March 7, 2023

In 2002, John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira published a book entitled The Emerging Democratic Majority. Judis and Teixeira posited that historic voting patterns, urbanization, and growing minority populations could lead to Democrat party electoral dominance. However, the Democrats misinterpreted “could” to mean “would” and missed the point of the book. It wasn’t telling them what would happen. It was suggesting what could happen, if they played “big tent” politics.

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Due to that misinterpretation, their book became the holy grail of the Left — and a big justification for keeping our borders open. All the Democrats had to do was flood the country with enough people of the preferred demographic, and they’d never lose another election — so they thought. And since electoral dominance was destiny, the Dems decided to charge ahead and indulge all of their leftist fantasies. What could possibly go wrong? After all, Judis and Teixeira promised them that they had it in the bag.

It turns out plenty could go wrong. Teixeira has been sounding the alarm for some time now. In 2021 when he wrote “Will Census Trends Save the Democrats?” he noted that voting patterns, especially among Hispanics, were shifting towards Republicans. He explained, and I’m paraphrasing: When he and his pal John said the Dems were on the right path in 2002, it wasn’t meant as advice to make a hard Left turn onto another path leading to something America is not.

He argued that the Democrat party’s embrace of radicalism isn’t a winning argument with the emerging demographics who wanted things like health, freedom, and prosperity. Those are the things that make America great — but are anathema to the left.

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Teixeira recently wrote a three-part series of articles in which he recommends a political strategy to the Dems (here, here, and  here). He gets into several specifics, but the thumbnail version is to distance themselves from the radicals and cozy up to the normies. The “normies” are what Teixeira calls common working-class Americans — i.e., mainstream Americans. Isn’t it interesting that what the Democrats call right-wing extremists (or even semi-fascist) is what Teixeira considers the normal people? There’s a message for the party in that.

Teixeira offers up three points of strategic advance:

  • Move to the center on cultural issues
  • Promote an abundance agenda
  • Embrace patriotism and liberal nationalism

Culture

On point 1, Teixeira argues that the “no compromise” radicalism of the Left is losing the cultural debate. He says:

Culture matters and the issues to which they are connected matter. They are a hugely important part of how voters assess who is on their side and who is not; whose philosophy they can identify with and whose they can’t.

Teixeira notes that supporting violent criminals, rioters, illegal aliens, DEI initiatives, and gender-affirming care is not aligned with normie values. He argues that the Democrats have embraced radical positions, because leftists have oversized influence on the party. That influence is driving the Democrat party to lose touch with the normies, who are still the vast majority of American voters.