Democrats are consistently winning low-turnout special elections (just as they did prior to the devastating 2024 election), but they are also falling behind Republicans in new voter registration. These are obviously mixed messages, and I’d prefer a more optimistic “We’re definitely rejecting fascism” theme.
I recently spoke with friend of the podcast Cliston Brown about his take on the situation and what he thinks about the party’s longterm prospects. I think our conversation will thrill you, but it may shock you. It might even horrify you. So, if any of you feel that you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain, now’s your chance to uh, well, I warned you!
Edited excerpts from our discussion.
SER: Registration for the Democratic Party has been dropping over the past four years. What are your thoughts on that? What do you think is the larger driver of this?Is it real? And why are we not seeing what you’d think you’d have seen over the years [a rush to the Democratic Party] based on the Never Trump movement?
CLISTON: Well, it's absolutely real. I mean, the numbers are what they are. We have seen that in every state, every single state that tracks voter registration, that registers voters by party, 30 states,Democratic numbers have gone down and Republican numbers have gone up. This is happening across the country. Red states, blue states, doesn't matter. Happening everywhere. And I think that speaks to a very, very serious problem for the Democratic Party.
You know, we talk about the Never Trump movement. Well, here’s the thing. The Never Trump movement was never that big. Most Republicans got in line behind Donald Trump. The few who jumped out just weren’t that big of a number. But the people who are leaving the Democratic Party is a bigger number. And that is a very, very big problem.
CLISTON: It was a cherished myth in the Democratic Party that as long as America became more and more diverse racially and culturally, that it would only benefit the Democratic Party. There was a presumption there that African-Americans would continue voting Democratic at more than a nine to one clip. There was a presumption there that Latinos would continue to favor Democrats by a two to one margin or better.
Those presumptions were wrong, and I think that as the party becomes more culturally progressive, they are losing a lot of the more socially conservative voters of color who used to vote Democratic and are now not entirely convinced that the party is where they are.
SER: [I’ve seen liberals] talking about how random activists shouldn’t define the party. However, it occurs to me that mainstream liberals with legitimate issues about Bernie Sanders, what they fundamentally hated about the Sanders movement in 2016 were the obnoxious Bernie Bros online [and at caucuses.]
If only you saw Bernie Sanders at a few rallies or on TV, you’d might say, “He’s a socialist, I'm not going to vote for him or whatever.” But the deserved contempt came from these Bros, who were terrible. These guys were dogpiling women online, saying terrible stuff to them, calling them terrible names. I think made it toxic for him in 2020 because people held that grudge. It wasn’t just like, I didn’t vote for you. It was more “everyone associated with you was an idiot and terrible.” I confess, I thought the same way: “Jesus, these people are terrible,” but I would go out in the real word — because I live in a more liberal area — and I would meet someone [normal and polite] who was Sanders supporter. They weren’t all just the Bros, but my view of that movement was steered by the people I was encountering.
That’s just human nature. Democrats have to recognize that it's only fair. You think about airlines that you hate and you loathe. What determines that as your experience?It’s not the CEO. It’s the person who lost your luggage, the stewardess or flight attendant who was a jerk to you … all this on the ground stuff.
So I think the Democratic Party in 2024 was a version of an airline [and] Kamala Harris is the the CEO who comes out and gives a speech and says, “I’m here for you, come fly my airline.” You still don’t fly the airline because you think, “OK, you seem nice enough but everyone I come in contact with when I fly your airline sucks, and my experience sucks. So I don’t trust you.”
