For most Democrats, Trump’s win was a shock. For Ruy Teixeira, it was unsurprising. A political scientist and lifelong Democrat, Ruy has been warning for years that the party was prioritizing ideological purity over popular appeal.
His 2023 book with John Judis, Where Have All the Democrats Gone?, could have been a wake-up call for the party. One wonders how the election might have gone if the Harris campaign had read it carefully.
Ruy’s writing has been prophetic on the exact questions Democrats are grappling with as they try to find their way out of the political wilderness. Questions like: Why did so many working-class Americans abandon the party? What happened to the promise of a multiracial Democratic majority? And how should the party pick itself up, dust itself off, and put together a winning coalition again?
These questions are set to be a major theme of our politics in 2025 and beyond, and we can think of no better guide than the man who saw so much of it coming. That’s why we’re thrilled Ruy is now joining The Free Press as a contributing writer.
Every other week or so you can find Ruy right here, helping us make sense of the future of the Democratic Party and the left as they try to figure out how to handle a second Trump term—and how to win in 2028.
Today, Ruy argues that Democrats are still in denial about why they lost the election. In fact, he writes, many of today’s Democrats are culture denialists. That is, they do not consider cultural issues, such as trans athletes in women’s sports and critical race theory taught in schools, to be real issues. But voters disagree. In one postelection survey, the top reason among swing voters not to vote for Harris was the perception that she was more focused on cultural questions like transgender issues than helping the middle class. Another poll tells a similar story.
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