Ruy Teixeira, the political scientist who wrote The Emerging Democratic Majority in 2002, which eventually deteriorated into the conventional wisdom among White liberals that “demographics is destiny” and that they could get away with anything in the culture war, chimes in on the unanticipated rise of the East Coast AWFLs and how their values and priorities are scrambling our politics.
“Democrats are betting on a small set of issues to mitigate their losses this November. Inflation may have just hit a 40 year high (9.1 percent) with concomitant recession risk but Democrats believe that campaigning against the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, arguing for more gun control in the wake of recent mass shootings and highlighting Trump’s anti-democratic malfeasance through the January 6th hearings can turn the tide in their favor. ..
More broadly, the lack of Democratic support among working class (noncollege) voters is striking. Democrats lose among all working class voters by 11 points, but carry the college-educated by 23 points. This is less a class gap than a yawning chasm.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Democrats’ emphasis on social and democracy issues, while catnip to some socially liberal, educated voters, leaves many working class and Hispanic voters cold. Their concerns are more mundane and economically-driven …
Recent data from Echelon Insights provide an interesting window on this contrast. Their analysis breaks down the electorate into four quadrants (conservative, populist, libertarian and liberal) and further breaks out a “strong progressive” subset of the liberals who are highly liberal on most issues and also happen to be very highly-educated (and more likely to be white). They are about 10 percent of voters and bear some similarity in size, demographics and inclinations to the “progressive activists” group broken out in the More in Common study—a group with tremendous weight in current Democratic party politics who are described as “deeply concerned with issues concerning equity, fairness, and America’s direction today. They tend to be more secular, cosmopolitan, and highly engaged with social media …”
These people are always claiming to represent the working class. Their latest masterstroke is calling for setting up abortion clinics on federal land in Red States and parking a flotilla of abortion ships like casinos off the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast. This will be an enormous success like Bernie Sanders’ losing presidential campaigns. Bernie couldn’t even beat Hillary or Biden.
“The crosstabs provided by Echelon allow for a comparison of strong progressives’ basic political views with those of Hispanic and working class voters. Here are some examples …”
They don’t realize this.
“Strong progressives clearly live in a different world than Hispanic and working class voters. In strong progressive world, views on abortion, gun control and January 6th fit neatly into an overarching set of sociocultural beliefs that are highly salient to them and increasingly drive the Democratic party’s priorities and rhetoric …”
Democrat margins with non-White working class voters have been shrinking for a decade now.
“Exaggerated? Maybe. But consider this: between the 2012 and 2020 elections—which Democrats won by similar popular vote margins—Democrats’ advantage among nonwhite working class voters decreased by 19 margin points (Catalist data). Over the same period, Democrats’ performance among white college-educated voters improved by 16 margin points. So perhaps we’re just on trend.”
Where do you see these yard signs?
These are shitlib yard signs. You know that a peculiar type of Democrat lives in homes with these yard signs. They also like Ukraine flags. American politics is becoming a referendum on these people.
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