Perry Bacon Jr. wants us to stop blaming progressives for Harris’s loss. Is he right?

Here is the Washington Post columnist:

Center-left and establishment Democrats are trying to marginalize the party’s left wing in the wake of Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss last month, in some ways mirroring what moderates — including Bill Clinton — did in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

The bashing of progressives started almost immediately after the election — and hasn’t stopped since. Commentator James Carville said Harris could “never wash off the stench” of left-wing rhetoric such as “defund the police.” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Massachusetts) said: “Here we are calling Republicans weird, and we’re the party that makes people put pronouns in their email signature.” Quentin Fulks, who was Harris’s deputy campaign manager, said party activists too often force Democratic candidates to apologize, particularly hurting them with male voters, because, according to him, “men don’t like people who apologize.”

I hope this effort is unsuccessful. It’s based on a false premise. The Democrats’ biggest electoral problem isn’t its less-powerful progressive wing, but rather a centrist establishment that clings to power while constantly losing elections and major policy fights. And, as happened in the 1990s, a rightward move by Democrats on policy could hurt some of the most vulnerable people and groups in American society.

As election analysis, these takes aren’t particularly strong. Whether to put he/she pronouns in emails wasn’t a factor in Harris’s race against Donald Trump. The “defund the police” slogan was most prominent in 2020 — a year Democrats won the House, Senate and the presidency. Harris didn’t issue a big apology during her campaign. (Election results aside, politicians and anyone else in America who does something that they regret should apologize. I am disappointed I have to use space in a published article in 2024 to note that it’s plenty manly to say, “I’m sorry.”)

So, if these supposed faults of progressives aren’t really why Harris lost, why are center-left Democrats so fixated on them?

Bacon lists three reasons three reasons why:

1. Center-left Democrats want to shift blame for losing an election that is “entirely the establishment’s fault.”
2. Center-left Democrats want to “diminish progressives’ influence on the party’s values and policy stances.”
3. Center-left Democrats believe that their party cannot win elections if they double-down on things like police reform, transgendered rights, more immigration, and DEI-related causes.

You can see how Bacon expands these points here.

Here are a few thoughts on Bacon’s piece:

First, Bacon’s use of the word “progressive” in this piece is muddled. He is mostly talking about “cultural progressives”–those who champion the things mentioned in point #3 above. But I think there are a lot of economic progressives–defenders of working people–who do believe that Harris failed to make a strong appeal to working-class voters, many of whom tend to be conservative or moderate on these cultural issues. To put it differently, just because some members of the Democratic Party are not big fans of defunding the police or believe in two genders or think DEI has gone too far, does not mean that they cannot be progressive economically. So it is not just the neoliberal center who is blaming cultural progressives for Harris’s loss, it is the economic progressives–people like Bernie Sanders–who are doing it as well.

Second, I still believe that there were a lot of independent voters, including a lot of evangelical Christians (one-fifth to one-quarter of the electorate, depending on how you count them) who were looking for a reason–any reason–to vote for Harris. She did not give them one. Yes, Harris tried to run her campaign to the center, but she did not have enough time to separate herself from the cultural progressivism that many moderate independent voters associate with the Democratic Party. (This is the “stench” that James Carville was talking about.) If this is true, then I think cultural progressives ARE to blame for the Democratic Party losing the election.

Third, Bacon seems to suggest in the piece that Democrats should stop appealing to the center on culturally progressive issues, even if that means that they will lose political elections. He concludes his piece with:

The Democratic Party isn’t just an election organization. Its real purpose is to advance good policies that make the United States a better country. The party shouldn’t shun its principles and values to win elections, as centrists are calling for, but instead find the right candidates and tactics so it can win elections while also defending transgender rights, racial justice and other liberal values.

Here, in a nutshell, is the Democratic Party’s problem. It is out of touch with the American people. The majority of Americans do not believe that Democratic Party is advancing “good policies that make the United States a better country.” Like Seth Moulton and others, they do not want their daughters playing sports against biological boys and men. They believe there are two genders. They want responsible immigration reform, but not a wall. They want abortion rights protected, but with reasonable restrictions. They want their pro-choice candidates to talk about those restrictions. They are struggling economically and believe that no one is acknowledging their existence, except, of course, to tell them that they have privilege because of their skin color. They don’t use pronouns or words like “LatinX” and “cisgender.”