I don’t think that Megan McArdle quite understands what’s actually going on in American politics these days. From her latest Washington Post column:
If the Blue Wave collapses before it hits shore, Democrats may need to ask whether #MeToo and other forms of identity politics are really the wave of the Democratic future.
Democrats have been waiting for that wave to crest for a long time, at least since the 2002 publication of “The Emerging Democratic Majority” by John Judis and Ruy Teixeira. That book’s modest thesis suggested that demographic trends would increase traditional Democratic constituencies while slowly shrinking the GOP’s base, as long as Democrats could find a way to hold their then-current coalition together.
By 2016, many saw that as prophecy: All they needed to do was wait for the GOP’s atavistic denizens to die off, leaving the country to those on the right side of history.
Yet salvation keeps failing to arrive. We now have the most diverse electorate in American history. If the strong version of the EDM thesis were correct, not even gerrymandering, voter suppression and untimely FBI announcements would have handed Republicans enough power to tip the electoral college in their favor. The prophecy failed. And still, a whole lot of folks seem to be waiting for history to vindicate them.
A quick glance at actual history shows that it doesn’t have a “right side” where Democrats can dwell; it doesn’t mechanically hand out power to the morally superior, or to the smartest, or to those with the best manners. Elections are won by those who assemble the biggest coalition of citizens to deliver votes where they’re needed.
But the reality was quite apparent in the report I posted on yesterday. Progressive Activists only comprise 8% of the country. They’re not going to achieve persistent electoral victory without attracting more Americans to their banner any more than the 6% of Devoted Conservatives are but the views of the Progressive Activists are much more divergent from those of other Americans than those of the Devoted Conservatives are. If the Democratic Party becomes a permanently progressive activist party, not only will there not be an emerging Democratic majority, they’ll struggle to remain relevant.
I’ve been saying for a long time now that the two parties are increasingly controlled by these extreme minority factions. Contra Dr. Taylor at OTB, I think the political problems in this country are not due to institutional design but to the emergence of an entrenched factional system where the factions actually represent a tiny minority of the country. I’d just point again to the Florida Governor’s race which is probably the best example of this in action.
The entrenched nature of the two parties makes it more difficult for the parties to reform from within or be challenged by alternatives.
This isn’t a state of affairs worth defending and I don’t think it’s sustainable in the long term, but I have no idea how this will end.
And Arnold Kling notes the abandonment of libertarian principles by each side:
https://medium.com/@arnoldkling/the-confusion-of-the-libertarians-7f060d4ba844
“If the Democratic Party becomes a permanently progressive activist party, not only will there not be an emerging Democratic majority, they’ll struggle to remain relevant.â€
The good news is the Democrats have dominance in getting message out because of a compliant media. The bad news is the Dems have dominance……….and the Sparticus’s, faux Cherokee and plain old thugs are on full display.