You might want to check out academic Musa al-Gharbi’s post at The Conversation on the recent trends in American politics, particularly the eye-catching graphs about half-way down the page, illustrating Democrats’ loss of vote shares in 18 demographic categories from 2008 to the present. Mr. al-Gharbi explains:
It may be tempting to hold onto the faith in an emerging Democratic majority. Some predict Trump will self-destruct and his followers will be consigned to irrelevance, to the “wrong side of history,†as President Obama often phrased it.
On the one hand, as a social psychologist, I understand this impulse toward comforting thoughts. However, given my background in applied social epistemology, I also know it is imperative for progressives to have a clear-eyed view of the situation at hand.
The Democratic Party is in crisis. Demographics will be unlikely to save them. If anything, the trend seems to be going in the other direction.
and
For instance, there is a common misconception that Trump was ushered into power by old, white, economically disenfranchised men. However, according to the exit polls, Trump actually did worse than Romney among whites and seniors, but outperformed him among blacks, Asians, Hispanics and young people.
While the Democrats lost a lot of support among low-income Americans, I think it would be a mistake to interpret these as Trump’s base. He won a plurality of every income bracket above US$50,000 as well. He also won more non-Christian and nonreligious voters than any Republican since the 2000 election.
Now my explanation for what has happened is somewhat different than Mr. al-Gharbi’s. I think that the Democratic leadership has made some disastrous miscalculations, probably assuming that “wrong side of history” nonsense mentioned above.
Time, particularly political time, is not an arrow. Neither is it a cycle. People respond to events as well as identity.
The American people historically have not been ideological. Pushing the two major political parties towards programmatic parties rather than the “catch-all” parties they’ve always been brings little but misery, clearly illustrated by Gallup’s findings on political identification.
Republicans shouldn’t take any solace in their present ascendancy. The political parties must reform rather than pontificate and the American people respond over time to events.
This assumes that Trump actually won, rather than Clinton lost. Massachusetts elected Scott Brown to the Senate. Was that because they had all become conservatives? Hardly. It meant that the Dems ran an exceptionally bad candidate.
Steve
It still needs to be determined if the all powerful Russians controlled the election. If anyone else saw the great flik “Training Day” You will know, nothing stops the Russians.
It’s a wild assumption for any party to think a position of power is assured or secured for long. Social and economic conditions are subject to day-to-day changes. What is deemed good one moment can sour in the next – this is as long as people have the freedom of “choice” still intact.
Nonetheless, the R’s currently appear to have the better hand to implement their own vision, as the Dems seem 100% entrenched in all out partisan warfare — their sole focus and energy appearing to be riveted on inconsequential trivia that is bent on impeding and/or discrediting their political rivals. In fact, every fiber in their collective bodies seems clinched in unison, with one goal in mind — to limit, impeach, and get rid of Trump by any means possible.
Dems are so good at dirty fighting!
Perhaps this strategy meets with approval from their most ardent, hard-nosed base. However, for someone like me, it makes me never interested in voting for a Democrat again, even though I belonged to that party for most of my adult life.
I think it was the stupid, the racists, the xenophobic and Boris Badinov who ruined Hillary. That’s what I’m sayin.