By Thomas B. Edsall
The Democratic Party is a traditional political organization dedicated to winning elections. It is also a social justice movement, the political home of societal change.
The party has often been further out front on these issues than the public at large — and than many of its own voters. This has empowered the Republican Party, from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump, to capitalize on opposition to a range of liberal Democratic initiatives on immigration, busing, women’s rights, abortion, crime, gay rights, gun control, affirmative action and so on.
The Democratic Party’s commitment to newly ascendant — and often assertive — constituencies has alienated some middle and working class voters who see their own values and interests downgraded.
Stan Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, voiced this critique in an analysisof the 2016 election:
The Democrats have moved from seeking to manage and champion the nation’s growing immigrant diversity to seeming to champion immigrant rights over American citizens’.
While whites are a declining share of voters, they still constitute 60 percent of the Democratic Party, according to Gallup. Data provided by Pew Research shows that whites were 74 percent of all voters in 2016.
David Hopkins, a political scientist at Boston College, responding to my inquiry about the dual role of the Democratic Party, made a point related to Greenberg’s, but approached it from a different angle:
Many citizens can simultaneously take a liberal position on one or more individual cultural issues and still believe more generally that the liberal vision requires changing the country too much or too quickly. For more read the full of article at The Nytimes
Many citizens can simultaneously take a liberal position on one or more individual cultural issues and still believe more generally that the liberal vision requires changing the country too much or too quickly.
For more read the full of article at The Nytimes
