A Grand Realignment
There may be a grand realignment of the parties coming, as has occurred in the past - in the 1850's, 1910's for example. That grand realignment has already happened with the electorate. County by county, across the nation, the higher the average income, the better Harris did; the lower the average income, the better Trump did. That is a stunning reversal. It was the other way around for 100 years. Something has to give.
The more Democrats wooed the upper middle class professionals, the more they alienated blue collar folks. That opened the door for right wing populism, as historically has always been the case.
Back in 2008 I was amazed at the support in farm country for Obama, in the fields, in the packing houses, in the processing facilities, on the loading docks. Why was that? Obama promised to go after the banks and to save the home owners, and he promised to give people access to decent healthcare. Those things did not happen, and the resentment and frustration has been percolating ever since. The upper 20% has done well, yes, but too many people have been left behind. Wonky talk about policy, or scolding voters for being stupid or whatever - which happens right here every hour - is just salt in the wound. The stock market has done well, the home values in the upscale neighborhoods have increased. More salt in the wound.
The overwhelming sentiment in 2008 was a desperate desire that someone would shake things up, go after the fat cats, and give the working people a fair shake. Obama promised to do that. It was only after those promises were broken that people turned to MAGA. I am not talking about Musk and the billionaires, not talking about the right wing nutjobs and white supremacists, nor the "militia" brown shirts. Those categories don't represent enough people to win elections. The Republicans needed a lot of people who thought "what have we got to lose?" in order to win. Things had to be really bad for people to think "what have I got to lose?" Things are really bad. Housing, healthcare, transportation, food, utilities are all more and more difficult for people to afford.
The Democratic party has become the party of the upper 20%, by the upper 20%, for upper 20%. That described the Republican party a generation ago. Meanwhile, blue collar workers have drifted to the Republicans out of desperation, because there is nowhere else to go. Many Democrats cannot accept that, because they do not understand the suffering and resentment of the bottom half of the population, do not see how tone deaf the Democratic party messaging is, and do not see how compromised and conservative the party has become in all areas except a couple of "culture war" issues. Worse, Democrats right here every day mock and ridicule the blue collar people and dismiss their suffering. On the "culture war" issues the right wing has defined the terms of the debate and controls the messaging.
On top of all of that the party leadership has allowed the right wingers to get almost complete over the national political discussion - social media, cable, streaming. I was startled to see when I searched for "news" in Roku's "app store" that there were a dozen or more right wing channels, including Charlie Kirk, Steve Brannon, et al, all advertised as "fair" and "honest" news. Then we have the dozens of religious channels on cable and satellite, many of which are thinly disguised right wing propaganda outlets, along with the 3 or 4 far right alternatives to Fox. Then we have Sinclair broadcasting monopolizing local TV news, and the thousands of right wing AM radio stations.
Where is there any messaging to counter all of that? Well, there’s MSNBC, where half of the guests or more are always Republicans. Free Speech TV? Progress Radio? NPR? Social media strongly favors right wing content, so we are drowned out there. Yet we mock voters for being poorly informed and brainwashed? Of course they are.
We hear “they are voting against their own interests!” No they aren’t. Their interests are not on the ballot and they don’t trust the promises anymore. They voted to blow it all up, in desperation.
But the Democrats insist on ignoring all of that and going after that mythical suburban swing voter, and appealing to the educated upper middle class professional people. Senator Schumer: “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”
The Democrats’ Risky Pursuit of Suburban Republicans
The Democratic Party’s fetishization of the suburban voter has myriad roots. These are desirable voters, in theory, because they are more likely to vote in midterms than more traditional Democratic constituencies like the young, the poor, and people of color; they’re also more likely to be substantial donors. And for Democratic centrists, middle-of-the-road Republicans are also ideal voters since they are unlikely to demand large government programs.
The Democrats have pursued suburban Republican voters since long before 2016, to little avail. “Democrats have dreamed for years of peeling away the rings around major cities, separating suburban voters who favor conservative tax and economic policies from a Republican Party that also champions harder-right positions on abortion, guns and gay rights,” the Times reported. “So far, that effort has gained Democrats few seats.” The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reportedly found that in the 2014 and 2016 elections, suburban voters were “inching away from Republicans, but too slowly to flip many seats.”
The Democrats’ Risky Pursuit of Suburban Republicans
A recent Substack entry from Lucas Kunz asks "Why do people keep voting against their own self-interest?"
Excerpts:
If we think about this question from the perspective of the voters it references, the people who are “voting against their own self-interest,” this question—even if asked entirely in earnest—doesn’t come off as a question. They don’t believe they are voting against their self-interest, so it comes off as a statement: that they are stupid, and that the questioner knows more about what’s good for them than they do.
Even if the presumption in this question is true, that someone would have a better life if they voted for a certain candidate, there’s no way forward from this question that comes to a mutual understanding. Because it comes from a place of superiority.
That may be insurmountable. The idea that to be a Democrat is to be smarter, more knowledgeable, more compassionate is deeply intertwined with people’s sense of self-worth and their identity. Of course those of us who are smarter — thanks to genetic roulette — or more knowledgeable — thanks to fortunate backgrounds and more leisure time - are smarter and more knowledgeable. It doesn’t take a smart knowledgeable person to figure that out. But more often than not we are employed to advance the interests of management, not those of Labor. For those services rendered we get higher salaries and more perks and social status. Blue collar workers increasingly see liberals as tools for management, and not without cause. Those attitudes bleed over into Democratic party politics with devastating effect, as every alert and honest observer should now be able to see clearly.
When I got back from Iraq in 2009, I spent a large part of 2010 and 2011 trying to keep Marines in their homes who were illegally foreclosed upon by the same big banks that the government had just bailed out. Banks and bankers at the time were knowingly violating the Service members Civil Relief Act (SCRA) left and right, breaking the law kicking service members out of their homes—many of whom had the money to stay but hadn’t gotten proper notice due to deployments. And it all happened under a Democratic President who had a Democratic majority in the House and 60 Democratic votes in the Senate.
I specifically remember these Marines and their families asking me how the bankers could get away with it. Didn’t we all just bail these banks out? They would ask. I signed up after 9/11 when these guys were attacked in New York, they would say, how could they forget that and treat us like this? Who is the government supposed to be looking out for, anyway? Why isn’t it us?
“Who is the government supposed to be looking out for, anyway? Why isn’t it us?” That could be the theme of the 2024 election, or it could be the epitaph on the tombstone of the Democratic party. Or, it could be a call to action, a new beginning, a fresh start, a renewed commitment to working toward a better future for humanity.
The entire essay is worthy of a careful read. It is hard to choose what to excerpt from it.
“Everyday people want to tear down the system because it is corrupt, they can’t afford groceries, they can’t buy a house, and they basically have to work until they die.”
The system is not working for most people. Even reform on the scale of the New Deal is probably woefully inadequate to address this crisis. The problem is not with the voters, it is with us.
“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” Abraham Lincoln
