How long have I been saying this? No one ever listens:
In the months since the 2012 elections it has become apparent that the victorious Democratic coalition Obama assembled is still not sufficiently large to overcome the unprecedented Republican obstruction and sabotage of the normal processes of American political life.
Although long-term demographic trends, such as the increase in minority voters and the rise of the Millennial generation, are favorable for the Democrats, translating those trends into true political and electoral dominance will remain difficult so long as Democrats rely on simply turning out core Obama coalition voters. Their margins will be too thin and subject to backlash, especially below the Presidential level.
To create a stable Democratic majority, Democrats need to win the support of a significant group of voters who are now part of the Republican coalition. As the 2012 elections demonstrated, the group that has perhaps the greatest potential in this regard is the white working class.
Consider the following:
First, in terms of sheer size, even at 36 percent of voters (and that is the exit poll figure—the Census data indicate a share about 8 points higher), the white working class remains one of the biggest sociologically distinct demographic groups that is now heavily part of the Red State/GOP coalition.
Second, a significant number of white working class voters have historic ties with the Democrats—even among those who currently vote Republican. Some have personal memories and others family traditions of past Democratic voting. No comparable connection or previous ideological affinity exists with today’s upper income or other Republican voters.
As a result, on both the positive side and on the negative side, the white working class has the potential to be a—if not the—decisive swing voter group for the future.
Well, I’m sure the Obama et al plan of screwing the working classes of all races and genders will greatly aid the Democratic Party in building a solid majority.
Keep going after that SocSec and Medicare/Medicaid, Barry!
/snark
It has looked to me that Obama has no great love for the Dem Party and is actually trying to create a Corporatist Party for his “savvy businessmen” buddies.
The white working class voter is a shape-shifter. Scare them and they’ll become Republicans every time. The only way to make white working class voters into a reliable voting block is to radicalize them. The Right has done just that. These under-educated dumbasses actually believe that Islamic terrorists are out to get them. Our schools have failed us. Thanks to the intelligentsia on the Right. As for the Left. If you believe yourself to be a Liberal or a Progressive what you need to do is to shift much further to the Left. Otherwise you’re part of the problem and not part of the solution.
It would also help if the dem party stopped electing effing republicans as president.
First, if we are talking about the national level the Democratic Party – with the white working class firmly in the Republican camp – has won the popular vote in 5 of the last 6 presidential elections, and has won outright in 4 of the last 6 (not getting into the debacle of 2000). So saying the Democratic Party can’t win at the national level without the WWC is simply wrong.
Second, the defection of the white working class from the Democratic Party began in earnest with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and accelerated rapidly thereafter as the Republicans successfully implanted their notorious “Southern Strategy”. The WWC is quite simply racist. NOT every single person who fits the description, but in the majority – yes, they are. Should the Democratic Party give up on Civil Rights to woo them back?
None of which is to say there isn’t advantage to be gained in spending some small amount of capital on getting some WWC voters back into the Democratic Party. It is to point out it is much easier said than done. My ultra-conservative brother is a house painter who is absolutely convinced he’d be retired on a yacht in the Riviera today if not for blacks on welfare. My other two brothers and I have spent our entire lives (age range 52 – 59) arguing with him about the absurdity of his beliefs to the point there have been several huge family rifts as a result. We’ve gotten nowhere.
Good luck with those DNC commercials swaying large numbers of such people.
Triangulation is the blind pursuit of just this voting block and it blows back every time.
If the Dems don’t stand for improving the economic life of those in the lower economic quintiles, what good are they? Especially with an ersatz Dem Prez who is destroying our civil liberties, enabling oligarchic Corporatists to garner all the wealth, protecting the Bad Banksters and Big Savvy Bidnessmen who cheat and prey on the lower econ classes, taking us into yet more wars and “kinetic military actions,” etc.
Why would anyone except the One Percenters vote for such a party? And they won’t when they can get a genuine Republican in the presidency and maybe give that prez a solid Repub Congress? Money works wonders in politics, especially when voters feel burned by a Dem prez who lied to them to get their votes.
After awhile, being fooled makes one bitter and perhaps a bit unwise in how one votes. Or doesn’t vote.
But, it’s now clear why Occupy had to be treated as a “security threat,” with all the power of the Security State and its governmental spying used against the movement. It was a threat to the security of the oligarchs and the One Percenters.