Democrats losing white America
Seven years ago this month, Democrats across America were celebrating the election of an African-American President. It was an extraordinary historic achievement. But no good deed goes unpunished.
Vox sums up what has happened since: “Under President Obama, Democrats have lost 900+ state legislature seats, 12 governors, 69 House seats, 13 Senate seats. That’s some legacy.”
Why? One big reason is that white voters fled in droves from the Democratic Party.
A veteran Eastern North Carolina Democrat said, “All of the white people where I live are becoming Republicans. There are very few white Democrats left.”
Maybe some people just can’t stand the idea of a black President, a black First Lady and a black family in the White House. Maybe other white voters, still struggling to recover from the 2008 economic catastrophe, see Obama as taking from them and giving to you-know-who.
Or maybe Obama, unlike Bill Clinton, doesn’t give those voters the sense that he cares for them, understands what they’re up against and, yes, feels their pain. As one thoughtful Democrat said, “It’s not that white, working-class voters want government to give something to them. They just want government to give a damn about them.”
Obama – and Democrats generally – demonstrate every day that they care about LGBT people, about women’s health care rights, about immigrants and about people at the bottom of the pile.
But do they care, as Bill Clinton once said, about “all the people who work hard and play by the rules”? As a white working-class voter might ask, “Do they care about people like me?”
This is an important part of Democrats’ calculus in 2016, especially in North Carolina and especially for Hillary Clinton, Roy Cooper and Deborah Ross.
Do they bet on a “base” election? Can they win by betting the future on what Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg calls “a new progressive majority in the electorate: racial minorities (black and Hispanic) plus single women, millennials (born between 1982 and 2000) and secular voters (who) together formed 51% of the electorate in 2012; and will reach a politically critical 63% next year”?
Or do they do what Bill Clinton did in the 1980s and 1990s when Democrats faced very much the same dilemma: break out of the mold, fashion a broader appeal and raid the territory that Republicans take for granted: white, working-class America?
Actually, Obama did just that in 2008. Many working-class whites voted for him because they had lost faith in the old order that had just about wrecked them and the economy. History may judge that Obama’s great political failure was his inability to keep those people on his side and convince them that he and his party are on their side.
Yes, race is a powerful force in politics. But there’s another powerful force in politics today: the belief that the system is rigged in favor of the people at the top. That can work for Democrats who know how to use the force.
Democrats losing white America
Seven years ago this month, Democrats across America were celebrating the election of an African-American President. It was an extraordinary historic achievement. But no good deed goes unpunished.
Vox sums up what has happened since: “Under President Obama, Democrats have lost 900+ state legislature seats, 12 governors, 69 House seats, 13 Senate seats. That’s some legacy.”
Why? One big reason is that white voters fled in droves from the Democratic Party.
A veteran Eastern North Carolina Democrat said, “All of the white people where I live are becoming Republicans. There are very few white Democrats left.”
Maybe some people just can’t stand the idea of a black President, a black First Lady and a black family in the White House. Maybe other white voters, still struggling to recover from the 2008 economic catastrophe, see Obama as taking from them and giving to you-know-who.
Or maybe Obama, unlike Bill Clinton, doesn’t give those voters the sense that he cares for them, understands what they’re up against and, yes, feels their pain. As one thoughtful Democrat said, “It’s not that white, working-class voters want government to give something to them. They just want government to give a damn about them.”
Obama – and Democrats generally – demonstrate every day that they care about LGBT people, about women’s health care rights, about immigrants and about people at the bottom of the pile.
But do they care, as Bill Clinton once said, about “all the people who work hard and play by the rules”? As a white working-class voter might ask, “Do they care about people like me?”
This is an important part of Democrats’ calculus in 2016, especially in North Carolina and especially for Hillary Clinton, Roy Cooper and Deborah Ross.
Do they bet on a “base” election? Can they win by betting the future on what Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg calls “a new progressive majority in the electorate: racial minorities (black and Hispanic) plus single women, millennials (born between 1982 and 2000) and secular voters (who) together formed 51% of the electorate in 2012; and will reach a politically critical 63% next year”?
Or do they do what Bill Clinton did in the 1980s and 1990s when Democrats faced very much the same dilemma: break out of the mold, fashion a broader appeal and raid the territory that Republicans take for granted: white, working-class America?
Actually, Obama did just that in 2008. Many working-class whites voted for him because they had lost faith in the old order that had just about wrecked them and the economy. History may judge that Obama’s great political failure was his inability to keep those people on his side and convince them that he and his party are on their side.
Yes, race is a powerful force in politics. But there’s another powerful force in politics today: the belief that the system is rigged in favor of the people at the top. That can work for Democrats who know how to use the force.