Two More Views of the Democrats' Dilemma

In today's Washington Post columnist Paul Kane writes that "Senate Democrats lost by doing nothing to separate themselves from Hillary Clinton." In states where she lost to Donald Trump, Democrats running for Senate seats tended to lost by comparable margins. Where she won, they won. It's no wonder. The Senate candidates' campaign strategy had been to hitch themselves to Clinton's coattails.

Kane adds:

“The problem is they [Democratic candidates] talk to people in segments,” Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who is challenging House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), told The Washington Post’s Daily 202 last weekend. “Here’s our LGBT community. Here’s our labor guy. That doesn’t work. You stop becoming a national party. That’s what happened.”

Notably, when Hillary Clinton uttered her unfortunate "basket of deplorables" comment about half of Donald Trump's constituents, she was speaking before an LGBT audience.

So is the answer for Democrats to stop "talking to people in segments" — relying on "identity politics"?

*****

Also in today's Post is a column by economics expert Robert J. Samuelson, "Jobless by choice — or pain?" About 1 in 8 men 25 to 54 years of age — in their prime working years — have no job, says Samuelson, "and, unlike the officially unemployed, aren't looking for one." These men are classed as "dropouts" from the labor force. Back in the mid-1960s, the dropout rate was just 1 in 29. The rate of dropping out began rising as far back as then.

Samuelson lists several possible reasons why there are so many dropouts now. Experts tend to divide about this, with some calling the dropouts "shirkers" and others calling them "victims."

*****

Whatever the reasons for the high rate of dropping out, it seems clear that here we have yet another segment of the populace who — mainly in the person of Donald Trump — are looking for political leverage. Identity politics boosted the GOP more than it helped the Democrats this year. That was unexpected. But is the Democrats' answer, if they want to restore their status as a national party, to cater to the jobless-and-no-longer-looking? If so, given that so many of this segment are white working-class men, how would they go about doing that without alienating other segments of the erstwhile "Obama coalition"?

It's all well and good to say "stop talking to people in segments," but how?