Democrats lost because we don’t know how to speak everyday American

When I was in high school in the early 2000s, my dad and I commuted together. He’d drop me off at school and pick me up after sports, on the way home to our quiet neighborhood just outside Philly. In the mornings we (and by we, I mean he) often listened to sports radio. These shows' audiences were of almost exclusively male listeners, mostly but not all white and mostly sans college diploma, calling in to complain about what the Philadelphia Eagles had done wrong the previous Sunday.

The callers talked in direct, profanity-laden, politically incorrect language. Sighs, whistles and tones laden with implicit meaning were as much a part of their communication as the words themselves. They talked like my dad — who had grown up working-class but became a college professor — talked at home (but not at work). They talked like my uncles, most of whom had not gone to college, talked everywhere.

They talked like the kids at my progressive college-preparatory high school were being both explicitly and implicitly trained never to talk. Nevertheless, at that time, both the denizens of my elite high school and those sports radio listeners voted reliably for Democrats.

Twenty years later, most of the sports radio guys — along with many of their wives, sons, daughters and an increasing (and increasingly multiracial) percentage of their coworkers and neighbors — are reliable members of Donald Trump’s Republican coalition.

What happened?

Among some of my fellow college-educated Democrats, it is a given that racism and misogyny powered Trump’s 2024 victory over Kamala Harris. But as others acknowledge, this makes no sense. White, college-educated voters comprise the only demographic group whose percentage of votes for Trump did not increase in 2024 compared to 2020. All other groups moved toward Trump.

As many have already observed, the move toward Trump is as much as anything a move away from the Democrats. What puzzles many of my fellow college-educated Democrats is why anyone would or even could move away from the Democrats in 2024, given the widely acknowledged perils of the alternative on offer.

I submit that a lot of the gulf between these college-educated Democrats and everyone else has to do with a widening gap in how we use language.

Most college-educated Democrats do a lot of what I’ll call “textual analysis as lifestyle.” The actual words said by others tend to matter a lot to us.

For example, when Harris’s Democratic National Convention featured many explicit (and eloquent!) expressions of patriotism, empathy for families trying to make ends meet, military might and freedom, most college-educated Democrats took her at her non-extremist word — and assumed others would, too.

But this emphasis on words alone is not how language gets used among working-class people — that is, among most Americans.

Harris’s language was too hollow, too impersonal, too simultaneously prim and punchy, and too devoid of warmth to connect with normal people, who garner as much from how something is said as from what is said. In short, many erstwhile Democrats did not believe the vice president like they had believed Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Trump, in contrast, talks like the sports radio guys. He deftly uses gesticulations, tone, epithets and facial expressions to convey meaning. This is how everyone talks among family and friends — everyone, that is, except the tiny sliver of predominantly white and uniquely insular college graduates who happen to make up the staffing class of today’s Democratic Party and mainstream media.

Which brings us to something deeper, and even harder for many of my fellow college-educated Democrats to swallow.

A great deal of the worldview to which the Democratic Party is now beholden is built on a foundation that is functionally only language-deep. In this worldview, numbers on a balance sheet tell us whether inflation has been resolved. People can claim pronouns and “gender identities” that render old-fashioned dichotomies like “male” and “female” irrelevant. Human dignity is irreconcilable with the very idea that immigration can be "illegal" at all. Democracy is dead when a president commits crimes and gets away with them. Language that does not respect people’s self-understanding is tantamount to violence.

It is the prerogative of some college-educated Democrats to go through life with their language and thought bounded by these suppositions. But for most Americans, reality does not conform to language. In fact, it’s the other way around. For them, eggs are too expensive because the price has not gone down in my grocery store, regardless of what economic experts say. Boys are male and girls are female, and that actually doesn’t change based on their interests or what they call themselves. Illegal immigration is a problem because, without borders, we don’t have a country, and without a country we are left defenseless in a demonstrably harsh and brutal world.

Democracy? Dead already, I guess. Many presidents, including the sitting one, have committed crimes; welcome to world history, welcome to American history, and welcome, most emphatically, to democracy.

And words are not violence, because words just aren’t that important. If normal Americans’ language offends college-educated Democrats, the problem is mostly not their language but that too many college-educated Democrats don’t have any real problems.

America still needs the Democratic Party. After all, if you want to see the devolution and decay caused by unopposed one-party rule, just look at our deep-blue cities. Ultimately, a deep-red country would fare no better. Unchecked power corrupts, regardless of party.

But to serve America, the Democrats need to rediscover sanity. This begins with a broad acknowledgment that — like it or not — there in fact are truths so primal that they cannot be gainsaid by words. If Democrats fail to acknowledge this, they will be in for a shellacking every time.

So turn off NPR, ladies and gentlemen (yes, that covers everyone), and try some sports radio.

Elizabeth Grace Matthew writes about books, education, and culture, including on Substack.

Topics

Rubio: Democrats lost election because they think Americans are ‘dummies’
Politics - The Hill - November 7
Beshear: Democrats need to focus on Americans' 'everyday worries'
Politics - The Hill - 2 days ago
The US has lost faith in the American dream. Is this the end of the country as we know it?
World - The Guardian - November 9
The Democrats lost because they ran a weak and out-of-touch campaign | Bhaskar Sunkara
World - The Guardian - November 8
Top Democrat says party lost election because of ‘overreliance on consultants and pollsters’
Politics - NBC News - Yesterday
‘They blew it’: Democrats lost 22,000 votes in Michigan’s heavily Arab American cities
World - The Guardian - November 9
Moulton says Democrats not grasping 'depth' of election losses: 'We lost big'
Politics - The Hill - 5 days ago
Democratic strategist says her party has lost 'common sense' and the ability to speak to 'normal people'
Politics - The Hill - November 7
‘You lost this vote’: Arab Americans in Dearborn struggle in an election where they don’t feel heard
Top stories - NBC News - October 26

Democrats lost because we don’t know how to speak everyday American

Topics

Related

Rubio: Democrats lost election because they think Americans are ‘dummies’

Beshear: Democrats need to focus on Americans' 'everyday worries'

The US has lost faith in the American dream. Is this the end of the country as we know it?

The Democrats lost because they ran a weak and out-of-touch campaign | Bhaskar Sunkara

Top Democrat says party lost election because of ‘overreliance on consultants and pollsters’

‘They blew it’: Democrats lost 22,000 votes in Michigan’s heavily Arab American cities

Moulton says Democrats not grasping 'depth' of election losses: 'We lost big'

Democratic strategist says her party has lost 'common sense' and the ability to speak to 'normal people'

‘You lost this vote’: Arab Americans in Dearborn struggle in an election where they don’t feel heard

More from The Hill

Police report details Hegseth sexual assault allegations

FCC chair to step down on Trump's inauguration

Watch live: Buttigieg speaks on expected Thanksgiving week travel

Trump could usher in a golden age of government transparency and disclosure

Democratic chairman blasts Mayorkas, Wray for failure to testify; Threats hearing postponed