Matthew Thomas: Democrats ‘don’t seem to understand that they are in the business of politics’

Matthew Thomas, author of the newsletter “Vulgar Marxism,” said that Democrats are continuing to try and fail at wooing working class voters, a demographic the party has been trying to boost their numbers with for decades.

“More affluent people are voting as a share of the Democratic primary electorate and as an absolute number and fewer working class people are voting as a share of the primary electorate and as an absolute number,” Thomas posed as one explanation for the Democrats’ struggle on HillTV’s “Rising.”

Thomas said this trend is prevalent around the country, citing Tennessee as an example. The writer noted that in the last election, middle class counties in the state went from around 30 percent of the vote to 38 percent of the vote, whereas poor counties in the state went from around 65 percent of the vote to 55 percent of the vote.

He also referenced Virginia as a state whose increase in affluent professional voters has helped the Democrats in national elections.

“So we see that in certain states like Virginia, for example, where there’s a high concentrate of affluent professionals, these trends have been really great for turnout because most of the population is highly educated and affluent, so there’s been a huge explosion in turnout in Virginia in the Democratic presidential primaries since 2008, but almost everywhere else, since most states are not rich, turnout has declined precipitously.” 

As for the reasons behind these trends, Thomas noted the cultural left-wing politics on issues like race and policing that he argues are “toxic among voters without a college degree,” even given the more centrist faction of the party who takes more moderate stances on cultural issues.

“That’s associated with the party even if it isn’t in control of it,” Thomas said.

The writer also argued that Democrat tactics are largely failing due to an inability to communicate clearly to voters about their agenda and craft effective strategy the way Republicans have.

“They don’t seem to understand that they are in the business of politics, or they just don’t have that kind of knack for, I don’t know, performance, or the theatrics of politics.”

“I think a lot of democrats…I don’t know, I think there’s something in the air, in the water on the Senate left and in the party where they’re spooked by the right,” Thomas continued. “They’re not confident. And I also think it’s maybe perhaps that they don’t have a clear agenda or program they’re running on. They’re just anti-Republican.”