Why Harris Lost Support

The other day Mike Maierle wrote a piece for YSDA analyzing the numbers behind Kamala Harris’ defeat. It was headlined Where Harris Lost Support. Today we’ll ask why she lost it where she did.

What was most striking to me was that Harris, a Black woman, lost support among women and Blacks (though not among Black women) compared to white guy Joe Biden four years earlier.

How can that be? Well, this morning’s New York Times contains what I found to be a brilliant piece on that topic by centrist columnist David Brooks. I’ll excerpt it here:

“Over the past few generations, a certain worldview that emphasizes racial, gender and ethnic identity has been prevalent in the circles where highly educated people congregate… Society is divided between the privileged (straight white males) and the marginalized (pretty much everyone else). History and politics are the struggle between oppressors and oppressed groups. In this model, people are seen as members of a group before they are seen as individuals… In this model, individual cognition is de-emphasized while collective consciousness is emphasized. Groups are assumed to be relatively homogeneous. People are seen as representatives of their community… But this mind-set has just crashed against the rocks of reality. This model assumes that people are primarily motivated by identity group solidarity. This model assumes that the struggle against oppressive systems and groups is the central subject of politics. This model has no room for what just happened. It turns out a lot of people don’t behave like ambassadors from this or that group.”

His basic argument is that liberal elites saw the electorate as a collection of oppressed groups while most real people don’t think of themselves that way. They think of themselves as individuals and they’re concerned about real world stuff, like prices and jobs. They don’t feel oppressed by white men, they feel oppressed by inflation.

I found myself oddly cheered by Brooks’ analysis. It could be the end of identity politics. Well, no, that’s going too far. The worldview that he describes is like religion for its adherents. Their explanation for the thumping that Democrats took last week is to double down on identity: Harris lost because of racism and misogyny, never mind that she lost vote share among Blacks and women. Must be false consciousness. We need to educate them more!

So, no, we’re not going to wipe out identity politics, but there is some hope that we can deposit it in the backseat and let a new driver take the wheel. That driver would better see voters for who they are: individuals with practical concerns.

Maybe. We’ll see.

We’ll also see if we can crank out a new Quote & Quiz tomorrow after a couple weeks when we just haven’t been in the mood. Have a good weekend.