Democratic strategist warns against ‘progressive hashtag politics’

Lis Smith, political strategist and author of “Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story,” joins Yahoo News’ “Skullduggery” podcast to discuss the 2022 midterm elections and why she thinks embracing slogans like “Abolish ICE” and “Defund the police” could do Democrats more harm than good. “There are certain far-lefty groups that, for their endorsement, they want you to endorse these things, and that’s just not where the electorate is,” says Smith.

Video Transcript

MICHAEL ISIKOFF: You have gotten some attention for advising Democrats, telling Democrats they've become too enamored of the sort of progressive woke agenda that is not where the most Americans are. Elaborate on that. And be specific about this, where you think-- specific examples of where Democrats have gotten too into the woke agenda stuff.

LIS SMITH: So one thing I'll just reject is I never use the term woke. I try to avoid using any terms that have been sort of co-opted and bastardized by people like Tucker Carlson. But I do think that, yes, the Democrats have gotten a little bit too sucked into trying to check off progressive litmus tests and satisfy them, that they have gotten a little bit out of touch with the electorate.

And a couple of examples that I point to is-- I would point to Mandela Barnes, for instance, in Wisconsin. Wisconsin is a quintessential swing state. And one of the reasons why he is getting just raked over the coals against someone as unlikable, unpopular as Ron Johnson-- like, Ron Johnson should have been target number one for Democrats in terms of Republican incumbents in the Senate. This is a guy who spread COVID conspiracy theories, a guy who still to this day diminishes what happened on January 6. He was alleged to have been part of this fake elector scheme.

And so he was definitely on the menu for Democrats going into November. But Mandela, he's been successful at really beating the crap out of Mandela Barnes because Mandela Barnes subscribe to what I sort of talk about as the progressive hashtag politics of associating himself with sort of idiotic slogans like defund the police, like abolish ICE. And there are certain far lefty groups that for their endorsement they want you to endorse these things. And that's just not where the electorate is.

It might satisfy people at these think tanks or nonprofits. But is not-- looking at whether you're in New York, whether you're in Michigan, whether you're in Wisconsin, you're appealing to less than 30% of the electorate when you're talking about issues like that.

But yeah. I think it's really smart for candidates to understand who they are, who they're trying to represent, and that this hashtag politics is not popular among voters as a whole. And it's especially not helpful among the most loyal parts of our base, which is Black women and Black voters in general. And we've seen it be very, very alienating with both Black and Latino voters when candidates do embrace policies that are way outside the mainstream.