Two decades ago John B. Judis and Roy Teixeira gave us the volume The Emerging Democratic Majority, which predicted the demographic changes in the American population would lead to a prolonged period in which the Democratic party would have substantial majority control of all branches of the Federal government. That’s not quite what happened. The authors therefore asked where their predictions have gone astray and what was actually happening.
Where Have All the Democrats Gone? In essence, the Democratic Party of the working man acquired a shadow party of newspapers, television networks, opinion writers, think tanks, special interest groups, and the like, a shadow party that was considerably more liberal and dogmatic than the party of the working man that preceded it. The shadow party tended to be composed of people who were relatively highly educated and had less than complete respect for the party and people who had been there beforehand. Readers may recall Hillary Clinton and her phrase reference to a ‘basket of deplorables’, this being her contemptuous reference to many of the supporters of Donald Trump. The difficulty with this attitude was that it denigrated traditional components of the Democratic Party’s voter base.
This volume is a historical piece going back to the Clinton administration and forward through the present. It’s supported by very substantial polling data and post-election voter analysis on liberal, progressive, and radical tendencies within the Democratic Party. The major issue, in the opinion of the authors, is that the Democratic Party has for some decades been losing its traditional voter base, in particular it has been losing working-class of voters of all races, losses being more rapid with some races than others. It has instead gained a significant voter base among people who have passed through some or all of a college education and work with their minds rather than their hands. The difficulty, for the Democratic Party, is that the voter base that the Democratic Party has been gaining is outnumbered roughly two-to-one by the voter base it has been losing.
The authors ask how the state of affairs has come to pass. Approximately speaking their answer is that the progressive leadership of the Democratic Party in its opinions has become detached from the opinions of the bulk of party voters. This could happen because the shadow party leadership has managed to set itself in an ideon bubble in which contrary ideas and disagreement do not penetrate. The authors present, for example, extensive polling among Wisconsin primary voters, these being the people who are most interested in their parties, showing that the American people of both parties are very considerably united on a wide variety of basic stands, for example “discrimination and racism are bad, but they are not the cause of all disparities in American society” which is supported by two-thirds or nine-tenths of Wisconsin primary voters in the two parties. The difficulty for the Democrats is that the shadow party apparatus has a different set of opinions on a range of topics than most Americans do.
How is this issue of interest to third parties? The answer, and similar answers could be given for the Republican Party, is that you have two party leadership groups that have wandered off, leaving a solid majority of the American people who do not agree with either group. The issues that the authors discuss can be recognized as wedge issues, issues that split the Democratic and Republican party shadow leadership groups for most though not all of their voters. A third party that takes advantage of this analysis to identify points where it may usefully and effectively campaign then has a substantial advantage for the future.
I recognize much of the volume as having appeared in preliminary form in writings of the authors on The Liberal Patriot blog, which is worthwhile reading for analysis of actual voter trends.
Blech. Two neolibs telling the world that the Democratic Party isn’t neoliberal enough.