In the wake of the 2024 election, a poll from Blueprint found that a lot of swing voters believed that “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class.”
Predictably, many centrist Democrats started arguing that Democrats had to talk less about “cultural” issues. The centrist Democratic group Third Way, for instance, released a list of 47 words for Democrats to stop using – words like “cisgender,” “birthing person” and “chest feeder.” Elissa Slotkin said “There are a lot of issues out there. But you’ve got to start with what keeps people awake, and that is kitchen-table issues, economics.”
(Tim Onion mocked the Third Way argument on Bluesky: “Dems need to stop policing language… and we should start by banning these 47 words.”)
I remember hearing the same arguments after Hilary Clinton lost. I suspect they were also made after Al Gore lost.
The problem with this analysis is that Democrats already talk more about kitchen table issues than virtually anything else – certainly more than they ever talk about trans rights. As Charlie Markbreiter pointed out, “Kamala Harris has been virtually silent on trans rights.”
In November of 2024, responding to Matthew Yglesias saying, essentially, that Democrats had to stop using wokespeak, Political Science professor Mark Copelovitch wrote:
Quite literally, three months ago, the Democrats nominated TIM WALZ, the most Minnesota Regular Guy ever, to join Harris on the ticket, and they spent weeks going around the country talking about all the things Pundits say they want them to talk about. It’s like this never happened. It’s maddening.
Wallad Shahid wrote that people who say that Democrats just need to moderate their message are dodging a harder truth:
The 2024 record is straightforward: frontline Democrats campaigned largely as moderates. Border and police funding, fentanyl crackdowns, oil drilling permits, law-enforcement endorsements, bipartisan validators. The ads show badges and sheriffs. And yet the coalitions barely moved. It feels like talking into a headwind.
We reach for easy fixes because the alternative is a kind of vertigo. It is simpler to believe that swapping positions here and there unlocks the electorate than to sit with the possibility that the crisis is larger than message—that the map is unkind, that political identities have devoured localism, that the emotional weather is set somewhere offstage and rarely shifts on command.
Remember Third Way’s 47 words? As many people pointed out, a bunch of those words are virtually never used by elected Democrats. Almost the only officials using those words are Republicans making fun of how they imagine Democrats talk.
The reason many swing voters thought “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class” has nothing to do with what Harris said. It has to do with what Republicans say Harris said. And no amount of nagging progressives to care less about trans issues is going to change that.
Another cycle cartoon! I just find these cartoons fun to draw.
TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has three panels, arranged in a circle, with arrows pointing clockwise leading from one panel to the next. In the center of the circle is a large caption, saying “The Kitchen Table Cycle.”
UPPER LEFT PANEL
This panel shows a smartphone. On the smartphone screen, an angry man wearing a suit and tie is talking.
MAN: The only thing the Democratic candidate ever talks about is trans issues! Trans trans trans!
An arrow leads from this to the
LOWER RIGHT PANEL
Three Democrats sit in a treehouse; a sign on the treehouse says “Democrat Strategy Meeting (No progressives allowed). One of them is speaking.
SPEAKER: The pundits say we lost by talking too much about “identity politics.” Next time, our candidate has to be a centrist who only talks about kitchen table issues!
An arrow leads from this to the
LOWER LEFT PANEL
A politician stands behind a podium giving a speech.
CANDIDATE: As your Democratic candidate, let me just say: Kitchen table! Kitchen Table! Kitchen Table!
An arrow leads from this back to the upper left panel with the cellphone.
CHICKEN FAT WATCH
“Chicken fat” is old-fashioned cartoonist speak for little extras in the cartoon.
UPPER LEFT PANEL: The Fox News logo says “Cur Fews. Go to bed.” The chyron says “Democrats hate all puppies” and the second chyron says “New science proves: everything is still Biden’s fault.” Below the Fox News screen, there are six thumbnails leading to suggested videos. The thumbnail captions read: Owned! Crushed! Cooked! Demolished! Murderized! And then, in smaller letters, “I attempted to refute their position with persuasive arguments.”
LOWER RIGHT PANEL: The treehouse is modeled after the treehouse in my favorite comic strip of all time, “Calvin and Hobbes.” There’s a hole in the tree trunk; in the hole is a giant rat wearing a top hat and bow tie.
LOWER LEFT PANEL: The seal on the front of the podium has a picture of Sam the Eagle from the Muppets (it’s a little hard to make out because of the foreshortening, alas). The paper lying on the podium says “Tiny print no one reads.”
That is an *AWESOME* hoodie and where can I get one like it? Thanks! And I'm sorry, I got it…