tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post1143780806884401977..comments2024-03-28T18:32:05.933-04:00Comments on bensozia: The Demographics of the 2016 election and the Future of American PoliticsJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-13377553561580156952018-03-30T08:52:39.828-04:002018-03-30T08:52:39.828-04:00I would add that, in gaining a significant portion...I would add that, in gaining a significant portion of white working class support, as with that of many other but not all groups, policy matters a lot less than a candidate's personal authenticity. A demonstrated, felt interest in the problems and fears of working-class people is what counts. Veteran status and a genuine interest in things like guns and a genuine lack of interest in things like high-class art openings would help. In this sense, specifics on immigration can be finessed, especially if a candidate can, say, harp on the jobs Trump didn't actually save, or turn tech into a bogeyman, etc.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08993570411881726772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-30469113487597824312018-03-29T09:41:09.264-04:002018-03-29T09:41:09.264-04:00The essential problem for the Democrats is that th...The essential problem for the Democrats is that they can't win if too many white working-class voters don't vote for them, and they also can't win if too many minority voters stay home and too many white liberals vote for some third party spoiler. The nub of the matter is that the divide between the white working class on the one hand and the white liberal/minority coalition on the other, is real, old, and deep. It has defined the party and its dilemmas since 1948. Indeed, one could argue that the heart of the sixties was a major shattering of the Roosevelt coalition, that is, minority and white liberal rejection of the white working class, and the latter's reciprocal backlash against minorities and pointy-headed liberals. The Republican coalition of business, uberhawks, and the small-town and rural squirearchy was, in this sense, a collection of bystanders (albeit one building up toward triumphant Reaganism).<br /><br />Since then, the white working class has been the tossup constituency in virtually every election. One could say in a general way that they tend to vote Dem insofar as they are reminded that other parties represent management. In this sense, Romney was the perfect Republican for Democrats to run against (remember that meeting, in January 2013 I think it was, when some Republican got up and said, as though it were a revelation, "We have to remember that most Americans are not business owners"). But in 2016, HRC looked like Romney, cold and aloof, and Trump looked like, well, George Wallace, the original exploiter of working-class resentment (in '68, millions of white working class types were set to vote for Wallace, until the unions undertook a massive campaign to remind their members that Alabama was a right to work state, etc.).<br /><br />It's pretty obvious that the Dems can't win if they run with talk of "revolution" and/or the sort of identity-oriented leftism that the press identifies with people like Kamala Harris. On the other hand, they're not going to out-immigrant Trump, and if they try too hard to do so, they're going to lose some, perhaps a lot, of that minority/liberal coalition. I think their best strategy is to remind the white working class that Republican rule means rule by management: insecure jobs ("management flexibility"), tax breaks for the rich, sweetheart deals, wild business cycles, cuts to Medicare and Social Security, etc.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08993570411881726772noreply@blogger.com