Bill Scher is a contributing editor to Politico Magazine, and co-host of the Bloggingheads.tv show “The DMZ.”

Soon after President Donald Trump ordered that transgender people may no longer serve in the military, one anonymous White House official boasted about how the new policy would trap Senate Democrats running for reelection in the Rust Belt: “This forces Democrats to take complete ownership of the issue. How will the blue-collar voters in these states respond when senators up for reelection in 2018 like Debbie Stabenow are forced to make their opposition to this a key plank of their campaigns?” Raw politics was not the only motivation—POLITICO reported Trump’s decision was mainly an effort to resolve a fight in Congress that threatened funding for his border wall—but there’s little doubt that some Republicans believe the transgender rights debate drives a wedge between Democrats and critical swing voters.

Trump’s shocking announcement comes two days after Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, rolled out a new agenda crafted to circumvent the culture wars. The “Better Deal” package is laser-focused on the economy and restraining corporate power, with proposals to “crack down on monopolies,” stop price gouging by pharmaceuticals and raise the minimum wage to $15.


Schumer explained the underlying reasoning in a New York Times op-ed: “Democrats will show the country that we’re the party on the side of working people — and that we stand for three simple things. First, we’re going to increase people’s pay. Second, we’re going to reduce their everyday expenses. And third, we’re going to provide workers with the tools they need for the 21st-century economy.”

Several high-profile issues are conspicuously missing from those “three simple things”: climate change, reproductive freedom, gun control, immigration and discrimination—all issues that have become signifiers of membership in ranks of secular, multicultural liberalism. But if Democrats thought they could escape being sucked back into a culture war as they pursued white voters without college degrees, Trump’s assault on transgender rights was a rude awakening.

A renewal of Bill Clinton’s “the economy, stupid” strategy may make sense on paper. But campaigns do not take place on paper. External events, sometimes engineered by your opponent, often intrude on the best-laid plans. In all likelihood, Democrats will have to figure out how to sell the Better Deal while simultaneously defending their commitment to multiculturalism.

It would be unfair to conclude that the Better Deal omissions are tantamount to abandonment. In fact, Schumer quickly stood up for transgender soldiers, as did Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, all facing tough reelection battles next year. But these responses keep economic and social issues independent of each other, suggesting Democrats will try to pivot back to an economics-only message as soon as possible. That’s a missed opportunity. The transgender soldier controversy is a chance to test a message strategy that incorporates the essence of the entire Democratic platform: that no matter what your background, your occupation, where you live or where you went to school, America won’t leave you behind.

Democrats are probably feeling pretty good about the pushback they delivered to Trump. Two recent studies were quickly taken off the shelf and shared widely online, showing that transgender soldiers have made “little or no impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness, or readiness,” and their health care needs add a negligible cost. Several Republican senators broke with Trump, including some from deep red territory like Richard Shelby of Alabama and Orrin Hatch of Utah. McCaskill’s response was to share Sen. John McCain’s statement, which read, “We should all be guided by the principle that any American who wants to serve our country and is able to meet the standards should have the opportunity to do so—and should be treated as the patriots they are.” McCaskill only added, “what he said.”

The bipartisan agreement is a reminder liberals have largely won the culture war declared by Pat Buchanan in 1992, when he railed against “the amoral idea that gay and lesbian couples should have the same standing in law as married men and women” and stood “against putting our wives and daughters and sisters into combat units of the United States Army.” Back then, Democrats were wary of engaging in these hot-button social issues. The battle over allowing gays to serve openly in the military sapped Clinton’s political capital in the early months of 1993 and produced the unsatisfying “don’t ask, don’t tell” compromise. That political debacle helped Republicans pressure Democrats to back the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, and force it on to Clinton’s desk with veto-proof majorities.

In 2004, Democrats were flustered when White House political adviser Karl Rove engineered 11 state ballot initiatives banning same-sex marriage in a ploy to boost conservative turnout. Most Democrats responded in halting fashion, opposing marriage rights but supporting a legal equivalence (in 2000, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s signing of landmark civil union legislation was done in private, in an attempt to mitigate backlash). When John Kerry lost the presidential election in 2004, even openly gay Rep. Barney Frank put the blame on then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom for provoking the issue by unilaterally legalizing same-sex marriage, only to be restrained by the courts, earlier in the year.

But Barack Obama’s reelection after embracing same-sex marriage rights in 2012, the Supreme Court ruling protecting same-sex marriages in 2015, and the resulting public approval, turned the culture war tables. Liberals found fresh confidence to forge ahead in the fight for equal rights, including for transgender people. Today, the Democratic Party, and America in general, are more multicultural and more culturally liberal than in the 1990s. Most Americans oppose laws that force people into bathrooms that do not correspond with their gender identity, and most do not believe being transgender is a choice or a mental illness. The voter backlash against North Carolina’s “bathroom bill” was strong enough to oust the Republican governor who signed the law while simultaneously giving Trump the state's 15 electoral votes. In this climate, no Democratic candidate is going to get very far by throwing sharp elbows at any minority group—as Clinton did during the 1992 campaign when he criticized Rev. Jesse Jackson to his face for giving the controversial rapper-activist Sister Souljah a platform at his Rainbow Coalition conference. In fact, there is an expectation among base voters for a strong response when those issues are thrust into the spotlight. Democrats now have little reason, and ability, to stay silent.

And yet, the culture wars remain a complex political minefield for Democrats. While a majority of Americans often agree with socially liberal positions, many of those voters are electorally impotent, clustered in urban areas outside of swing states. Moreover, swing voters with some liberal sympathies don’t feel as passionately about social issues as do core Democrats, and may recoil at an emphasis on minority rights or women’s rights. That’s why after months of analyzing polls and focus group data, Democrats crafted an agenda based on the critique best articulated by their Mahoning County party chair: “People in the heartland thought the Democratic Party cared more about where someone else went to the restroom than whether they had a good paying job.”

The Democrats’ ability to walk this political tightrope—balancing their emphasis on economic and social issues—is challenged by Trump, who views social conservatives as his backstop. Evangelical Christians put their faith in the gleefully sinful Trump on Election Day, and Trump has delivered for them more than any other constituency: installing Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, ending funds for the United Nations Population Fund, which supports contraception, and revoking Obama’s order protecting the rights of transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice. Without social conservatives, Trump wouldn’t have had the base turnout to eke out a victory. And Trump now has a rock-solid base that prevents him from going into a job approval free fall, and helps keep disgruntled congressional Republicans in line.

So we can expect Trump to keep opening new fronts in the culture war, and Democrats to keep responding in kind. And every time that happens, Democrats will not be able to main a singular focus on their Better Deal.

The recipe for winning back white working-class voters can’t be fully cooked inside the controlled conditions of a focus group. Democrats have no choice but to weave together their economic platform with their multicultural principles, so any discussion of minority rights is not perceived as favoring one group over another. No question that’s easier said than done, as the White House’s anonymous Machiavellian political adviser proves. But Trump’s discriminatory, zero-sum brand of politics presents Democrats with an enormous opportunity.

While Trump tries to cling to power with a loyal yet still limited base, he cedes Democrats the opening for a broader and more durable coalition. But that opportunity can’t be seized with the micro-targeting evident in the Better Deal pitch. When it comes to coalition building, there are no short cuts.