An American Majority
Shouldn’t 80 percent Americans have their values respected by their elected officials?
Bitterness and deadlock define much of our current politics and government. Ending this cycle requires returning to the idea of an American majority - rather than a narrowly defined Republican or Democratic majority.
When people ask me how a Republican Congress and a Democratic President could get so much done in the late 1990s, the answer was not personality so much as focus on serving the American people. We knew what issues most of the American people wanted solved, and we knew that we could build large, intense grassroots support for those changes.
We reformed welfare (a 92% issue). We created Medicare Advantage (so popular the AARP supported it as a reform). We balanced the federal budget for four consecutive years for the only time in the last century (over 90% support). We listened cheerfully to the American people and worked to develop policies that would bring us together rather than drive us apart.
When our Republican majority passed welfare reform, half of the Democrats voted with us (91 to 91 among Democrats).
On many major reforms — FDA, telecommunications, even litigation reform (extraordinarily hard given the power of the trial lawyers) — bipartisan efforts were successful. Congressman John Dingell, a Democrat, had chaired the Commerce Committee for 14 years before the GOP took over. Despite many efforts, he had never been able to pass telecommunications reform. In fact, Dingell said he was surprised and pleased we had finally gotten it done.
The key to the successes was that they grew from the beliefs of the American people. Having served while President Ronald Reagan was in office, I knew how carefully he worked to represent the views and hopes of the vast majority of Americans.
President Abraham Lincoln set the principles of effective popular government when he said, “with popular sentiment nothing can fail, without popular sentiment nothing can succeed.”
At America’s New Majority Project, we have been working since 2018 to find values, principles, and issues which attract 70 percent support or more. We believe it is possible to listen to the American people and build a program that has enough popular support that it becomes an American program. In this scenario, House and Senate members will be under pressure to support the program, because it will represent the will of the American people — not the establishment, lobbyists, or the media.
If candidates focus this fall, in a positive way, on their commitments to the issues and values the American people believe in, we may discover that it is possible to build a vastly bigger majority for governing and problem solving than anyone currently thinks is possible.
This American majority poses a particular problem for the radical wing of the Democratic Party, because in almost every issue it represents 10 percent to 15 percent of the country. When you start working from a majority-based analysis, it is strange how many Democrats have ended up voting against the beliefs of voters in their own states or districts. In effect, they are trying to govern against the American people on behalf of a militant and well-financed minority.
Consider these examples:
77 percent of Americans think only citizens should vote in elections - 213 house Democrats voted against the SAVE Act.
88 percent of Americans think you should be able to pick what kind of vehicle you want to drive - 164 House Democrats and 44 Senate Democrats voted against repealing the California electric vehicle mandate.
77 percent of Americans want more border patrol agents - 211 House Democrats vote against the Secure America Act.
82 percent of Americans believe parents have a right to see what schools teach their children - 203 House Democrats voted against the Parents Bill of Rights Act.
79 percent of Americans want middle class tax relief - 201 House Democrats and 46 Senate Democrats voted against tax cuts and in favor of massive tax increases by opposing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2025.
In these issues alone, you have an average of 80 percent of Americans on one side and the House and Senate Democrats on the other.
Shouldn’t 80 percent Americans have their values respected by their elected officials?
This is what an American majority would do.
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