Elections now seem to be purely about whether the Democrats can mobilize minority voters or whether the Republicans can mobilize white voters. This is a really bad place for us to be. Issues no longer matter, just the team you’re affiliated with. But it’s a bigger problem for Republicans, for obvious reasons.
The demographic changes that will bring about Democratic dominance will actually take longer than most Democrats had previously thought. As the minority population grows and seems to pose a vague threat to poorer whites, those white voters will tend to vote more like a minority group. White voters already vote like black voters in the South and it’s not crazy to think they’ll vote that way in other places as well. But eventually the numbers will tell the tale.
The Republicans MUST find a new path. They must find a way to appeal to minority voters. But although Democrats can win in the future with minority voters, managing such a diverse coalition comes with its own problems. As this country will be a) plurality white, vast majority white if you count white Hispanics as white, and b) Ultra white in large swathes of the country, there is no viable path to actual governance without appealing to the white working class. Note I’m not saying Democrats can’t WIN, they certainly can. But actual governing involves a broad coalition, and failure to appeal to the white working class during the Obama years made obstruction not just viable for Republicans, but actually very profitable. No working class white voters= no governing event in the even of Democratic victories.
Either we become a country where party is purely a matter of opinion and not associated with racial, sexual, or religious identity, or we approach an era where we return to sectionalism with all the tensions and strife that involves. I don’t exaggerate when I say that if it gets bad enough it can actually threaten the republic and result in the country splitting into independent parts.
You have a point at the end of that many people might laugh at, but could very well be true. And there are nukes in all parts of the country. This why kind of why universities, the media, politicians and leaders of all stripes, should overall encourage patriotism.
I don’t think there would be war a second time around. The Civil War was about slavery and the idea of a republic and only one side wanted a split. A future secession would probably be more consensual, more like a bitter divorce, with a dose of “good riddance” on the part of all involved.
What the future coalitions look like are going to depend a lot of what issues drop in and out of focus. Mormons, for instance, have interests that largely align with the Democratic party except gay marriage and abortion.
As another example. while African Americans have economic and other interests represented by the democratic party, many are more like conservatives in that they’re more religious and less likely to support abortion or LGBT issues.
In the case where racial issues end up feeling satisfactorily addressed, as party loyalty fades there’s no reason black people couldn’t move to the pubs. In contrast, if gay marriage or abortion feels “settled” or less of a big deal Mormons could largely become Democrats.
If you take some extreme scenario, like the Republican or Democratic parties exploding, we could see a more drastic realignment. Say the Republican party folds (because the sides are more identifiable due to the primary this year and the thought experiment is easier), the obvious two coalitions for the Dems to split into are the Bernie Democratic Socialist wing and the more centrist wing. The former could inherit LGBT issues and working class voters, while the latter would get richer conservative types, but also could hold onto several minorities based on shared religious and social policy views.
It depends a lot on perceived loyalty, and the relative focus these demographics place on certain issues. Seemingly nonsensical, drastic realignments can seem to happen when all that really occurred was priorities shifting a little.
I don’t think there’s any reason to assume it’s going to be the current demographic split forever.
Why, deport all the brown people and non-Christians that you can, and take away the vote from the minorities that are left, and the problem is solved! /sarcasm
I think it is a myth that Obama ignored the white working class. The GOP wouldn’t allow any of his solutions to pass, as that would have made the Democrats “look good”, which had to be avoided at all costs for GOP purposes. And now we have POTUS Trump.
But yeah, the divisiveness is pretty nasty, and it is exactly what the billionaire class wants, the common people fighting each other like a bunch of vipers. It is the same game the elites have been playing ever since Colonial times, and it pretty much always works. The twist this time is that the billionaires succeeded in making it seem as if Team Obama and the people with real solutions were the “elites”, and that getting rid of them would fix everything.
Now the very most screwed among us are going to be even more angry and screwed, and the slightly less screwed like myself will only be attacked and accused of condescension for pointing out where they went wrong, like, how dare I have an education? You think you’re so fancy with your facts and reasons and truly correct analysis of things. Liberal! Asshole!
Wait, what? Active Mormon here, and I don’t feel like I have really any issues that align with the Democratic party. <---- those guys HATE religious folks like me.
When you look at referendums and initiatives and such that Mormons vote for/support, especially on economic, homeless aid, foreign aid, minority issues, religious freedoms protections (in the sense of laws protecting Islam or Sikhism and such, not “religious freedom to discriminate”) etc their votes tend to align with Democrats more often than Republicans. The exception is largely when it comes to LGBT and abortion issues. Sorry, lost my cite.
Actually, you can reduce demographic change by slowing down immigration.
“Ignore” is a strong word, but Obama was a cultural liberal, not a working class liberal. Climate change and remaking health care and reforming immigration were his top priorities and those don’t really resonate with working class voters, for whom climate change is a low priority issue, already have health care they like, and don’t want to compete with low price labor entering the country in large numbers. Add to that liberal condescension, and Obama’s complete obstinance about acknowledging his eleciton defeats and changing course and it resulted in a Democratic Party that alienated white working class voters.
The billionaires are no more monolithic than poor people. The differences people have with each other at the ground level are real, not manufactured by the rich to keep us divided. And if they are, liberals fell for it as much as conservatives, by prioritizing issues like climate change over jobs.
Liberals’ respect for facts and empiricism has always been overrated, and they were too condescending about it. I’ll be the first to admit that liberals have more respect for the process of reasoned thinking than conservatives do. The problem is implicit bias. Even if you use the correct processes to reason out something, you might still end up in the wrong place if your biases cause you to interpret the uncertain aspects in a way favorable to the outcome you want. If there’s one thing liberals should learn from this election, it’s that there are very few issues where there isn’t some level of uncertainty. And that doesn’t just apply to the scientific polling.
Yes, sometimes we say things that are utter bullshit, and there’s nothing wrong with calling it what it is. But a lot of times our opinions are based on the same evidence you have, but we interpret the uncertainties differently. Opinions like that should be treated with more respect. Liberals often act like the facts are all in when they aren’t and alienate people who think just slightly differently.
I don’t hate religious folks. I simply resist attempts to impose religion on us all through the law and public policy. Religious people behave like, if they believe really really hard, the 1st Amendment just doesn’t apply and the results are too bad for everyone else. The Founders set up a system to prevent that.
I believe religious people hate educated people like myself. I have scars on my face and a sabotaged career to prove it. I didn’t do anything to them.
Anyway, from my POV it isn’t hate. It is the Constitution.
And, while I can’t speak for all religious people, I certainly don’t “hate educated people”. I’m one of those white college graduates that were one of the topics of conversation this last election.
What POTUS is ever going to be a “working class” conservative or “liberal”, whatever that (liberal) means?
You say working class people have health care they already like, but the numbers show that millions didn’t have health care at all, and many still don’t. The ACA isn’t perfect, but I think opposition to it was largely manufactured through propaganda. I’d read your rebuttal to that though.
They don’t want to compete with low-price labor? I can accept that. However, c’mon, the strategy of demonizing Mexicans is another propaganda-driven attitude manufacturing program. For one, immigrants really do take jobs that even working class whites disdain- look at Alabama, they ran off their immigrants and had to resort to forcing prisoners to harvest the crops, who did a shitty job, the end result being a backwards economic vector for Alabama, heh, what’s new? Immigrants aren’t “stealing” jobs, they are being given to them by the owner class (in some cases because they are the only takers). Crack down hard on employers who hire illegals and there won’t be much motive for illegal immigration (other than fleeing drug war violence, have some compassion, but compassion doesn’t sell to Christian conservatives somehow…), except that is unacceptable because it is these employers who donate to the GOP.
Liberal condescension? Obama’s obstinance? I dunno, maybe you got me there. Elaborate, please.
I’d venture to say that GOP donating billionaires are rather monolithic, and outnumber other kinds of billionaires in the US. As for differences being manufactured, read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of America. It is a real eye-opener.
Prioritizing climate change over jobs 1) is the correct answer. If we are all dead on a desert planet, who cares about jobs? and 2) kind of a false dichotomy. The solar industry employs more people than the coal industry already, and has tons of room to run, for just one example. Addressing climate change doesn’t have to be a job-killer, that is another propaganda manufactured attitude IMHO.
They say facts have a liberal bias. I don’t know if that is true, it is just what I hear.
I dunno what to say about the condescension issue. The down and out are pretty touchy and resistant to instruction. Ignorant people tend to be wrong about things. Informed people basically have to resort to being bullshitters to avoid offending the sensibilities of the ignorant, which is uncomfortable and requires an uncommon skill set. It’s a tough nut to crack.
Interpreting uncertainties differently is certainly a valid point, and “liberals” (what exactly do you mean by that?) are perhaps blind to it sometimes. OTOH, in politics, the difference in interpretation often comes down to the difference between What is best for the common good? (Obama, for instance) and What is best for the billionaire class? (the GOP to a T, for instance).
Nope. Secession would lead to war. Why would the Union which already settled the question of secession voluntarily allow any state to leave? It would set a TERRIBLE precedent. Red counties would want to leave a blue seceding state and under what pretext could the state prevent that? No. Secession means war.
It would make zero sense from a military strategic point of view as well. Why would we want to have a less powerful economy and military? Why would we want a potential near parity rival on the same continent that we need to share water with?
To be fair, that is more an issue with evangelicals as I see it.
However, Mormon groups spent a lot of money fighting gay marriage laws in CA for instance, which I interpreted as “imposing religion on us all through the law and public policy.” Stop that. Same with evangelicals voting for Trump, not to mention that by prioritizing abortion over addressing climate change, they put the entire future of the human race at risk for the sake of unwanted babies. Real pragmatic there, guys. :smack:
Talking about policy priorities. Democrats pre-Reagan were focused like a laser beam on the working class. well, actually LBJ began a shift more towards non-working poor, which split the Democratic coalition.
I won’t get into the anti-ACA side of the debate because that’s not really the issue here. The issue is that even if ACA worked perfectly and people liked it, it doesn’t help people who already have jobs with health care, which is most people who have steady work. ACA mainly helps people who aren’t working or who have trouble finding or keeping steady work. But when you look at the white working class and even the minority working class of a lot of areas, these are people who have worked at the same place for years, are often in a union, and need certainty more than they need government aid. Of course the government can’t promise that jobs will stay in a place forever, but they can avoid making things worse. Workers don’t need to see imported labor replacing them or government desire to transition to cleaner energies close the mine. They also don’t want their factory literally packed up and shipped across the border, which is why Trump’s threat to slap tariffs on companies that do just that resonates so well.
Farming is one area where for centuries it’s been hard to get labor at any price, which is why slavery was popular and later on guest workers. But if it was just about farming, people wouldn’t complain so much. Where I work, the price of labor has gone up at our main facility because there is a local labor shortage. Most companies in the area have responded by competing for labor by offering more money, more perks, better working conditions, etc. My company has chosen to import Latinos, mainly Cubans using some refugee jobs program I’m not clear on and can’t find any info on, but which definitely exists because our warehouse went from 99% local labor to 70% foreign labor within a year. And they get paid less, although thank goodness American labor law still applies so they at least get decent wages. Just less than competing companies, and they can’t just quit us and work for a company down the block. This is the kind of thing that’s in people’s faces, and yes, it does provoke racial prejudice but it’s also a legit beef. Importing labor seems like “cheating” to keep wages down to the worker.
That’s true, but the Democrats have gone so far into the tank for the Latino vote that they are now against workplace raids or even e-verify.
Obama’s obstinance stems from him being defeated big in two midterms but never changing course. Clinton reinvented himself after his 1994 defeat, which meant it was the only defeat he suffered. Obama didn’t, and so got his ass handed to him a second time.
is absolutely correct, but I don’t think Democrats have really had the guts to engage with workers on that issue. Same with trade, trade is probably good for most workers, but only Bill Clinton really stood up and told workers that they have to learn to compete with the rest of the world. Every Democratic candidate since then has pandered on trade and then turned around and done the opposite. I don’t think anyone actually believed Clinton wasn’t going to support TPP at some point.
But 2) is only right in the aggregate, and only possibly. The coal miners and oil rig workers aren’t going to be making solar panels or windmills, anymore than stable cleaners learned how to tune an engine. Plus green energy is easier to import and Chinese competition in that market is fierce.
Often they do. Like I said, liberals respect the process more, which is why they arrive at the right answer more. I’ve learned a lot of what I thought was true was bullshit by reading liberal blogs and having it out with people on liberal dominated discussion boards. But liberals often fall prey to citing facts as ironclad when they actually aren’t. I want to tear my hair out when I read an article on Vox that talks about a particular issue and then says that a certain conservative claim has been “debunked” when it hasn’t.
I think that in one respect we really do need to turn the clock back, let’s say to the 1980s. Everyone is fair game for ridicule and people who are expressly trying to be funny should not have to apologize for making fun of various groups. If poor whites are the only group it’s really okay to lampoon in a stereotypical way, that creates an imbalance that makes everyone resentful. And even when we’re not trying to be funny, we need to have the frank discussions about race that prominent Democrats have often called for. There should be a “safe space” to say anything you want in certain venues(like talk shows or other panels about the issue), just like a married couple is supposed to be able to say anything to each other when in therapy. And when something hateful and wrong is said, it should be rebutted not treated as unfit for polite conversation.
Actually, I was just referring to factual questions, like, Do tax cuts create jobs? Does spending create jobs? Is voter fraud a problem? Are poor people poor because of their own faults or just bad luck? Do harsh methods of waging war create more terrorists or deter them? Does torture work?
In theory, you’re right. In practice, how many Americans in 2016 would die to force California to stay in the US? The America of 1860 might have been willing to endure massive destruction and loss of life to keep the country together, but the America of 2016 is going to want to keep their way of life, and a war with modern weapons(even if we don’t use nukes) would mean the destruction of a large part of our modern infrastructure and the impoverishment of tens of millions, not to mention the cost in blood.
I, for one, am rather sympathetic to the Brits’ new-found respect for the right to self-determination. If California wants to leave, I say, “don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out”.
