Two Partisans on the Elections

My quick take on last week's elections was borderline Ho-hum.

Has that take, such as it is, aged well?

It's a fair question, given that Democrats now have legislative supermajorities in Virginia and New Jersey (and ended a Republican one in Mississippi).

After considering analyses by Republican Sean Trende and "Liberal Patriot" Michael Baharaeen, I'd say pretty well, but there are warning signs that a sane Republican Party would not ignore.

Baharaeen does a bit of a deep dive, but from the perspective of a chastened partisan, as his preamble states in part:

It's also imperative to be clear-eyed about these results and honest about what we do and don't know. It wasn't that long ago that Democrats learned the wrong lessons in victory and it cost them. So today, I will offer some assorted thoughts from the latest elections, including examining dominant narratives that have emerged since Tuesday night and determining how much stock to put in them. [bold added, link removed]

Trende is similarly level-headed:

When assessing election results, the analyses that hold up over time are the ones that avoid the hair-on-fire takes that dominate the news cycle in the immediate aftermath. That's because elections are pretty complex and rarely lend themselves to black-and-white interpretations. Tuesday, however, was not one of those days... [bold added]

Baharaeen's analysis tackles the problem Trende points to about elections being hard to to interpret, while still teasing out a signal this pro-freedom author wishes either party would listen to.

On learning about the supermajorities in Virginia and New Jersey, I was a little bit surprised even though these are both overall blue states, but Baharaeen notes the different composition of the off-year electorate (which skewed Democratic), which makes the supermajorities seem less surprising, and then notes the following:

It may not have been decisive, but marginal shifts in support from right-of-center voters appeared to give both Sherrill and Spanberger a boost, a sign that persuasion was a key part of their path to victory rather than turnout alone.

Persuasion! What a nice change of pace from Trust that this incoherent, doddering lunatic will know best!

Similarly, I suspect, shifts in Hispanic voters away from Trump, might reflect the negative quasi-persuasion one might expect from Trump's nativist policies. Regarding that, Liberal Patriot cautions against suggestions from his side of the aisle that Democrats seem to have suddenly fixed their issues with these voters.

Trende, whom I've dismissed as a Trumpist in the past, would seem receptive to the above signal:

Americans don't do mandates. Donald Trump's claim to a sweeping mandate was always dubious. He won by a little less than two points and failed to clear 50% of the vote. But I've always been fond of political scientist E.E. Schattschneider's view of things: "The people are a sovereign whose vocabulary is limited to 'yes' or 'no.'" We read all sorts of things into election results because it's our job. But "the people" only say "I prefer this candidate" or "I like that one." They don't really get to explain why, nor in most elections do they get to rank preferences. [bold added]

Yes. Trump going hog-wild on (1) a crackpot tariff agenda that most voters disapprove of, (2) rounding up and mistreating people who "look like immigrants" in open contempt for due process, (3) open corruption, and on and on and on might well piss off voters who -- neither enamored of socialism nor of Trump -- just wanted an end to Biden's bad policies and abuses of power.

Both analysts can take a hint and both seem to understand that there are large pools of persuadable voters who don't want what the fanatical bases of their respective parties want.

It would behoove both parties to reflect on the fact that large numbers of American voters are disgruntled, to ask what they might be disgruntled about, to consider what each party is doing in common to make things worse, and to ask what politicians from America's past (when it built the groundwork for prosperity) might have done differently.

I am pessimistic this will happen, but a few hints: (1) spend a lot less of our money, (2) take less of our money in taxes, and (3) order us around much less. This list isn't exhaustive, nor have I essentialized it, but it would be a fine start.

-- CAV