TThe meeting was being touted as an opportunity for voters in Saginaw, Michigan, to ask their elected Democrats tough questions about why Donald Trump and not Kamala Harris is entering the White House on Monday.
Biotechnology scientist Vincent Oliedo had just such a question. He asked what lessons were learned from Harris’ loss in this key battleground state, which voted for Joe Biden four years ago, and how Democrats are applying them. asked.
At the end of a town hall with Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and local member of the state Legislature, Amos O’Neill, Mr. Oliedo said what amounted to a bland remark that the politicians were “listening.” He said he was disappointed in their answers. ‘ he told voters.
“They didn’t answer questions,” he said.
“It shows they haven’t learned their lesson and are in a negative state of mind. I pay close attention to influential people within the Democratic Party. Their arguments has focused on “if only we had a better message, if we had better candidates, if we had done all these superficial things.” There is a real lack of understanding that they are losing their base and losing the constituency that they take for granted. ”
Trump’s decisive victory in Saginaw, a bellwether county that he won in 2016 and lost four years later, was a shock to local Democrats but not to many of his supporters.
Community leaders in some of Saginaw’s poorest neighborhoods, where voter turnout has declined, said the Harris campaign has attacked Trump as unfit for office and focused on winning support among middle-class white women. He has repeatedly warned that this has led to the alienation of large sections of the population, particularly around abortion rights. People in Democratic districts are simply struggling to pay their bills and are calling for economic reform.
Carly Hammond, a Saginaw City Council member and former union organizer who campaigned for Harris, said there is little evidence that Democrats are learning the lessons of Harris’ defeat, let alone using them. He said no. He said the party’s national leadership does not understand that it faces a generational political realignment in Saginaw and other parts of the country.
“It’s hard to find a good way to look at it. I believe that this election did not just begin, but solidified, a political realignment that has been going on for decades, so I believe that the people “Democrats have really put themselves in a position of loss for a generation,” she said.
“We have braced ourselves for a generational shift because we continue to encourage from within leaders who do not criticize their moneyed interests. They take seriously what Americans actually believe. We are refusing to consider and meet that need.”
After the meeting, O’Neill told the Guardian that he believes Harris’ campaign focused too much on abortion rights, leading to her defeat in Saginaw, and that voters in Michigan will have to fight for 2022 to protect access. He said abortion rights were less of an issue after the state constitution was amended in 2017.
“We were already fighting the race for women’s rights. What we were missing were the tabletop issues that people were grappling with. They couldn’t afford to go to the grocery store, they couldn’t afford to buy food. “We didn’t talk about economics. We missed it,” he said.
Mr O’Neill accused the National Party of failing to listen to local voices.
“Policies are decided by the whole country.I have been involved in politics for over 20 years, but I have not had much communication with politicians.For example, if I use myself as an example, I would like to think that there is something more impactful. “If I had gotten engaged earlier, I might have been able to go out and speak out and advocate for the message,” he said.
Hammond said this is partly a result of Democrats relying more on polls than policy.
“The problem is that the consultant class has made all politicians believe that with the right formula, no matter what candidate you throw in, no matter what machine you throw at it, people will vote for that candidate. And that’s not true,” she said.
“Democrats have shown that they have no principles, that they follow the polls, that they can’t just talk about the economy and table issues in a way that doesn’t require them to actually commit to anything. They’ll win next time. But they’ll lose.”
Hammond said Democratic leaders mistakenly thought they could hide core issues such as anger over the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza and a hunger for structural economic change that would drive support for Trump. That’s a view backed up by a YouGov poll released Wednesday, which found that 29% of people who voted for Biden in 2020 but not for Harris last year said the Gaza war was the main reason. . Another 24% cited economic policy.
Pat Parker, who has campaigned for Democratic presidential candidates in Saginaw through five elections, is among those trying to push for a change in the party’s electoral strategy by forcing the party to listen to local voices. .
“We were screaming at the Harris campaign locally, ‘This isn’t going to work.’ We’re putting a lot of energy into it, but something’s not right.” Although the team was working hard, they may have just been throwing dirt into a new pile. We didn’t get any of the desired results,” said Parker, a clinical social worker.
“When Harris said things like giving $25,000 to people buying their first home, many people thought she was giving the money to people who didn’t deserve it. “It cost her her vote. We were trying to tell her that.”
In the weeks since President Trump’s victory, Parker has sided with the Democratic establishment, including Black community leaders, labor unions and local party activists, to promote a bottom-up approach to future elections. Gathered a group. She said local party leadership is working with them.
But Hammond is not optimistic that national leaders will listen.
“I think liberal ideology with a capital L is what is being rebelled against and rebelled against at a very fundamental level by the majority of Americans. But the Democratic Party doesn’t see that.” she said.
“A lot of people on the ground, a lot of community activists, a lot of people who were sounding the alarm, are tired of trying to save the Democratic Party from itself. They’ve been shown the door a long time ago.In fact, leaders don’t want a big tent, they want a very top-down small tent.”
Beyond failing to elect Harris, Hammond said there is another legacy of the campaign that Democrats may come to regret.
Much of the Harris kamikaze in Michigan was dedicated to attacking Trump, a convicted criminal and front for Project 2025, an authoritarian plan to impose right-wing control over the entire U.S. government. .
“The National Party has set the standard that if Donald Trump doesn’t literally destroy democracy in tangible ways that people feel, then they’ll be proven wrong. It’s not as bad as we thought it was. They’re also liars because they didn’t. They set themselves up for failure,” Hammond said.
