MCheese progressives seem to be doubling down on their claims that misogynistic, racist, fascist Donald Trump will doom the nation. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes (AOC) claimed“We are about to enter a period of fascism and authoritarianism.” For MSNBC’s Joy Reid, Harris lost because white women were unwilling to vote for a black woman: “This will be the second opportunity that white women in this country have had to change the way they interact with the patriarchy.” She continued, “If people aren’t receptive to that, and if people vote more along party lines, or more on race than gender, and on protecting their gender, there’s really not much more you can do.”

What AOC, Reid and most other progressives ignore in their post election assessments This is why so many Latinos voted for Trump, including a majority of Latino men. The data show that among black voters, the leakage to Trump was modest, and Harris still received 84 percent of the black vote. What this misses was the decline in black voter turnout.

This decline in voter turnout was most evident in Philadelphia. There, Harris received 47,000 fewer votes than Biden did 2020, while Trump’s vote total increased by less than 10,000. Similarly, in Detroit, Harris’ deficit was 60,000, while Trump only gained 24,000. They The Wall Street Journal reported that in the 524 counties with the highest percentage of black residents, total votes fell by 3.8 percent. More generally, in counties won by Biden in 2020, vote totals fell by more than 4 percent — while those won by Trump increased by nearly 4 percent. Nationally, the black share of the total vote in 2024 where only 11 percent, down from 13 percent four years ago. As a result, much of the leakage of black voters was due to their decision not to vote at all instead of voting for Trump. For progressives, like Barack Obama, it was chalked up to the misogyny of black men who were unwilling to vote for a black woman.

The decline in black votes is a repeat of the 2022 election. In a previous article, I noted:

In NYC, 90 percent of black voters chose Hochul. However, voter turnout fell. This decline was most dramatic in the Bronx, the poorest and most non-white borough, where it declined from 36% to 24% while it remained the same outside of New York City. In Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Detroit, turnout trap 10 percent to 12 percent below 2018 levels while turnout increased in the rest of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Bernie Sanders highlighted this working-class rejection: “(It) should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party that has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.” He continued, “First it was the white working class, and now it’s also Latino and black workers. While the Democratic leadership is defending the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”

The problem for Democrats is that prioritizing working-class initiatives would undermine the identity politics that energize the party’s base. As a result, white professionals who provided the backbone of Sanders’ presidential runs in 2016 and 2020 are now ignoring his views. For these white professionals, black and Hispanic men voted for Trump not because of anti-working class politics, but because of their misogynistic attitudes and the misinformation they absorbed.

This rejection of working-class priorities was most evident in the recent mayoral election in New York. The educated, white professional class supported Maya Wiley, who campaigned to defund the police. She received less than one-fifth of the black vote—with eventual winner Eric Adams receiving more than three-fifths. It showed they had little regard for curbing high crime in black neighborhoods where residents overwhelmingly rejected any cuts to the police force.

Sanders’ stance also existed after the 2020 election. As a New York Times Reporter put it, “Conor Lamb, who survived a Republican challenge in Pennsylvania, says Democrats got a message on Election Day: A backlash to progressive policies risks killing their House majority.” Unfortunately, the Congressional Progressive Caucus did not heed Lamb’s advice. Nor did they take seriously the evidence presented over the past year by political scientist and commentator Ruy Texeira that the Democrats’ policy priorities where not viewed favorably by a large percentage of working-class Americans.

My fear is that the Democratic Party will remain captive to the progressive left, unwilling to sacrifice its identity politics agenda. This was certainly the tone of Kamala Harris’ concession speech. At no point did she even suggest that Democrats listen more to American workers or learn from mistakes made. Instead, she only called for continued resistance. I fear that centrist Democrats are too few to steer the party away from its current priorities and only a defeat in the 2026 midterm elections would force it to seriously reconsider its positions.

Robert Cherry is an American Enterprise Institute affiliate and author of a forthcoming book, Arab Citizens in Israel: How Far Have They Come?

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