One of the strange things about US democracy (and there are many – as there are in the UK) is that when a party is defeated in a Presidential election it immediately ceases to have a recognised leader and wanders through the political wilderness like thousands of headless chickens.
No party has better demonstrated the above more than the Democratic party since the morning of November 6th 2024. They seem to have gone through a soul-searching exercise that has come up with very little in the way of answers as to why they lost, for a second time, to Trump.
So it was a great relief to see the US election results coming through today.
As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told MSNBC:
At the end of the day I don’t think that our party needs to have one face. Our country does not have one face. It’s about all of us as a team together, and we all understand the assignment.
Our assignment everywhere is to send the strongest fighters for the working class wherever possible. In some places, like Virginia, for the gubernatorial seat, that’s going to look like Abigail Spanberger. In New York City, unequivocally it is Zohran Mamdani.
There were a host of encouraging signs, not least with the passing of Proposition 50 in California, making way for the temporary redrawing of electoral boundaries to favour the Democrats. It seems strange to even type those words but yes, in the USA in 2025, there is a “fight to the bottom” of the gerrymandering barrel. Crazy, but that’s America.
The overall lesson has got to be the old mantra “it’s the economy, stupid”. Summarising exit polls, CNN reports that “In New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York City, voters call economic issues – taxes, cost of living or the economy as a whole – their top concern.” Similarly, after the 2024 election of Trump as president, CNN summarised the exit polls as saying “about two-thirds of voters said the economy was in bad shape. That shift in sentiment benefited Trump.”
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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8 Comments
I’m sure the Republicans will be relieved that Zohran Mamdani was born in Uganda and is therefore ineligible to be a presidential candidate.
I don’t think it is by any means certain that “It’s the economy stupid” is the main battleground any more in Trump’s US.
At is heart, “It’s the economy stupid” assumes that economic privation will change voting intention and so change election results. However, to Trump and his cronies nothing is out of bounds in their desire to hold on to power and it could well be as single minded as Netanyahu’s in Israel. It just depends on what mechanism he chooses to subvert democratic elections – Ballot rigging, use of Wartime powers, suppression of opposition campaigns or campaigners. He still has three years to get his defences in place and his enemies neutralised.
And to him the best form of defence is always attack.
The fact you think its “still the economy stupid”, shows how your worldview is stuck in the 1990s neoliberal consensus-think where that quote comes from.
Times are changing, you ought to recognise that by now.
It will always be the economy. Most American voters couldn’t give a fig about the integrity of Ukraine’s borders – or the Israeli/ Palestine conflict and anything else happening on the world stage. Most would struggle to find the above on a world map. New York votes in a leftish Mayor will count for no nothing come election day.
The US economy was rallying under the Biden administration when the 2024 Presidential election was held. And now it is tanking under the Trump administration. It seems that it isn’t just “the economy” that wins elections. If it was, then Harris would have won. Hopefully the economic reality of Trump’s corporatarian economic policy will be the Republicans’ undoing. It’s the political Right who are using culture war nonsense to distract voters from economic failings. And it has succeeded so far because the non-Right has been too timid to push back against it. Until now.
Alex; The corp tax increase and inflation certainly had an impact on Bidens administration. Also the loss of control of the southern border hurt Biden / Harris badly.
As for the culture wars the left only has itself to blame. When a female lecturer has to be escorted to work by security guards at a UK university – all for having a differing view on a subject , and universities and political parties have been dragged through the courts and to subsequently issue grovelling apologies – none are from the political right.
I thought the mayoral winner in New York was a Socialist rather than Liberal?
Mamdani may be defined as a socialist in US terms, byt that means almost anyone to the left of Ghengis Khan. The meaning of socialist in the USA is a million miles away from its meaning in Europe. His policies would be perfectly acceptable to most Liberals.
Anyway it’s good he won because it shows the right can be beaten, whether it’s the right of the Democratic Party or the Republicans.