Growing up, Republicans were the schoolmarms. They wanted to codify marriage equality bans in state constitutions, take away or censor your video games and movies, and do damn near anything to become as close to John Lithgow in Footloose as possible.
But then, things changed. Abortions fell as contraception access expanded — yes, in part due to Obamacare — and with the thrice-married celebrity in the White House, Republicans chilled out. No longer were the “culture wars” defined by conservatives trying to regulate your bedrooms; instead, they became liberals and leftists trying to regulate everything from your “preferred pronouns” to the number of booster shots in your arm.
In 2017, Josh Barro correctly diagnosed this curious case as the “hamburger problem” plaguing Democrats. Here’s Barro’s central thesis:
They don’t always want to prohibit those choices. But they have become smug and condescending toward anyone who does not match the personal lifestyle choices of liberal elites. Why would the voters on the receiving end of that smug condescension trust such a movement to operate the government in their best interest?
The nice thing about the hamburger problem is that Democrats can fix it without moving substantially on policy. They just have to become less annoying.
Barro was obviously correct. On everything from marijuana to obscenity, the public, conservatives included, massively chilled out, yet liberals dialed their own cultural panic up to 11. Being in favor of gay couples having the right to marry and adopt used to be considered socially liberal. Today, if you fail to address 55 genders and let pre-op “gender fluid” men hang their genitals out at women’s spas, you’re an anti-LGBTQIA+ bigot.
But Democrats did not heed Barro’s warning. Instead, they continued to advocate for “defund the police,” keeping schools closed at the behest of teachers unions, and then brainwashing children to believe their original sin is the color of their skin. Parents were rightly pissed and gave Democrats a national shellacking that has the entire White House on a 24-hour lid doing damage control.
Van Jones finally named the problem last night: Liberals aren’t just incompetent at everything from evacuating Americans from Afghanistan to securing the southern border. They are also annoying as hell.
Van Jones: “Democrats are coming across as annoying and offensive and out-of-touch. I think there is a message here.”
Anderson Cooper. “It seems annoying to a lot of people” pic.twitter.com/htNI89luii
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 3, 2021
Go to any conservative party, from the innermost think tanks in D.C. to rural Virginia, and you’ll have a grand old time. Nobody cares if you’re vaccinated or wearing a mask. Nobody cares if you’re drunk as a skunk or abstinent. The only social rule is that which all of Hollywood seemed to ignore for 30 years: Lay your hand on another man’s woman, and you’ll get a shiner.
But Democrats these days? Most of their parties are like The Man Who Was Thursday, with everyone (rightly) terrified of getting canceled. Cinco de Mayo festivities constitute cultural appropriation. Halloween parties feature offensive costumes. “Merry Christmas” is cis-hetero-Christian normative. Your whiteness is evil.
The lazy politico will often invoke the “beer versus wine track” of assessing presidential races, but it’s a lazy trope for a reason. It’s effective, and it’s partially why Joe Biden clocked the largest field of primary opponents in history. It’s also why Democrats lost handily on Tuesday.
I disagree with Glenn Youngkin on gay marriage, but unlike Republicans of decades past, he promised not to do anything to reduce marriage equality. I could grab a beer with him. Who the hell would want to share a beverage of any kind with Randi Weingarten or Terry McAuliffe?
Congressional Democrats and the activist class have responded to Joe Manchin’s recalcitrance on Biden’s agenda not by rethinking their methods but rather by continuing to call him a racist/sexist/bigot/homophobe even harder. Let Virginia and, at that rate, New Jersey be a lesson from Democrats around the rest of the country as to how well that works.
