Stable realignments of the electorate do happen. Political scientists recognize 5 of them in our history, some say 6. The elections of 1980, 1994, and 2008 were hailed as realignment elections, but only by media pundits. None had legs. However, the partisanship of the day suggests that the electorate could coalesce into a persisting configuration any time. A debate over who we are is not divisive but timely.
As part of that debate, I’ve been trying to figure out when the Democratic Party separated paths with unions. This is the ninth post in a series. Previous posts can be found at the following links.
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In the late 1960s and early ‘70s, liberals of the New Left declared the white working class racist and unworthy. That pushed white, working-class men closer to the party of white, wealthy men. It was a failure of the Democratic establishment. Democrats traditionally had combined “a variety of potentially hostile racial, economic, cultural, and regional elements,” which the party kept united “against the vast power of corporate conservatism.” By the late 1960s, the party establishment, obsessed with Vietnam, was fighting the New Left while simultaneously moving away from labor. Instead of building coalitions, they were burning bridges.
In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, new movements pushed aside all three: the old establishment, the new left, and unions. Beginning with the Watergate Babies and continuing with neoliberalism, there was an infatuation with libertarian theories of small government and deregulation.
Matt Stoller notes that “the central tenet of New Deal competition policy was not big or small government; it was distrust of concentrations of power and conflicts of interest in the economy.” Neoliberalism would turn that on its head, dismissing the “anti-monopoly and anti-bank tradition in the Democratic Party” and clearing the way “for the greatest concentration of economic power in a century,” not to mention for a near repeat of the Great Depression and the near abandonment of working men and women by the party that they had helped build.
This remaking of the party was not with the acquiescence of the public at the time and demonstrably not with their acquiescence today. Regardless, neoliberals claim that, in shifting the party well to the right, they saved it.
It is fair to ask, if you save the Democratic Party by embracing corporations and rejecting workers, by embracing monopolies and rejecting regulations, by embracing the concentration of wealth while rejecting a government that advocates for its citizens, in what sense have you saved the Democratic Party? This was less a deliverance than a hijacking.
Barry Goldwater was a national symbol of conservatism by the early 1960s. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson crushed him in a victory so complete that conservatives went down across the country. But conservatives did not moan that they must become more liberal or surely perish. They did not abandon their beliefs. They fought. Within 20 years, they had neoliberals calling for the Democratic Party to become more conservative.
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And that is what we did, forgetting that, to the average voter, nothing is as important as a job. Nothing. Ever. A job is security. A job is self-sufficiency. A job defines a person. That “Rust Belt” had entered our lexicon should have been a giant, flashing, red light to Democrats.
Hillary Clinton lost Ohio in near record fashion. "Here's the irony of it,” said one Ohio Democratic functionary, “all our local Democrats crushed the Republicans … 'cause we're talking to those voters …." This would be just an anecdote except that a superb analysis of the data by The Daily Kos bears out the phenomenon.
Matt Stoller gives a stunning example of how we used to do it: an old flyer for a long-term Democratic Congressman from Texas titled “Here is What Our Democratic Party Has Given Us.” “There were no fancy slogans or focus-grouped logos. Each item listed is a solid thing that was relevant to the lives of conservative white Southern voters in rural Texas: Electricity. Telephone. Roads. Social Security. Soil conservation. Price supports. Foreclosure prevention.”
We lost such messaging when libertarian economics and neoliberalism took over. Working-class whites are the biggest beneficiaries of the Democrats’ safety net, yet working-class whites just gave Republicans oligarchic power. We had stopped talking to those voters.
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Presidential elections turn on strong candidates with optimistic economic messages; “isms” rarely are decisive, and counting on demographics is a fool’s game. World events can overshadow the best laid plans of mice and movements, but the quality of the candidate and of the economic message typically are telling.
There was no need to panic after Reagan. There was and is a need to find young, strong campaigners on every level of the ballot. There was and is a need to return to grass-roots efforts. There was and is a need to talk to voters more than to donors, to talk year-round to the working and middle classes of all races. Make the case for a coalition against the predatory practices of corporations and the wealthy. There was and is a need to stand by our principles. We have the support of the people, we need to act like it.
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As a reward for embracing libertarian economic fantasies, we just lost the presidency, both houses of Congress, and most state legislatures. We have become what nobody cares about: the second-best Republican Party in the country.
It is time to become Democrats again. Is that possible? FDR had one of the most galvanizing events in history by which to draw and hold constituencies. He had a business bloc that we are unlikely to match, and today’s union leaders continue to betray their members. It will take persistence and money.
Some say we also must walk away from the party to achieve this, but we need as much of the establishment as is willing to come along, and we need the structure. Goldwater’s people didn’t bolt their party; they changed it. Tea Partiers are close to owning the House but as Republicans. We shouldn’t go as far as have Republicans, driving moderates into extinction, but we need to change. We need to become Democrats again.
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I have one more post in this series: a look at all the history that has been missed and a question about the future.