Posted on 05/20/2012 9:42:07 PM PDT by neverdem
So it’s unanimous, then– Thomas Edsall was right: In the aftermath of Obama’s gay marriage flip, pundits seem to have concluded that Obama’s Democratic party has indeed given up on white working class voters. They’ve been dropped from the winning coalition, which is now composed of three main groups: “young people, college-educated whites (especially women), and minorities,” according to Ron Brownstein. Bill Galston agrees. Ruy Teixeira–who once wrote a book called America’s Forgotten Majority: Why the White Working Class Still Matters–agrees. Here’s Teixeira on how Obama can win Arizona:
First, the share of Hispanic voters must grow and their support level for Obama must increase …Second, a projected 3 point decrease in the size of the total white vote should come entirely from white working class voters. Based on recent data, this is a highly plausible assumption. Eligible voter trends since 2008 are consistent with such an outcome and, in 2008, the decrease in the white vote (4 points) did in fact come entirely from working class voters, according to the exit polls.
Finally, Obama’s performance among white college graduates needs to improve …. Returning to [2000 and 2004] earlier levels of white college graduate support will be crucial for Obama. [E.A.]
Hmm. Are there any other Dems out there who think basing the party on this New Coke Coalition is a really bad idea? Here’s alert kf reader Pollster Y
For now, it’s not even an argument. This is the direction the smart people are taking the Democratic Party. Wheeeee! …A college-educated whites plus blacks and Hispanics coalition is not the cruise I signed up for—and for many blacks and Hispanics, the door they came in was marked “for low- to middle-income working folks of all races,” and they will understand immediately that the old working class door is closed now and they are just votes to support the ascendancy of a college-educated whites agenda. Steerage class. …
[W]hich holds greater promise in the Electoral College—winning more vote in Denver, Phoenix, Santa Fe, Columbus, OH and the suburbs of Washington DC with a college-whites+minorities focus, OR trying to win back the arc of votes Obama lost to Hillary and has not won back, stretching from WVA, VA south of the Northern Virginia suburbs, western NC, southwestern PA, southern OH, southern IL, MO, Arkansas? And in the long run, which Democratic Party is more likely to hold the loyalties of blacks and Hispanics for another generation—a working class Democratic Party, or a knowledge-worker Democratic Party?
Let me add a few other possible reasons to take Pollster Y’s doubts seriously:
1. Unskilled workers–men especially–are among those who’ve been most harmed by the big structural changes of the past four decades (i.e., global trade that forces them to compete against cheap foreign workers, technology that puts a premium on skills and smarts). Any political party that doesn’t attempt to improve the economic position of these people–who make up a lot of the “white working class”–simply isn’t addressing the problems of the times.
2. The increasing premium on skills and smarts promises to bring us an uglier society in the form of a meritocracy where those who are rich can think not only that they’re richer but that they’re better. That doesn’t simply threaten the incomes of the unskilled. It corrodes the traditional American idea of social equality–the idea that we’re “equal in the eyes of each other.” Cheering on young professionals–while urging the non-professionals to hurry up and do some learnin’–doesn’t make the problem better. It makes the problem worse. Even if it increases GDP.
3. Weren’t Democrats supposed to be the party of Everyman? If you went to work and obeyed the rules, Dems would “make work pay”–plus give you unemployment compensation and Social Security and medical care in old age. White male workers are sort of the indivisible denominator in American politics–they have no special economic leverage, and no race- or gender-based claim to special privileges. They’re naked as far as favoritism goes, and thus (not unlike Marx’s proleteriat) are the representatives of universal privileges (such as Social Security). The new Obama coalition threatens to abandon this universality, becoming instead the party of non-universal skills, ethnic and gender identities–of special pleaders, victims and causists. Not of citizens.
P.S.: But isn’t this just a question of strategy or political marketing? No. Different coalitions produce different policies–or, rather, the attempt to mobilize different coalitions produces different policies. (Sorry, Weigel.**) Gay marriage is a New Coalition policy: Young voters love it; white working class voters, not so much. “Comprehensive immigration reform”–e.g. legalization or amnesty– is a New Coalition policy: It is quite explicitly framed as an attempt to win over Latinos. But if it attracts additional unskilled illegal immigrants, from Mexico and elsewhere, unskilled working class Americans are the ones who will see their wages bid down even further. Screw ‘em–they vote Republican anyway!
Similarly, if you don’t care that much about ordinary white unskilled workers you might be perfectly willing to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, as Obama has apparently been willing to do. After all, it”s not such a big deal to retire two years later if you are an accountant. But what if you are a coal miner? The worst example of all would be Obama policies that push poorer workers out of Medicare into often-inferior Medicaid, as Scott Gottlieb has charged the Affordable Care Act will do. (I await Jonathan Cohn’s explanation of why Obamacare doesn’t actually do this).
You can’t blame Obama for trying to win, and if white working class voters don’t like him–well, he has to assemble a majority anyway he can.*** But if you’re not Obama you can hope this particular Emerging Democratic Majority un-emerges soon.
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**–Back in November, Slate‘s Dave Weigel assured his readers that “Obama isn’t switching policies in or out of a playbook because whites won’t vote for him.” Tell it to opponents of gay marriage.
***–You can blame Obama for not doing things that might have made white working class voters dislike him a lot less–doing a better job of selling Obamacare, for example. A big initiative to get the fat out of the federal bureaucracy might have done for him what welfare reform did for Bill Clinton. (For that matter, welfare reform might have done for him what welfare reform did for Bill Clinton–specifically, backing up work requirements with Wisconsin-style last-resort “workfare” jobs.)
There are links at the source.
ping...
Thanks, I couldn’t remember his spelling.
bump
Another conclusion they must have reached is that blacks will turn out and vote for Zer0 no matter what his policies are.
(And no, Chrissy, it’s not racist to point out that the 0bama team’s assumptions are racist)
The Dem party has always been a loose coalition of different interests.
When Obozo was elected, the youth vote came out strong to support the first serious black presidential candidate.
That is now history.
They have a new reason to vote again. They are not employed fully in their college education career. They see that he is a loser, all talk and no action.
The party is now just a group of hate filled agitators that each want their piece of the pie, enviros, unions, minorities,ugly women’s groups, liberal know-nothing profs and various communist-socialist-anarchist useful idiots.
Mainstreet America does not like any of them........
You gonna take that? ;^)
The rats have decided to bet that the leech class is sufficiently large to carry the day.
They may be right, in which case goodbye America, it was good knowing you. And hello Hell on Earth...
Today’s Democrat party has become increasingly liberal.
Where are the more moderate Democrats of the past? Where are the Sam Nunns, the Scoop Jacksons, the JFKs, the Lloyd Bentsens? Are there any Democrats remaining in Congress in Washington who are NOT the extreme leftist/liberal type?????
And, it seems they are going all in for Obama’s re-election, just wanting the liberal oriented coalition to try to eke out a victory.
The Democrats are the party of every extreme liberal interest group nowadays. Combined with identity politics, in which racial/ethnic minorities of all types are urged to find their political home within the Democrat party, they think this can be a winning coalition.
But who gets left out? The working class type voters are being abandoned by their Democrat party.
There are no more conservative democrats, if there ever were any.
Ever since the McGovern wing of the party took control, back in 72, they have managed to marginalize all conservative thought. They are not inclusive or tolerant of anyone who strays from the gulag........
This is a great article. The ‘Rats have gone full leftist, which harms everyone who has a job working for a private sector company. They no longer have any claim that they are trying to help working people in general. If Republicans can be a little bit smart there is opportunity here.
I think the last pro-American Democrat was Martin Dies of Texas. And we have to go all the way back to 1931 for that. His seat, in the Texas Second Congressional District, is now held by Ted Poe, a true Patriot.
Dies, of course, was chairman of the HUAC and let the fight to expose Communists that had infiltrated the government. Were he alive today, there's a good chance that he'd be a Tea Party activist.
"There are not enough jails, not enough police, not enough courts to enforce a law not supported by the people."
"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, and one more safeguard against tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."
~Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey (D-MN)
Obammy’s Trayvon divide and conquer strategy is acutally creating a ballooning of black on white hate crimes. He’s also riled up white male gun owners and self defenders. But he got the black racist vote in the bag even though they were in his race bag.
When the radical left takes over and you have a collection of the meanest fruits and nuts in the country and the normal people flee.
Lets not forget the latest news either:
Census: Minority babies are now majority in United States. For the first time in U.S. history, most of the nation’s babies are members of minority groups, according to new census figures that signal the dawn of an era in which whites no longer will be in the majority.
“Census: Minority babies are now majority in United States.”
In my area this has been the case for at least 10 years (probaby longer); you see the results in any schoolyard. Towns that are officially 90% white have grammar school classes that are 50%+ “other”, and I believe this stat was buried for as long as possible so that nothing would be done about it. When you see the maternity wards of northern NJ, you realize that you just paid for most of the babies born there, and will continue to pay for them for a very long time...
If since 2009 “Joe Sixpack” has turned into more of a Joe Twelvepack, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.
Red Star over DemonCrat Convention Center, 2008
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YouTube Video:
The O'Reilly Factor confronts Bill Ayers:
October 24, 2008:
(note the red communist star on his shirt)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP3uvK9gTIY
The same is happening with conservative Republicans.
Which begs the question. Are the people becoming overwhelmingly liberal, or the elites?
Charles Murry in “Coming Apart” has an interesting take on things.
Actually we do still matter to them, but not as human beings. They see us as their slaves alive only to feed their never ending wishes.
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