It’s easy to underestimate how much the Democratic Party has changed in this century. In particular, you can miss how white liberals have changed from being a voice in the choir to the choir director. Cast your mind back to the beginning of the century. At that point, a mere 28 percent of Democrats described themselves as liberal and two thirds were either moderate or conservative.
Fast forward to today and the liberal share has more than doubled to 59 percent while the moderate/conservative share has declined drastically. It’s the liberals’ party now. And especially, it’s the white liberals’ party now.
White Democrats even at the beginning of this century were already disproportionately liberal—that is, more likely to be liberal than nonwhite Democrats. That disproportion has grown sharply over the course of the century. A Gallup analysis from 2023 found that over several decades, the liberal share among white Democrats had gone up 37 points, compared to 17 points among black Democrats and 18 points among Hispanic Democrats.
These trends have combined to radically change the ideological composition of white Democrats. In 2000, white Democrats who were moderate or conservative outnumbered white liberal Democrats by about 2:1. Today that relationship has been reversed. White liberal Democrats now outnumber moderate/conservative white Democrats by about 2:1.
That matters. From being merely a voice, albeit an important one, in the Democratic choir, white liberals are now directing the choir and imposing their culture, preferences, and priorities on the party as a whole. For example, in the recent Third Way survey of likely 2028 Democratic primary voters, white liberals (43 percent) outnumber all nonwhites (35 percent) who anyway are ideologically split in a way white Democrats tend not to be (66 percent of that group say they’re liberal). Indeed, black voters in the survey are split down the middle between liberal and moderate/conservative, with the latter group actually being slightly larger.
That gives white liberals enormous leverage within the party. Any Democrat seeking to build their support in the party has to reckon with this enormous bloc of Democrats, whose influence is enhanced beyond their considerable numbers by their dominance of the party’s infrastructure, allied NGOs and advocacy groups, and left-leaning media, foundations, and academia. Not to mention the money—ambitious Democrats need money and white liberals are a reliable source of cash for politicians who press the right buttons.
This clarifies why it is so difficult for Democratic politicians to carve out a truly moderate path. Back in the day, such a politician could balance the demands of white liberals with the considerable and countervailing tug from white moderates and conservatives. No more. White liberals are in the driver’s seat and Democratic politicians have calibrated their appeals accordingly.
The pull in that direction is enhanced by the fact that white conservative Democrats have practically disappeared and even white moderate Democrats are not particularly moderate by the standards of the country as a whole. In the Third Way survey, moderate white Democrats, while not as enthusiastically as white liberals, still give strong support to Medicare for All that would eliminate private health insurance, a Green New Deal that would rapidly eliminate fossil fuels, canceling student debt and free college, and an annual nationwide wealth tax on billionaires. Not so moderate!
So it is not irrational for ambitious Democratic politicians to put a finger on the scales for an agenda that puts white liberals in their happy place. Quite the contrary.
And no wonder one still searches in vain for the Democratic politician willing to venture a true “Sister Souljah moment.” Recall the original Sister Souljah moment that occurred in June 1992, when Bill Clinton, speaking at a gathering for Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, commented on a statement rapper/activist Sister Souljah had made in an interview with The Washington Post. In the interview, she replied to a question about whether black-on-white violence in the 1992 LA riots was a “wise, reasoned action” as follows:
Yeah, it was wise. I mean, if black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?...White people, this government and that mayor were well aware of the fact that black people were dying every day in Los Angeles under gang violence. So if you’re a gang member and you would normally be killing somebody, why not kill a white person?
Clinton’s comment on this to the Rainbow Coalition was:
You had a rap singer here last night [on a panel] named Sister Souljah…Her comments before and after Los Angeles were filled with a kind of hatred that you do not honor today and tonight. Just listen to this, what she said: She told The Washington Post about a month ago, and I quote, ‘If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?…So if you’re a gang member and you would normally be killing somebody, why not kill a white person?
If you took the words ‘white’ and ‘black’ and reversed them, you might think David Duke [founder of a Louisiana-based KKK organization] was giving that speech.
At the time, Democrats were suffering from a highly negative image of being soft on crime and public disorder and practicing a racial double standard (sound familiar?). Given what Clinton said and where he said it (to the Rainbow Coalition), his message was crystal clear: Democrats should not tolerate violence and inflammatory rhetoric, including any that comes from members of their own coalition. There should be no double standards.
Clinton was relentlessly attacked by Jackson and other figures on the party’s left for his apostasy. But normie voters got the message. Here was a different kind of Democrat who was willing to throw obvious Democratic lunacy over the side. Clinton withstood the blowback and he—and his party—reaped the reward.
It’s hard to imagine a contemporary Democratic politician being willing to risk such a confrontational attack on party orthodoxy. Today’s massive contingent of white liberals, herded along by their opinion leaders and institutions, are likely to rise up in unison to punish such apostasy. That key change makes the intra-party cost-benefit calculus of such a move far different—far more negative—than in Clinton’s day. So we don’t see them.
Instead, we get the occasional anodyne attempts at heterodoxy, quickly swept under the rug when they are (inevitably) attacked by the usual suspects. Democratic politicians chasing a moderate image typically do not attack liberal shibboleths but rather emphasize their practical bent and distaste for being “divisive.” But their underlying positions rarely deviate much from those preferred by white liberals.
That will only take you so far, even in era where the political terrain is tilting against Trump and his party. As Damon Linker pointed out in an essay last summer:
[W]hat liberals need to do to defeat right-wing populism…[is] to moderate on culture. That means on policies and moral stances wrapped up with the old culture war (like trans and other gender-related issues) as well as in other areas of policy that have a strong cultural valance—like crime, immigration, and DEI. This isn’t just necessary because Democratic positions on these issues are unpopular at the moment. It’s also crucial because culture is more fundamental than politics: It sends a signal to voters about where a politician or party stands on base-level moral questions. When voters become convinced that a specific politician or party has bad (or just sufficiently different) moral judgment, they lose trust in that politician or party. And then other, more superficial policy commitments don’t matter…
White liberals who are inclined to blame everyone but themselves for why their cause hasn’t gotten farther should consider the wise words of Pogo:
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
There is a cringe-inducing paternalism that white, highly educated (and usually coastal) liberals seem to have around conservative people of color, as if to say, "They don't know their own interests." It's elitist and, dare I say, racist. To improve the Democratic party's standing, and (more importantly) to actually formulate policies in good faith, white liberals should attend focus groups with Black and Latino voters who voted Trump in 2024. Instead of asking, "How could they??" they should be asking, "Why?" and genuinely seeking an answer.
Even more so, it is a party of white urban and suburban liberal women.