I have a question. Would the Democratic Party be better off by moving towards the Sanders/Warren left side of the party or by reaffirming a more Third Way approach?
I think they need to root out the Goldman-Sachs wing of the party but move towards more centrist policies with an emphasis on working people. Dump the Clintonistas. Union rank and file rather than union bosses. That will be a very hard trick and it can’t be done overnight.
Depending on the black, Hispanic, and youth vote didn’t work for Hillary Clinton. And there’s a funny thing about the young. Either they get older or they die and no longer participate in politics. Except in Chicago, of course.
There’ve been studies of this stuff. Major life changes affect your politics. It’s not true that if you’re a Democrat by the time you’re 21 you’ll be a Democrat for life.
Steve Sailer has been pointing out for years that the gender gap in politics is far less meaningful than the marriage gap when it comes to female voting preferences. Married women are far more conservative/Republican in outlook than unmarried women.
Well, they mostly need to not nominate candidates that people in their own party don’t like, especially when the basic conditions of the election suggest your party should lose. As to your point, I think it has some merit, especially when put into the context of the electoral college. They keep winning the popular vote but losing in the electoral. A bit broader appeal to the white, non-urban group would help. Old white people actually vote.
Steve
And what’s being ignored is that old, white people are going to be a very big part of the electorate not just for the next 5, 10, or 20 years but forever. Check the demographic tables.
Obama won the popular vote, but Dems more generally haven’t done so since 1976. They’re winning a PLURALITY of the vote. Neither side has consistently shown the ability to pull in a majority in decades. I’m pretty sure, given the two-party nature of our polity, that this is another sign of rot.
@steve, there is something like eight million votes still to count, so we don’t know for certain whether the electoral and popular vote will be disconnected. And if it happened, its only the second time in living memory.
* * *
Talking about the EC with my daughter, who doesn’t think it makes sense, it occurred to me that there really has not been a serious effort to repeal the electoral college in my lifetime.(*) As a practical matter, its rarely been an issue and when it has, the country is so divided that there is not a super-majority political consensus to reform it. I see the system as being created as a negotiated solution to get the thirteen colonies to join together, to reform it would essentially require a similar negotiated solution with additional trade-offs. Which leads me to: What if the Democrats added a substantial comprehensive good-government reform plank, not just on the EV, but term-limits, Congressional districting reform, etc. I’m thinking of something that in sum that wouldn’t be simply an effort to improve Democratic chances of winning; there would be too many pieces.
(*) No, I don’t think the unauthorized interstate compact to be serious.
I’m not sure what’s going to happen in both parties. The elites are out of touch with the mainstream, I think that will make it hard for the elites to coherently reform.
Maybe I missed out, but you keep writing about Trump, or about the Dem party in the abstract. Just exactly what do you expect the Democrats, especially in the Senate, to do? McConnell said their number one gaol was to keep Obama from having a second term. They went on to have a record number of filibusters. Should Schumer do the same? Why should they help Trump pass legislation? Granted, McConnell only had 40 senators to worry about, and I am not sure you can get the Dem senators to vote in lockstep like the GOP did, but if they can, should they? It certainly worked for the GOP in that it got them back in power. I think you can make the case it was not good for the country.
Steve
That was in October 2010. By that time the president’s intention of closing Republicans out completely was quite clear.
There’s a struggle underway for control of the DNC. That’s not abstract. It’s quite concrete. After the 2004 election I predicted the struggle that would ensue and it’s unfolded pretty much as I said.
The Congressional candidates who run for office aren’t emergent phenomena that emanate from the incoherent souls of the parties. They’re part of the deliberate strategy of the parties’ national committees, Congressional leadership, and other party bigwigs. That’s what I’m talking about.
“That was in October 2010. By that time the president’s intention of closing Republicans out completely was quite clear.”
“Of the 788 amendments filed, 67 came from Democrats and 721 from Republicans. (That disparity drew jeers that Republicans were trying to slow things down. Another explanation may be that they offered so many so they could later claim—as they are now, in fact, claiming—that most of their suggestions went unheeded.) Only 197 amendments were passed in the end—36 from Democrats and 161 from Republicans. And of those 161 GOP amendments, Senate Republicans classify 29 as substantive and 132 as technical.1”
Also, between 10%-33% of the bill was actually written by Republicans since they just recycled what they wrote. The public option was pulled out and ideas like selling across state lines was added to attract GOP support. Didn’t work. As I said, McConnell and co were not going to support anything by Obama. They knew they had to win their own elections. (Remember that Bennett got primaried just for having his name on the same health care bill as Wyden.)
http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/D=g/ci_15052701
Steve
When George W. Bush took office the very first thing he did was reach out to the Democratic leadership. That’s customary and normal practice. Barack Obama not only didn’t reach out to the Republican leadership he didn’t even meet with them for months after assuming office. Not back benchers. The leadership. That’s how business is done.
I presume you’re writing about the PPACA. Who, specifically, wrote the 10-33%? The Republican Congressional leadership? Somebody working for Mitt Romney in Massachusetts? Or a Republican think tank 25 years ago? Only the Republican Congressional leadership counts. That’s the way Congress works.
Look, I’m not saying that the Republicans are blameless. I’m saying that President Obama and the Democrats bear part of the blame.
Sure, but the claims that Obama did not meet with republicans early is just false, and an old GOP talking point. Don’t forget that the Google is our friend.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/us/politics/28obama.html
It is also important to remember that the GOP started resistance much earlier with the infamous secret meeting of GOP leadership on the day of his inauguration. Finally, I can probably find it in my archives, or Google, there were actually a few articles in conservative publications outlining what he needed to do to be bipartisan. Obama did a lot of the things on their list. Still didn’t work.
Still, I agree, it was a group effort. I think Obama gave up too soon, while the GOP never tried.
Steve