Donald Trump’s blowout win in Iowa Monday night was a wake-up call for Democrats, but not for the reason they think.
The reaction from the left over Trump’s 51% rout in the state’s Republican caucuses was expectedly agitated.
Former Sen. Claire McCaskill declared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that “it wasn’t that great of a night for Trump,” and that getting 50% of the vote was actually a bad thing.
President Joe Biden posted to X: “But here’s the thing: this election was always going to be you and me vs. extreme MAGA Republicans. It was true yesterday and it’ll be true tomorrow.”
And Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who is running for Senate, rolled out a new Jan. 6-themed ad warning of a dire future ahead following former Trump’s win in Iowa, The Hill reported. “Now, we face an even greater danger,” the ad narrator states as video shows the New York Times headline “Why a Second Trump Presidency May be More Radical than His First.”
It is, to a degree, a repeat of 2016, when Trump supporters were written off as racist, sexist, hyper-religious filler in a “basket of deplorables.”
The results of election night 2016 had media and pundits reeling. As the results came in, NBC News’ Chuck Todd declared: “Rural America is basically screaming at us, saying, ‘Stop overlooking us!’”
It wasn’t just rural America, Trump voters across the country sent the message that they, the hardworking, taxpaying, non-elite didn’t feel like anyone was listening to them but Trump.
The sloughing off of non-Democrats from the zone of political importance has only gotten worse as progressives have maneuvered their agenda to the top of the pile.
One of the factors behind Trump’s 2016 win was the silent cadre of supporters — those who didn’t show up to rallies or wave signs. They didn’t want to appear with those who did — but they voted all the same.
Now Democrats are repeating the same plays, casting Trump supporters as a homogenous threat and not as diverse fellow Americans with issues worth listening to.
Trump voters know it’s not OK for eggs to cost $6 a dozen, no matter how much Team Joe touts Bidenomics as a good thing. They see cities and states buckling under the strain of sheltering waves of migrants to their fiscal detriment, while Biden paints a rosier border picture.
Democrats in power had four years to listen, to learn and to lean in. Instead Biden appealed to and continues to appease the progressive wing of the party, in a bid to remain on the good side of younger voters. He can dismiss Trump’s supporters as extremists all, but the promoter of “national unity” must realize that “you and me” includes everyone.
Biden and Co. can get with the program and start paying attention to all Americans, not just the progressive blue-staters, or be in for a very rough November night in 2024.
