Whenever Republicans find themselves unable to attack Democrats on substance, they love to trot out the hackneyed accusation that every Democrat is “radical” and “extremist.” It seems there’s no amount of liberal that’s acceptable — no “left” that’s not “far left.”
Unfortunately for those who want to claim that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are “too liberal,” liberal is now synonymous with “things Americans want.” In an opinion column in The Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin points out that, based on data from the nonpartisan Voice of the People, at least 75% of Americans favor green energy subsidies, police reform, increased taxes on the wealthy, keeping the Affordable Care Act, expanding the social safety net, increasing the minimum wage, providing full legal status and a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, and continuing to support NATO.
In addition, “there are many other issues that a large majority of Americans support: federal action to protect abortion (68 percent) and LGBTQ+ rights to marry (67 percent); the bipartisan infrastructure law (65 percent); banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines (67 percent) and imposing term limits on Supreme Court justices (65 percent). Issues such as teaching Black history and doing away with book bans and legalizing marijuana get more than 80 percent approval.” A majority of Americans also support unions, want to end the electoral college and gerrymandering, and support some form of student debt relief.
“The notion that Harris has to ‘move closer to the center,’” writes Rubin, “ignores that she already reflects consensus views. It is the MAGA movement that has gone off the deep end.”
If policies alone decided elections, this one would already be over in a Harris-Walz landslide. Unfortunately, gut feelings, tradition and social pressures tend to overrule even self-interest. A large number of people who prefer Harris’ policies will still feel obligated to vote for Trump, even if it means compromising their principles and embracing inferior policies. But as far as public sentiment on most major issues, Harris has the wind at her back. The Democrats are now the party of real Americans.
Kidding, of course: All Americans are real Americans. But the Republicans claiming to be “real America” actually now represent unpopular fringe views and must depend entirely on fear-mongering about the left to keep their constituents voting for policies that will make their lives tangibly worse.
Moreover, they seem to know how unpopular they are based on how they increasingly treat democracy and voting access as threats. It matters a lot that Trump has stopped claiming that he didn’t interfere in the 2020 election and instead claims that he had “every right” to do so. Combine this with his recent admission that he did in fact lose the election, and there’s no longer any rationalization for Trump’s bald-faced attempt to overturn what he knew to be a legitimate election, thwart the will of the voters, and steal the presidency. “Stop the Steal” was always just double-speak from those who refuse to let a little thing like democracy get in the way of their quest for power. When folks like me claim that this campaign is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism, I wish we were being hyperbolic.
The GOP have always considered themselves to be the “normal” America by which everyone else is defined. For example, white is normal; everyone else has a race. Male is normal; female is other. Straight and cis are normal; gay and trans are perversions. Christian is normal and everyone else is a dangerous heathen. And so on.
But, by clinging to the past, they’ve grown out of touch and left themselves the odd ones out. For them to now be the eccentrics on the margins must be incredibly disorienting, and this is why calling them “weird” has been such an effective attack: It undermines their whole identity and claims to superiority while exposing their deepest fear, i.e., becoming one of the minorities they’ve always scorned. The GOP can hardly comprehend that they’re no longer the American center — they’ve become the lunatic fringe.
So hell yes Democratic policies are left-leaning and liberal. Lefties need to stop taking that as a criticism and own the fact that they now represent the better future most Americans want. This is no time to be shy. If we have to drag our conservative friends and neighbors kicking and screaming into their own better future, so be it. It’s what we always do.
Urie is a lifelong Idahoan and graduate of the University of Idaho. He lives in Moscow with his wife and two children. You can find his writing online at Medium (hopeanyway.medium.com) or Substack (hopeanyway.substack.com). Or, you can email him at ryanthomasurie@gmail.com.
