"But more unusual is a wholesale reconsideration of which voters make up the backbone of the Democratic Party. The most explosive and potentially consequential argument about the election result concerns how the Democrats should deal with the party’s loss of support among white working class voters and whether they should overhaul their political game plan as a result.
Historian Mark Lilla, among others, has argued that the party should try to find more unifying themes rather than engage in “identity politics” — a term used to describe political messages designed to stress the concerns of racial and ethnic minorities, women and LGBT Americans. These narratives suggest that the party has gone too far in embracing cultural issues, alienating crucial constituencies, and should instead focus on economic and class concerns.
There’s been considerable pushback against this view, however. The modern Democratic coalition has relied heavily on group appeals to build both a coalition and a political message. Minority voters are a core constituency for the party. A decline in black turnout was as much a part of the 2016 loss as were the party’s struggles with white rural voters. How the Democrats interpret the 2016 loss has the potential to affect what the party stands for, how it campaigns and what kinds of candidates it nominates — not just in 2020, but for decades to come..."
Why The 2016 Election Won’t Go Away | FiveThirtyEight
No comments:
Post a Comment