Defund “The Groups”

Unrepresentative Nonprofits Damage Democrats

In 2015, only a stand-up comic would have predicted that a failed real estate developer and B-grade reality TV host would win two of the next three presidential elections. Democrats and Republicans alike would have doubled over laughing at the thought of Donald Trump and his preposterous hairdo in the Oval Office.

Nobody is laughing now. Donald Trump not only beat Democrats twice, but he has also pounded his Republican opponents to smithereens. Come January, he will control not only the Republican party but the presidency, the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court. Trump is America’s most consequential political leader since Franklin Roosevelt.

Democrats recognize that something has gone profoundly wrong. Some worry about whether our institutions can survive four years of Trump’s retribution, racism, and corruption. Others are asking a more urgent question: how in hell did we lose? There is no political recovery until we understand and correct this problem.

Not all of the election loss is the fault of Democrats as a party. This is a terrible time for incumbents everywhere. Biden, not the Party, erred in choosing Harris as vice president and in deciding to run for reelection. But Trump did not win with some electoral college sleight of hand. He won the popular vote and he won every swing state. Many Biden voters chose Trump over Harris. I discussed this in an earlier post, along with reasons to be optimistic.  

Surfing the Waves of American Politics

Nonetheless, Democrats need to confront an existential problem: voters without a four-year college degree have been fleeing our party like we were skunk-sprayed. Kamala Harris carried these voters by just 32 points, down from Biden’s 48-point margin in 2020 and Obama’s 67-point margin in 2012. This year, nonwhite voters joined the white working class that has been shifting Republican since Reagan. 

Some of this is a matter of campaign emphasis. Democrats always defend election integrity, civil rights, environmental progress, and a woman’s right to choose. But successful national campaigns rise or fall on kitchen table issues of economic and family security. We win or lose on affordability, crime (including illegal border crossings), health care, and economic security.

When Democrats push issues that don’t reflect these priorities, working-class voters of all ethnicities feel overlooked and sometimes condescended to. Many who switched to Trump cited dissatisfaction with pandemic policies, crime, immigration, student loan forgiveness, and the party’s perceived elitism. As one voter noted, “Democrats flipped—they went from being for the working class to favoring only the college-educated and wealthy.” Election data confirm this narrative. 

The Biden White House knows what drove this shift — a network of nonprofit progressive interest organizations that they call simply “the Groups.” Once he took office, “the Groups” pulled Joe Biden well left of where he ran as a candidate. On some issues like student debt forgiveness and immigration, he appeared to be a captive of this nonprofit political complex.

As New York Times columnist Ezra Klein noted, “the Groups” are donor-supported nonprofits, not mass organizations accountable to their membership. They are staffed by college-educated professionals with limited life experience. Many are recent graduates of colleges with peculiar ideas about the role of race and gender in American life. They often push policies that ring hollow to everyday voters. This leads to a disconnect between Democrats' messaging and our traditional base. Positions like “defund the police” or “decriminalize border crossings” alienated many of non-college voters. “The Groups” and the donors who enable them do not care.¹

It is thanks to “the Groups” that Democrats have moved further to the left of the median American voter than Republicans have moved to the right. Here, for example, is survey data on affirmative action and immigration:

Jennifer Medina recently reported in the New York Times on the views of non-white non-college voters. She quotes a barbershop owner who said, “Democrats flipped. They went from being for the working class to, if you’re not college-educated and have money, you’re not worthy…The right turned blue-collar and went full border control, strong economy, and law-and-order. Who doesn’t want that?” 

Election data confirms that the barber got it right.

Some of this is a matter of tone and aesthetics. During Covid, many voters felt scolded by liberals mandating masks, vaccines, and school closures. They see Democrats as focused on transgender children, environmentalism, or abortion rights at the expense of their daily economic concerns.

Messaging from “the Groups” is quickly absorbed by liberal institutions such as universities, mainstream media, nonprofits, and tech companies that swung left during the first Trump administration. “The Groups” denied the extent of learning loss in defending school shutdowns. They minimized the impact of rising crime during the pandemic. They imagined that Black and Latino communities would embrace a “defund the police” movement. They insisted on new gender orthodoxies, including mandatory disclosure of personal pronouns. They promoted large-scale, inflationary, and regressive student loan forgiveness. They declared inflation concerns overstated. They imagined that immigrants favored looser borders. “The Groups” funded, promoted, and communicated these views — and many Democrats bought it. 

Michael Lind describes how this happens. Funders prefer NGOs with edgy views. After all, why fund nonprofits that advocate boring, mainstream, common-sense positions? This gives nonprofits an incentive to push beyond median voter positions until they are attacked, which earns them the attention of more funders.  

Democrats need to defund “the Groups”, or, as Ruy Teixeira more colorfully suggests, “Throw the Groups Under the Bus.” (Teixeira co-authored a book describing how the growth of minority groups as portends a rosy future for Democrats. He is especially peeved at the collapse of the Democrat’s racial coalition).

Throw the Groups Under the Bus!

Democrats are beginning to acknowledge the need to shift our focus to economic issues that resonate with working-class voters. This means distancing ourselves from policies and “Groups” perceived as elitist, impractical, or based on identities that most voters do not share. This is easier said than done. We Democrats so love us a big-tent coalition that we have embraced this non-profit political complex. This creates at least three problems. 

First, Democrats in blue cities have become heavily dependent on nonprofit groups to carry out public programs. This is especially problematic in housing. Most of these groups do a terrible job, but even when they succeed, they weaken rather than strengthen municipal governments' capacity to solve problems. Although he writes about the urban version of “the Groups”, Noah Smith explains this well.

Nonprofits are sapping the progressive project

Second, the desire to accommodate “the Groups” has made Democrats too inclusive. We too often place coalition harmony over winning elections. This repels voters. Democrats have to choose between winning or solidifying our position as the metropolitan party of educated and affluent professionals. Until recently, this would be a very easy decision. 

Third, Democrats should listen only to groups that represent actual voters. Many of “the Groups” advance claims about what “their” (often nonwhite) voters want that turn out to be flat wrong. Hispanic voters are hardly monolithic, but as a group they care about crime and illegal border crossings. Black voters have no interest in defunding the police. By falsely claiming to represent Black and Hispanic voters, “the Groups” have distorted policy within the Democratic Party. They have made our tent smaller and weaker.

This has real consequences for candidates. In 2019, several “Groups”, including the Sunrise Movement and the Working Families Party, insisted that all Democratic presidential candidates agree to decriminalize border crossings. Almost every candidate complied. Justice Democrats demanded that Democrats defund the police and abolish ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). The Trump campaign turned all of this into attack ads – just as Democrats did when he took extreme positions. 

Democrats must discourage our billionaire donors from funding groups that falsely claim to represent voters. “The Groups” have subverted and weakened the Democratic Party. Democrats who wish to represent everyday families need to return the favor. 

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Readers: I inadvertently published an unedited version of my previous post, The Store That Does Everything Wrong. It is now fixed. My apologies.

The Store That Does Everything Wrong

1. Who are “The Groups”? It’s a hydra-headed creature, but a very partial list would include the Center for American Progress, Color of Change, PolicyLink, and The Race Forward on racial justice. The Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, the Climate Reality Project, and the Environmental Defense Fund on environmental issues. Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and NARAL on choice. The Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal, and GLAAD on trans rights. Note that there is very little foundation funding for pro-union “Groups” (Hewlett is an exception). Most nonprofits and tech donors want nothing to do with unions.