On Monday, the Democrats released a set of core policy proposals that they plan to run on in 2018. Called the “Better Deal” agenda, the Democrats’ strategy is what many critics, mostly on the left, have been demanding for months: that the party focus on kitchen-table issues, like wages and jobs, and step up its critique of corporate interests. It’s not a radical document, essentially splitting the difference between the so-called Bernie wing of the party and the establishment wing. But it does suggest that party leaders are in broad agreement that Democrats need to be better about foregrounding populist economic issues.

But if President Donald Trump was rattled, he sure didn’t show it. At a Tuesday rally in Columbus, Ohio, Trump gave a grotesque description of what “animal” illegal immigrants do to American girls. They “take a young, beautiful girl, 16, 15 and others,” he roared, “and they slice them and dice them with a knife because they want them to go through excruciating pain before they die.” A day later, Trump tweeted that he was banning transgender people from serving in the military, and announced that Sam Brownback, the ultra-conservative governor of Kansas, would serve as “ambassador at large for international religious freedom.”

After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow...... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

....Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming..... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

....victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

Democrats have slowly—and tepidly—embraced economic bread-and-butter issues, in response to Trump destroying a Midwest firewall in the 2016 election with promises of returning decaying Rust Belt towns to their former glory. Meanwhile, Trump is running in the other direction. As his administration is riven by disputes both petty (Priebus vs. Mooch) and profound (Trump vs. Sessions), he has dived with relish into the culture wars. It raises a profound question for Democrats as they head into the 2018 midterm elections and beyond: Is the Better Deal agenda enough to overcome the cultural forces that swung the election to Trump?



Trump’s play here is fairly straightforward. With a favorability rating in the mid-30s, Trump needs his base more than ever. His recent moves are chum for both religious conservatives and voters who rated immigration as their most important issue in 2016, both of whom broke for Trump. Yes, Trump won Democratic-leaning voters with an economic message of preserving the social safety net and upending job-stealing global trade agreements. But to a large extent “Make America Great Again” was a cultural message disguised as an economic one—an air raid siren, rather than a dog whistle, to voters who feared an increasingly diverse country.



“Make America Great Again” was a cultural message disguised as an economic one—an air raid siren, rather than a dog whistle, to voters who feared an increasingly diverse country.

Democrats appear to be aware of this. You only have to look at the cultural minefields that are not mentioned in Better Deal: immigration, gay rights, abortion, Black Lives Matter. This represents a huge shift for Democrats, who heavily emphasized these issues in the Obama years and in Hillary Clinton’s presidential run, presuming America’s changing demographics had permanently tilted the culture wars in their favor. In the case of Clinton, they were wrong.

