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Why Don't More Voters Care About Democracy?

The question that has bedeviled Dems since Trump came down the escalator

Dan Pfeiffer

Feb 28

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Welcome to this week's mailbag. A lot to get into, given the never-ending torrent of news over the last several days.

A quick reminder: these mailbags run every Saturday as a special feature for paid subscribers. Subscribe to get full access and drop your questions for future mailbags.

Don’t forget to leave your questions for next week’s mailbag in the comments section.

Chris S.

In spite of January 6, Democrats warning that the MAGA movement and Trump are an existential threat to our democracy always seemed to fall flat. I’ve thought a lot about the reasons why, but it felt like too abstract of a concept for the average voter to really care about. Do you think this is the election cycle that message will really break through, largely what people are seeing what ICE is doing in their local communities? If so, what’s the narrative they should construct to help people wake up?

Answer

You have landed on the question that has haunted Democrats for years. In 2020, Joe Biden ran on experience, competence, and a return to Obama-era normalcy — enough to eke out a narrow Electoral College victory. After January 6th, he pivoted to a message about protecting democracy. In the run-up to the midterms, Biden gave a little-watched speech on the subject, and then Democrats had a surprisingly good year. The oft-predicted red wave never arrived. In a classic case of confusing causation and correlation, the White House decided the democracy message was the reason Democrats outperformed expectations.

Kamala Harris largely adopted that same message in the stretch run. It didn’t work.

Why not? Is it because swing voters don’t see the threats that are obvious to us, or is it because democracy simply isn’t a priority for them?...