaffe,” let’s meditate on Donald Trump’s garbage-truck “stunt.” Why on earth would anyone assume Mr. Biden would again show derision for voters he’s labeled “semi-fascists,” “MAGA extremists” and proponents of “Jim Crow 2.0”?
Of course it wasn’t a gaffe. It’s the latest injection of toxic Democratic arrogance—and it explains the party’s electoral struggles. It’s of a piece with the open dismissal by the media and elites of critics as idiots, yokels, deplorables. The men accused of “toxic masculinity.” The women written off as “handmaids.” The religious “fanatics.” The millions the left scorn with a long list of “ist” and “phobe” words. If you don’t bow to progressive dogma, you are a fascist. Sexist. Racist. Nationalist. Insurrectionist. Domestic terrorist. Extremist. “Far” rightist. And a homophobe. And a Nazi. Who is bitter. And clinging to a gun and a religion.
These labels are now even being employed as an election strategy—pejoratives to be ascribed to people based on their vote. Michelle Obama lectures “the men in our lives” that only a vote for Kamala Harris will prove they take women’s health “seriously.” (Don’t be a misogynist!) Barack Obama explains to black men that a failure to vote for Kamala is evidence that “you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.” (Don’t be a sexist!) Mark Cuban reminds us that Donald Trump is never in the company of “strong, intelligent women.” (Don’t be a weak, dumb, GOP-voting broad!)
The award for most risible ad this season goes to Vote Common Good, which recruited Julia Roberts (D., La La Land) to assist with the following ad: A female voter arrives at the polls with her baseball-hat-wearing husband. As Julia’s voiceover explains, she’s at the “one place in America where women still have a right to choose.” The wife and another woman (secretly) vote for Kamala, grinning conspiratorially at each other. On the way out, the patronizing husband gives wifey a hard stare and asks: “Did you make the right choice? “Sure did, honey,” she replies. “Remember, what happens in the booth, stays in the booth,” Julia assures the viewer. “Vote Harris-Walz.”
Or as a progressive activist Jess Piper tweeted to “white women” this month: “I don’t care what kind of sign your husband has put in your yard, or what your pastor preaches on Sunday, you can vote your conscience. You can vote for your children and grandchildren. No one will know.” Thanks for the stereotypes, ladies. No doubt millions of us females—as soon as we’ve unchained ourselves from the sink and reread Ephesians 5:22—will go mindlessly vote for more inflation, and border chaos and debt. After all, we wouldn’t want to check the boxes of spineless, stupid, and baby-hating.
But that’s the joke. The contempt isn’t working; it’s alienating large segments of the country, including once-key sections of the Democratic coalition. The working class is migrating to the GOP as blue-collar laborers wake up to the disdain the left has for their values and their work. Minority voters, too, are feeling taken for granted, on the verge of voting for Republicans at historic levels.
Americans demand more than “vote for me because I self-attest to moral superiority.” Yet that’s about all the left’s got right now. That’s because the haughty arrogance—and press protection—has allowed the party to continue living in a bubble that shields them from their failings. Look, a dozen (left-leaning, partisan) Nobel Prize-winning economists just assured us that up is down—so we’re good.
It also shields them from average voters’ views. One of the gentler (yet telling) put-downs of this election came from Tim Walz, who pronounced that Republicans are “weird.” Hilarious. Want to know what’s really weird? Taxpayer-funded sex-change surgeries for felons. Attempts to regulate cow flatulence. The expectation that fewer police will mean less crime. The 1619 project. Decriminalizing border crossings. Boys competing in girls’ sports. The word “Latinx.” Sizable majorities of Americans think all this is nuts. Yet these remain staples of Democratic policy and rhetoric.
Progressives are fooling themselves if they think a close election is proof the insults are working. The independent and female voters who might pull this out for Democrats aren’t voting in favor of this rhetoric or progressive policies, but rather against a very specific and alienating individual—Mr. Trump. He probably won’t be on the ballot again.
Insults are the last refuge of fools, and there was a day when politicians on both sides understood the “likability” factor in elections. It’s hard to like a party that views you as trash.
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