Democrats Get Dumped. Taylor Swift Can Help
The party lost the election by making the same mistakes as the singer-songwriter’s ex-lovers.
Taylor Swift performing on stage during her Eras Tour in Edinburgh, Oct. 31. PHOTO: JANE BARLOW/ZUMA PRESS
If Democrats want to understand why voters dumped them, they might consult Taylor Swift’s breakup songs. Democrats made the same mistakes as her: Start with how they gave priority to their climate and left-wing cultural obsessions over voters’ economic problems. Ms. Swift sings in one song: “This is the last time I’m asking you this / Put my name at the top of your list.” Democrats didn’t do this for voters.
Next, Democrats demeaned voters and took for granted that they’d never leave. As Ms. Swift wails in another song, “You’re talking down to me like I’ll always be around / . . . Boy, you never thought I’d run.” Democrats didn’t think that so many voters—especially minorities—would jilt them. But they shouldn’t have been surprised after they smeared Americans as antiscience for opposing Democrats’ climate policies or as bigots for disagreeing with their woke pieties.
Democrats repeatedly ignored signs that voters were unhappy with the economy and their leftist policies. In the duet ballad “Exile,” Ms. Swift’s jilted lover laments “You never gave a warning sign,” to which she rejoins: “I gave so many signs / So many signs, so many signs / You didn’t even see the signs.” Ditto Democrats.
They pretended as if the economy and their policies were terrific. Worse, they didn’t attempt to understand why voters disagreed. As Ms. Swift explains in the song “You’re Losing Me,” “You say, ‘I don’t understand,’ and I say, ‘I know you don’t.’ ” That, in essence, was Democrats’ biggest problem. They didn’t understand voters, nor did they even try to.
Ms. Swift in the same song pleads for her lover to “do something” “say something,” “lose something” and “risk something” to keep their relationship alive. He refuses. Similarly, Kamala Harris refused to gratify voters by explaining how she would be different from Joe Biden, lest she risk alienating radical leftists.
If Democrats ever want to get back together with voters, they need to lose their leftist policies and show voters a little respect.
Ms. Finley writes the Journal’s Life Science column.
The article appeared in the 11/8/2024 edition of The Wall Street Journal.