The Democrat Drift Leads to a Landslide for the Other Side
I took an interesting approach leading up to the election. Starting a week prior, I stayed off social media and read only the Chicago Tribune, my favorite newspaper. I didn’t have to make an effort to tune out the rest of the mainstream media, or MSM as they like to call it on X, because I turned that off in 2001, when I left my career in tech to become a stay-at-home mom. I’d tried daytime TV at first, but celebrity gossip and a bunch of mean girls talking about world events didn’t inspire me to be the woman I was becoming. I opted instead to read to my son while nursing him, starting with The Little Prince. As for the news, regardless of channel, it was too harsh for my post-partum skin. I was in a vulnerable place, shifting from one identity to another, and the political times were tough. Bush v Gore, dangling chads, 9/11, the Iraq War, even then we were divided as a country and rather than let the talking heads tell me it was the end of the world, I turned inward and focused on the one little world in which I had any power—my home. I decided that print was all my nervous system could take when it came to the news and hence, that is mostly how it is today. As such, I do not know the messages of the MSM other than the clips I’ve seen on Facebook and X over the past several months.
The day after the election, I finally logged on and have spent the last week scrolling through the three platforms I spend most of my time on: Facebook, X, and Substack (this being my preferred since it is a longform, essay driven platform where I can easily find many different opinions without being yelled at by talking heads while they simultaneously hypnotize me with colors and gestures, the way cable news, Tiktok, or YouTube does). You see, I take my neural health very seriously.
What has become clear is that half of America is happy or at least relieved with the results and yet many, many more, including friends and loved ones, are in shock, and I’ll be honest, this amazes me. I know how much the latter hates and fears Trump, so that’s not the surprising part, it’s the fact they have no idea why this happened. This is clear no matter what platform I am on, nor how well I know the person. Every Democrat I’ve seen post about this didn’t see the landslide coming, and when asked why it not, the answer is always something like, “I didn’t think Americans were so [racist, misogynist, stupid, fascist, etc.]” Others are shocked there are so many in the MAGA movement.
The past four days, I’ve poured over essays to share to try and explain why this happened, but instead, I decided I would put down my thoughts, mostly for my sons who are also shocked, to shed light on why Trump won. First off, there aren’t as many MAGA people as the results imply. Trump didn’t win because his movement grew that much bigger. On some measures it did, but not because there were more Republicans crawling out of their hate-filled basements to vote for the first time. No, Trump won because lifelong, card-carrying Democrats drifted over and voted for him.
As I observed the election drawing near, I made the prediction to a few of my less scared friends that Trump would indeed win, though I didn’t think it would be by so much, because of four key types of Democrat voters swinging his way. Not just in the “swing states” in EVERY state. These four groups were very clear about their choice and if you’re a Democrat who really wants to understand why the party of the people is no longer the party of the people, you might want to read on. And no, even if Kamala had run a better campaign or if Biden had been on the ballot, these folks were already going to give Trump their vote, or at least abstain from giving it to the Democratic party, because all of these voters are ISSUES voters and each of their issues paints a picture of progressive America today.
So, for my sons, I want to share this perspective: I predicted these folks would turn the election, and in the end as the data comes in, it appears they have. As you begin to form your own political viewpoints, take into consideration some of these important groups who still want to be a part of the progressive coalition, but no longer consider the Democratic party the place to rest their hopes.
ANTI-WAR VOTE
These folks have been around forever and while the hippies of the sixties still voted blue no matter who this time around, Gen X and Gen Z had a different strategy. I can speak of this group of people, because this is the issue closest to my heart. In 2000, it was clear that the Republican party was the party of war. Whether or not you believe that 9/11 was an inside job, the Iraq War and the Bush/Cheney presidency created a new crop of anti-war voters in Gen X. In 2000, as the Internet dawned, I watched in real time as lies were fed to us by the MSM to convince the American people to go to war against a nation who had nothing to do with 9/11. It has been proven that Rumsfeld and Cheney lied to the American people and that the entire administration as well as many others in the Republican party benefited monetarily from this venture while throwing the Middle East into a turmoil that every nation is still paying for. Think of the Iraq War as an inoculation of a generation against believing anything the media would say ever again. There’s a reason Gen X drifted red this time. They can’t believe the media, and moreover we are closer to WW3 than EVER in our nation’s history. Closer than even the Cuban Missile Crisis and this is directly related to choices made in the Biden/Harris administration. The Democrats who fall into this anti-war category who have been paying attention probably stopped voting blue in 2012, when it became obvious that the Obama/Biden administration was carrying on what Bush/Cheney had started, first by overthrowing Gaddafi in Libya, then ushering civil war in Syria, causing the start of the migrant crisis on that continent. Later, that same administration would back an emergency election in Ukraine that would produce a NATO loving president Zelensky, saber rattling Russia and provoking a nuclear power into a proxy war that has slaughtered a generation of Ukrainian men.
As far as I can tell, the anti-war progressive historically hasn’t given their vote to the Republicans, given the Iraq War, rather many voted for Jill Stein in 2012, 2016, and 2020. But this year, they gave it to Trump. Why? It’s fairly obvious given that 1) Trump is the only president in their lifetimes that did not start a war or back a CIA coup and actually de-escalated violence in the Middle East and held Russia back and 2) Biden/Harris actively dismantled Trump’s work in both regions leading to the utter chaos and destruction we now see. The anti-war voters had no choice, they held their noses and voted Trump in hopes that America can avoid more innocent lives being bombed to death and save the planet from destruction.
While the Iraq War was the inoculation for the anti-war Gen Xers, the slaughter in Gaza is energizing Gen Z. Given their other concerns that don’t align with the Trump presidency, it’s not clear how many of them actually voted for him, rather like Gen X when they were younger, it appears many of them abstained from voting or gave their votes to Stein or Cornell West where the ballots allowed. Thus, taking votes from Harris and placing them elsewhere in key places she needed them to win.
One thing is for sure, when Dick Cheney endorsed Kamala and she proudly accepted, it was clear to all anti-war citizens that Democratic party was no longer the party of peace.
PRO-LIFE CATHOLICS
Before Roe v. Wade, the Catholic Church voted nearly 80% Democrat. This was due to unions, back then it was the party of the working class, but also because at the heart of Catholic teaching lie the Corporal Works of Mercy, tasks given by Christ in which we are to use our time, talent, and treasure in this lifetime. These are: Feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick, visiting the imprisoned, and burying the dead. After Roe, however, many Catholics drifted to the Republican party, especially after the Evangelicals united with the Reagan Administration to form the Religious Right. Yet still, the majority of Catholics voted blue because in this age, the Democrat party has been the one open to helping the poor, the sick, etc. For decades, blue Catholics who believe abortion is a sin have held their noses and voted blue because it is a church based on social justice and renewal. In addition, blue Catholics tend to be constitutionalists and believe in the separation of Church and state.
With the Dobbs decision, abortion has gone to the states, and the Harris campaign capitalized on women’s rights, with abortion as the centerpiece. What was once something Catholics understood as a necessary evil became this summer the number one issue for women, as if nothing else matters to women. Abortion trucks at the DNC, abortion doctors on stage, Shout Your Abortion Tiktok videos, young women praising abortion, celebrating it even. Abortion is still seen as a sin in the Catholic Church, which is why I left it for a while, but it is no longer a sin to vote for someone who is pro-choice, so long as that’s NOT the main reason you’re voting for them. (Alas, Catholics are good at special dispensation 😉) As I read the National Catholic Register and various Catholic Substack accounts, I discovered many of these people are appalled with the over-emphasis on abortion by the Harris campaign. There was no way to vote for her without being pro-choice to the extreme: abortion until the fetus is viable without major medical intervention, which is the third trimester. How does a blue Catholic come to terms with this? Many didn’t. It appears they swung right; however I imagine many didn’t vote at all.
Note, with Trump removing the national abortion ban from the Republican platform, he lost the pro-life, red Catholics as well as many evangelicals. There was quite the war on X. However, many of them also abstained rather than give Harris a vote. Regardless, in swing states, losing your own party’s votes, normally blue Catholics, probably didn’t help.
BLACK AND HISPANIC MEN
This has been interesting to follow, and no they’re not sexist or racist, they are the people directly impacted by the border crisis and they want change. I live in two blue states, CA and Illinois, but it was in Illinois where I myself had a front seat to this drama. When there, I live in a mostly white, very progressive neighborhood on the northside of Chicago. About five months after we moved in, the city put up a migrant shelter two blocks over. I can say that crime in our neighborhood didn’t go up and it has been an honor to help these people. In addition, I think the city did the best they could given that over 40,000 people were bused into our beautiful city right when it started to get cold. We couldn’t let them freeze and almost $1B later, I think we survived it. But that’s the white girl in me talking. What does it mean to survive this? What exactly is the path of the migrant in a city like Chicago? Well, they start in a shelter and then apply for all sorts of programs which hopefully lead to employment and housing in one of our neighborhoods, though Mayor Johnson has been clear that he’ll also fly them back home or to another state if Chicago isn’t their thing.
Regardless, our poorer and yes, blacker and browner neighborhoods resisted the shelters. There were many fights in the city council. Affluent whites didn’t understand it. Why not have a shelter? If the south and westsides won’t take these poor people, then we will! Hence the shelter in my neighborhood. However, the irony is these people were sent right back to the neighborhoods that were complaining that they didn’t have enough resources. There aren’t any apartments in my neighborhood that can participate in the program that gives migrants only $1800/mon for rent. In addition, the landlords on the northside didn’t want unvetted, unemployed people living in their buildings. Who will bear the cost when the money from the state runs out, but the migrant renters don’t yet have a job? The landlords? The city? The state? Without assurances from either the governor or the mayor, the migrants ended up in the very neighborhoods were they were the least safe and the most unwanted.
Worse, what does the $1B deficit the city now faces, in large part because of our response to the migrant crisis, mean for all of us? It was a federal decision to open the border, and Chicago did what it had to, yet the feds haven’t sent us a dime to pay for our efforts. Chicago is one of the cleanest cities I’ve ever lived in. We have an amazing park district. We also want safe streets. What will we have to cut in order to make up for that gap? Everyone is concerned, but our black and Latino communities have had the hardest time, and they have let the city know.
Again, this does not make these people racist. The black community of Chicago that began to show up at city council meetings in MAGA hats are not against immigrants. They can’t handle an influx of thousands of people into their neighborhoods, places the city abandoned during Covid and many of those services still haven’t returned. There are 100 applicants per open apartment already in these neighborhoods, and the apartments, jobs, cars, phones are all given to strangers. Can you imagine what that feels like? I can’t. In my situation, I got to feel good about housing 900 people, mostly families, in a safe building down the street from me. 45% of Latinos voted for Trump. Read the Chicago Tribune to find out why. They aren’t afraid of being deported, because they went through the process to be legal. All they are asking for is the same to apply to all immigrants.
On another interesting note: While Harris still won Illinois, she won by only 8%. Trump lost by 17% in 2016 and 2020. This voting block in Chicago is a major reason why.
MAHA MOMS AND DADS
At the heart of the Kennedy phenomena is a quest for health, but it’s also a major reaction to the Covid response. Too many Democrats I know do not understand this, mostly because they were happy with the way Covid was handled. They didn’t mind being locked in their homes. Many didn’t lose businesses and weren’t affected by the closure of schools, in some states (all blue) for 18 months! Many Democrats enjoyed the six feet rules, wearing masks, and getting their shots. This is all fine for those who desired it, however it was actually unconstitutional. Restricting movement between states? Forcing vaccinations? Closing businesses without due process? All of this was a violation of the Constitution, and this is why once it had become clearer that Covid wasn’t Ebola or the Black Plague, many red states began to sue the federal government to open up, and of course they won because the time for emergency had passed. Many Democrats watched their states remain closed, unable to find schools or childcare for their children, unable to go to work again unless they took a shot, while other Americans under Republican governance opened. I personally know five families that moved from California to red states just so their kids could go back to school. My friend who is a realtor in Indiana told me that one of the top reasons houses were selling out in her little town was because Westcoast and NYC WFH engineers and financiers, who graduated from Purdue or IU, were returning home to Indiana because their kids could go to school there and then they could get back to normal life.
This is a HUGE voting block withing the Democratic party. I think many didn’t notice the drift happening in early 2021, but that’s when it started. Once Kennedy launched his campaign, he gave them the voice to come out of the woodwork. In a nutshell, Americans don’t like to be told what to do, and many of these voters understand bodily autonomy. Unlike Republicans, they are pro-choice when it comes not only to abortion but all medical procedures. The whole body is important to them, and it appears this movement is taking on a life of its own that will not go away. When Kennedy backed Trump and asked them to vote for him, they did so in large numbers. Of all the groups I mention here, this might be the largest and loudest. They have drifted right and depending on whether Trump keeps his promise to give Bobby Kennedy a place in the administration, they may be forever lost to the red side.
I must admit, while I can’t wait to share this essay with my sons so that we can continue the political dialogue we established in those early days at home together, I’m quite nervous to share at large. Somehow, to criticize the Democrats is seen as being on the dark side. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember. In my twenties, I didn’t criticize the party because I thought they were the “good guys” and it’s always been okay to rip on the “deplorable” Republicans, especially because they’re evil. I was in love with Obama in 2008, but when I began to pick apart his foreign policy in 2012 and write about the need for 3rd parties, people started telling me I was wasting my vote or granting the evil ones an edge. Still, I wrote about these topics. It’s only been since the 2016 election that to do so would make people actually angry with me, so great is the hate for Trump. I don’t want to make people I love doubt me as a person, of course, but I believe with my whole heart that rather than attack those Democrats who drifted, we should listen to them, understand them, and then search our own hearts. Name calling, canceling, hating, accusing, and sitting in an ivory tower as the world burns around me, well that’s not how I was made.
I’m too curious and like the spirit of America herself, I’m a bit untamed. As such, I seek to travel many places and I listen to many people, even if it hurts. The ideal of America is bigger than all of us, and a lot more spiritual than most would admit. Tap into her, a “being” born from the direct will of our Founding Fathers.* Like Lucy says about Aslan in Narnia, “Of course he’s not safe, but he is good. He is not a tame lion,” the American Experiment is more like the wild winds of Wyoming than it is a safe space. I’m grateful to be along for the ride. Giddy up.
* Some say our Founding Fathers were Christian, others say they were Deists. Most importantly, with regards to understanding the spirit of America, you might recall they were Freemasons. Visit the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia. This matters more than you might think…