Does the Democratic Party Have a Future? in The Atlantic pithily says:
There’s no obvious answer to how the [Democratic] party can reconcile its need for some working-class whites with the focus on social and racial justice that has become a Democratic priority, driven by the near unification of minorities under the party’s banner.
Parsing that: Hillary lost bigtime among working-class Americans, particularly white middle-aged voters who lack a college degree.
According to "2016 Election exit polls: How the vote has shifted" from The Washington Post:
- 72 percent of white men with no college degree voted for Trump
- 62 percent of white women with no college degree voted for Trump
The white working class is telling us by how they voted that they feel marginalized. But the Democrats' post-1960s focus on justice not only for African Americans but also for many other groups who have traditionally been marginalized — other people of color, women, the LGBTQ community, etc. — alienates this one particular group of once-powerful but now-marginalized voters. How does the Democratic Party reinvent itself so as to attract those white working-class voters while not seeming to cast aside all of their longtime constituency groups?
New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks writes in "The View From Trump Tower" that:
- Donald Trump is probably going to make the G.O.P. the party of individual/closed [ideology]
- The Democrats are probably going to be the party of social/closed [ideology]
He favors an ideology that is "social/open." These terms mean:
- Individual — "the traditional Republican agenda of getting government out of the way" so that individuals, acting on their own without government help or interference, can succeed (or fail) in life; i.e., no more social "safety net"
- Social — "proposals that help communities with early education programs and the like" are insisted upon in a "social" agenda; i.e., the "safety net" will remain in place and in some cases be expanded
- Closed — "walls, protectionism and xenophobia"; i.e., leaving "people isolated in the face of the challenges of the information age economy, and [closing off] ... dynamism and diversity"; dialogue among opposing political ideologies would be next to impossible
- Open — a "compassionate globalist party would support the free trade and skilled immigration that fuel growth. But it would also flood the zone for those challenged in the high-skill global economy — offering programs to rebuild community, foster economic security and boost mobility. It would integrate the white working class and minority groups by emphasizing that we are all part of a single American idea"; i.e., an agenda that would make all of us feel less walled off from one another
Mr. Brooks favors a third-party movement that would oppose the two existing parties' present slide in the direction of a "closed" society. He wants an "open" agenda.
Mr. Brooks thinks the "coming Sanders-Warren [Democratic] party will close off trade, withdraw from the world, close off integration with hyper-race-conscious categories and close off debate with political correctness." I'm doubtful about his "coming Sanders-Warren party" assumption. But I agree with Mr. Brooks that the Democrats, like the Republicans, have begun opposing international free-trade agreements and have chosen to engage with the outside world less vigorously than was once the case.
And I agree that the Democrats have already become "hyper-race-conscious" and also hyper-conscious of other minority cohorts whom they have long cultivated. They have tilted — on, say, our college campuses — in the direction of substituting political correctness for open debate. True, they have adopted these stances for reasons both practical (it has helped them win elections) and moral (because it is simply wrong to marginalize African Americans and other disparaged groups). But now it looks like the practical aspects of their choice have evaporated to the extent that Donald Trump could beat Hillary Clinton among a segment of the electorate the Democrats themselves have contributed to the marginalization of.
So, what's next? Can the Democrats square the circle and reinvent themselves in a way that holds on to their existing constituencies while attracting Trump's white working-class voters? Can either party find its way to policy positions that are, in Mr. Brooks's terms, "social/open"? Do we need a third party? Is there the slightest possibility that a third-party movement can succeed?
Stay tuned to see how it all works out over time ...
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