Democrat virtue signaling on waterboarding not sell with voters they need

Joseph Borrelli:

Meet “Bob.” He is white, working-class, middle-aged, and has no college degree. For years, he voted mostly for Democrats, but in 2016 he and his wife became the archetypal Obama-to-Trump voters who flipped in large enough numbers in critical states to cost Hillary Clinton the election.  

For many Democratic analysts, "economic anxiety" was the number one reason many in Bob’s circle abandoned the Democratic Party in 2016. Eighty-one percent of them saw their wages falling below — or barely keeping pace with — the growing cost of living under the last administration. Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) recent promise to raise their taxes to Obama levels, and panning the extra $80 in their paycheck as “crumbs,” isn’t necessarily winning them back.

Beyond the economic reasons for jumping ship, another other analysis found that "cultural anxiety" was a leading factor of defection away from the Democrats. The study concluded that approximately two-thirds of white working-class voters believed that the U.S. is losing its cultural identity; while half self-reported that they “feel like a stranger in (their) own country.”

The left is keenly aware of their bailing blue collars. As New York magazine surmised, to take back Congress, Democrats must recalibrate their message to win back “non-woke white people.” Even left-leaning The Nation admitted that liberal attacks on American patriotism, by equating it to racism, xenophobia, and right-wing nationalism, may not have helped to keep moderate whites within their ranks.

Now back to Bob.

Imagine he and his equally average group of white, working-class friends are at the local diner in Cloquet, Minn. How do you think Bob and his pals reacted to the news that newly-confirmed CIA chief Gina Haspel — an otherwise overwhelmingly qualified candidate — was opposed by most Democrats and three Republicans for her role in the program to waterboard suspected terrorists after the 9/11 attacks? Do you honestly think Bob’s breakfast buddies would demand she apologize for her actions if she was sitting there in front of a stack of pancakes and not the senate panel in D.C.?

Polling over the last several years confirms your likely response: Reuters/Ipsos found nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that tactics like waterboarding “can be justified to extract information from suspected terrorists." A Rasmussen poll had similar results, with only 33 percent disagreeing with the use of that type of tactic.

Pew Research broke the numbers down further: Whites were 15 percentage points more likely to support the use of torture against terrorists over blacks, and 12 points over Hispanics; Millennials were 13 percentage points less likely to support waterboarding than those over 65; and those with advanced degrees were about 11 percentage points more likely to oppose these tactics over those who had some or no college.
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The problem the Democrat’s face in 2018 is that seemingly everything they do as a party, like the Gina Haspel episode, is focused on winning districts like MN-5 and not MN-8. They are not taking NY mag’s advice and doing more to attract those "non-woke white people.”

Bob’s breakfast table isn’t likely being swayed by the party’s proposals for reparations, a universal income, and budget-busting welfare programs; in much the same way that they aren’t being budged by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s opposition to the Haspel nomination.

In terms of the bigger picture, most of the 24 toss ups are predominately white middle-class districts. Sure there are suburban exceptions, like Va.-10 near D.C. and Calif.-48, a presidential swing district that hugs the California coast; some have large Hispanic populations, like Fla.-26 and Texas-7. Yet still, the path to a full House requires Democrats to go through middle-class parts of Michigan, upstate New York, rust-belt Pennsylvania, and central Ohio.
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The is the second analysis I have seen in recent days which questions the Democrat ability to take back Congress and the reasons are teh same.  The districts they need to win are not into the "resistance" that Democrats thought would be their key to success.  They are on the wrong side of the voters in these districts and it will be difficult for them to finess theri differences.