03:48
Democrats could learn from a closer neighbor: Mexico
> Andrés Manuel López Obrador will leave office in September 2024, concluding his popular—and controversial—six-year tenure at the National Palace. Riding on a wave of progressive achievements that include a minimum wage hike and reducing income inequality, his Morena party successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, is forecast to win the June 2 election by between 25 and 30 percent.
And Claudia Sheinbaum became the first female (secular, socialist, Jewish) president.
> Focusing on the issue of class politics: There has been a sharp restructuring of voting blocs along class lines under AMLO. From 2018 until 2021, the Mexican working-class vote was scattered across different parties, as it had been for decades. Even when AMLO won the presidency in 2018, his strongest constituency was the credentialed classes, that is, middle-class professionals and intellectuals.
> By the 2021 congressional elections, Morena’s class composition had shifted sharply towards employees, especially workers in the informal sector, and peasants. Meanwhile, Morena’s opposition, including the disillusioned credentialed class, consolidated around the business sector.
> This was the consequence of policies favorable to the working class: a historic increase in the minimum wage, the elimination of outsourcing, union democratization, an increase in mandatory vacation days, cash transfers for the poor, taxation of large companies, and more. Five million people were lifted out of poverty, unemployment went down, profits were distributed more evenly, and there was a lower Gini coefficient.
> The playbook for transforming a democracy into a soft autocracy was clear: Win power with a populist message against elites. Redraw parliamentary districts. Change voting laws. Harass civil society. Pack courts with judges willing to support power grabs. Enrich cronies through corruption. Buy up newspapers and television stations and turn them into right-wing propaganda. Use social media to energize supporters.
> Wrap it up in an Us versus Them message: Us, the “real” Russians or Hungarians or Americans, against a rotating cast of Them: the migrants, the Muslims, the liberals, the gays, George Soros and on and on.
> As a party that prizes data, we seized on indicators of growth and job creation as proof that the economy was booming, even though people felt crushed by rising costs. As a party motivated by social justice, we let revulsion at white Christian nationalism bait us into identity politics on their terms — whether it was debates about transgender athletes, the busing of migrants to cities, or shaming racist MAGA personalities who can’t be shamed.
> As a party committed to American leadership of a “rules-based international order,” we defended a national security enterprise that has failed repeatedly in the 21st century, and made ourselves hypocrites through unconditional military support for Israel’s bombardment of civilians in Gaza.
> Democrats told true stories about Mr. Trump’s unfitness, about the legislative achievements of the Biden-Harris administration, about bodily autonomy for women. But when talking about middle-class economics, it was often in the familiar poll-tested language of the consultant class.
> Democrats understandably have a hard time fathoming why Americans would put our democracy at risk, but we miss the reality that our democracy is part of what angers them.
> Many voters have come to associate democracy with globalization, corruption, financial capitalism, migration, forever wars and elites (like me) who talk about it as an end in itself rather than a means to redressing inequality, reining in capitalist systems that are rigged, responding to global conflict and fostering a sense of shared national identity.
> Donald Trump has won the presidency, but I don’t believe he will deliver on his promises. Like other self-interested autocrats, his remedies are designed to exploit problems instead of solving them, and he’s surrounded by oligarchs who want to loot the system instead of reforming it. Mass deportation and tariffs are recipes for inflation. Tax cuts and deregulation will exacerbate inequality.
> America First impulses will fuel global conflict, technological disruption and climate conflagration. Mr. Trump is the new establishment in this country and globally, and we should emphasize that instead of painting him as an outlier or interloper.
> Democrats must reject the impulse to simply be a resistance that condemns whatever outrageous thing Mr. Trump says. ... Instead of defending a system that has been rejected, we need to articulate an alternative vision for what kind of democracy comes next.
