by Edward Ring
In the wake of devastating defeats in the 2024 elections, Democrats are downplaying identity politics and instead prioritizing economic issues. Democrats are currently adopting “abundance movement” and claiming that they are the party to provide prosperity for working families. The latest version of this new strategy was expressed by Democratic activist and pundit Donna Brazile in her recent comment posted by Hill“Democrats’ Path to Victory in 2025 and Beyond.”
In an attempt to demonstrate an even stronger show of solidarity with working families, the concept of “abundance” has been expanded to include its twin, “affordability.” As Brazile mentions, in the two gubernatorial races that will be decided in November, Democratic candidates are “trying to lower the costs of health care, housing, energy and groceries.” Brazil writes:
“Former MP Abigail Spanberger, Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia is campaigning against her Virginia Affordable Plan. Likewise the MP. Mickey Sherrill, the Democratic candidate for governor of New Jersey is campaigning against her Affordability Program“
This is a rational turn for Democrats and may work. As the standard-bearers of the left, Democrats have a natural rhetorical advantage. The leftist message is based on cultivating resentment and exploiting envy, while consistently promising to redistribute wealth from wealthy individuals and corporations to the less fortunate. This is an easier message to convey to the average voter struggling to pay rent than the right-wing answer, which is to create a level playing field through meritocracy, private property incentives, and deregulated competition. Now, as Democrats move away from cultivating resentment between identity groups and instead try to restore a purely economic basis for resentment, they can promise abundance and affordability to citizens. all. It’s a sharp move.
However, what may be politically wise may never work in practice. Democrats can promise affordability by opening the tent and welcoming back all the white working-class voters they have turned their backs on since 2008, but they will never be able to fulfill their promise. Affordability in the United States has been steadily withering since the 1970s, thanks to policies promoted almost exclusively by Democrats. Throughout their decades of pursuit of power, Democrats have used rhetorical arguments that often deceive voters into seeing them as morally superior. And in every case where their arguments won, their policies lost.
Evidence of this failure is the easily observable demographic shift from Democrat-controlled to Republican-controlled states. AND Breakdown for 2030 the forecast shows, without exception, a dramatic population shift from blue states to red states. Following the 2030 census, California is projected to lose one seat in the U.S. Congress, New York will lose two seats, and Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Pennsylvania will each lose one seat. Texas and Florida are each projected to gain four seats, and Arizona, Utah and Idaho are projected to gain one each.
Given that there are only four years left in this decade and migration trends are well-established and unlikely to change, the conclusion that can be drawn from these projections is clear. People increasingly prefer to live in Republican-led states. We might even concede that Pennsylvania and some other Midwestern states are no longer fully Democratic, but their recent battleground status only strengthens our argument. The party that once claimed to fight for all working families and is trying to reclaim that brand after a nearly two-decade foray into identity politics has utterly failed its voters in every state where it has been the dominant party.
It’s not complicated. Democrat-led governments in blue states have over-regulated and over-taxed all forms of business, including housing and miniature family businesses. Governments in these states have over-regulated energy markets in favor of renewable energy sources, which can only compete with conventional energy when renewable energy sources are subsidized and conventional energy is suppressed by regulation. These states have also failed to invest in maintaining their roads, water systems, and all critical infrastructure, instead overpaying their unionized public sector workforce and handing out government assistance to citizens who can no longer afford the living costs resulting from these government policies.
That’s why blue states are losing population. But they still elect politicians who do this to them. They do this because Democratic politicians have not only a rhetorical advantage, but also an overwhelming advantage in donations from the corporations and public sector unions that benefit from these policies. What a great irony. Democratic politics empowers enormous corporations because they can easily meet regulatory requirements that miniature businesses cannot afford to meet. Blue state policies, in direct opposition to their leftist rhetoric, enable giant corporations to consolidate market power and charge higher prices.
It’s not rhetoric that draws families to red states and persuades them to vote Republican. It is not basic to tell people that they must succeed through strenuous work and competence, just as it is not basic to tell people that the right to private property also means that some people have much more wealth than others. It is also not basic to explain that fewer regulations may result in less official protection for organized labor or endangered species, but only through deregulation can many companies survive and compete in the free market, lowering the prices of everything. These are higher level arguments. They require an intellectual leap. They are guided by reason, not emotion. Rhetoric favors the left.
But results are more critical than rhetoric. People can afford to live and raise families in Texas and Florida. In California and New York, not so much. There is a reason average house price it is $866,000 in California and only $339,000 in Texas and is not based on party promises. If this were the case, these proportions would be reversed and California would become the destination state it once was.
The affordability measures implemented by Democrats amount to rent control and other incentive-destroying regulations, coupled with high taxes and wealth redistribution, sold on the rhetoric of resentment. Their so-called abundance program amounts to a selective and futile version of deregulation, circumscribed to streamlining permitting for high-density housing and renewable energy, while leaving restrictions on open land development and conventional energy investment. All these policies lead to higher costs of living.
Even if Democrats abandon their obsession with identity politics and successfully rebrand themselves as a party recommitted to the economic interests of all Americans, they will inherently be unable to deliver abundance or affordability. Their policies and the special interests that support them are inherently counterproductive.
Scarcity, high prices, and hyperregulation are all we can expect from Democrats, no matter what Donna Brazile hoped for. The question for voters in every state is straightforward: Will they choose rhetoric or results?
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Edward Ring is a senior fellow at the Center for American Greatness. He is also director of water and energy policy at the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. Ring is the author of Fixing California: Abundance, Pragmatism, Optimism (2021) and The Abundance Choice: Our Fight for More Water in California (2022).
Photo “Donna Brazile” by South Texas Law School in Houston.
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