Michael Sean Winters writes:

Can the Democrats perform a proper autopsy?:

We should be suspicious of monocausal explanations for the defeat, but the largest reason seems to be that the Trump campaign successfully placed their candidate on the winning side of the “diploma divide.” As David Brooks noted at The New York Times about the people on the working-class side of the diploma divide: “They don’t speak in the right social justice jargon or hold the sort of luxury beliefs that are markers of public virtue.” Donald Trump traffics in a vulgar and visceral kind of hate, but the condescension Democrats display toward the working class is also a kind of hate….

Democratic donors on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley and in Hollywood, and among special interest groups don’t want a party that champions populist economic policies. They wanted the Harris campaign focusing on abortion, not on raising the capital gains tax.

The problem isn’t just donors. Campaign staff are increasingly drawn from the collegiate milieu that can only think in terms of identity politics, overemphasizes not just the significance of race, gender and sexuality, but does so in a way that is unintelligible to most Americans. David Shor raised the issue with the “privileged college kid problem” years ago and the party needs to find a way out of the corrosive effects that syndrome places on them. Hint: People who rise through the ranks of labor unions don’t usually sound like they just emerged from the faculty lounge! Hire staffers from the building trades not Harvard University.

Diagnosing where Democrats went wrong: Let’s start with heresy-hunting: “It is the Democrats who need to reimagine a way back into political relevance and power. They won’t get there by demanding an Ivy League orthodoxy on cultural issues from the American people. They won’t get there by hunting for heretics or condescending to those with differing or more traditional values.”

What the Democrats got wrong: Scientism and credentialism: “Related to scientism is credentialism, the idea that expertise is best trusted when pronounced by those who can rattle off an impressive list of academic credentials. This counts in certain circles, but the ballot box is not one of those circles.”

Democratic autopsy: The party needs a sense of history, humility and humor: “In this hyper-ideological age, people get exhausted with the shouting. Pragmatism, which is as deeply engrained in the American psyche as any trait, brings a welcome lowering of ideological fervor. And humility permits Democrats to propose new and ambitious policies without hubris.”

Democratic autopsy: Become the party of economic populism: “The Democrats need a populist economic platform that they can communicate effectively. The problem is not just how Democrats speak about economic issues, but whether they will make economic populism the core of the party’s identity.”

Here are a few other articles from around the web:

Is This How Democrats Win Back the Working Class? by Tyler Austin Harper: “More than anything, liberals need to understand that many Americans—especially those in the working class—feel unheard. Their trust will be won back not through quick fixes, but by treating those without a college education or with more conservative social views as equal participants in our national dialogue.”

The End of Democratic Delusions by George Packer: “The party’s economic policies turned populist, but its structure—unlike the Republican Party’s mass cult of personality—appeared to be a glittering shell of power brokers and celebrities around a hollow core. Rebuilding will be the work of years, and realignment could take decades.”

Democrats’ Problem With Male Voters Isn’t Complicated by Richard Reeves: “The failure to engage with men’s issues is proving to be a costly mistake, particularly in our politics and culture. The challenges facing many men, especially working-class men and men of color, are not the confections of the online “manosphere.” They are real. But they have not been sufficiently addressed, or sometimes even acknowledged. This has left a vacuum, which has been filled, in many cases, by more reactionary voices from the manosphere.”