Weak Analysis

In mid-May, Chris Cillizza noted that when pollsters asked Democrats their opinion of the Democratic Party, the word that often came to mind was "weak."

There are many reasons for that. One, however, is that when major Democratic operatives are asked about the Party, they are loathe to be seen or heard defending it. At the beginning of the video below, David Axelrod contends "More and more, the Party has come to approach working people as missionaries and anthropologists. We show up and say "we're here to hep you become more like us..." 

"More like us." Black? Gay (or, rather, "queer")? Former federal prosecutors? Axelrod continues "... and we know what you need and we're fighting for it. And there's a fundamental disregard associated with that and I think that's been communicated and I think that disdain has been weaponized by Trump.."

At 1:51, Axelrod claims

But look, there's a larger problem, uh. And I think Democrats do themselves a disservice by not doing, engaging, in some introspection here.  It is that the party that sees itself as the party of working people came to be seen by so many working people as the party of elites and institutions.

Oh, good gravy. Democrats are forever and ever looking themselves in the mirror. They are the party of introspection.  Republicans do not do this, though at least not since early 2013, when they conducted an "autopsy" which concluded that it must be a more inclusive party, more welcoming to immigrants, blacks, and other minorities. They then nominated Donald Trump, and the rest is history.

There is a modicum of validity to Axelrod's observation. However, at least in this segment, the veteran consultant, as is common among similar critics, does not specify what "elites" or institutions Democrats are enamored with. Further, the assessment might be a little more credible, or at least genuine, if it hadn't come from a chief strategist and senior adviser to a famous former President, who once remarked.

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Barack Obama did not offer this "introspective" and definitely not elitist comment after his presidency or even during his presidency. He said this on the campaign trail in April of 2008- seven months before he would be elected President. And this fellow, who maintained Americans in the heartland "get bitter (and) cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them" was re-elected. Sometimes, smug prevails. And elitism.

Of course, it's not that Obama was wrong. Nor is his former consultant/adviser arguing that the policy prescriptions or analysis of Democrats is inaccurate. However, Barack Obama's success at winning presidential elections suggests that the perception that Democrats are elitist is not a cause of electoral failure bur a result, or proxy for, something else.

I don't know what that is. But if talk is cheap, diagnosis without prescription- as practiced by Axelrod- is nearly worthless, or worse. He and others try to distance themselves from the Party, which reinforces the perception of Democrats as weak: if its heavyweights don't stand up for the party, why should others

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