Realignment: America's Political Parties Are Now Class Based

The wealthy white ultraprogressive ultra-Democrat-Partisan media finally starts to notice that the Democrat Party has become just a bunch of wealthy white ultraprogressives.

What the data show: Democrats are statistically tied with Republicans among Hispanics on the generic congressional ballot, according to a New York Times-Siena College poll out this week. Dems held a 47-point edge with Hispanics during the 2018 midterms.

An NBC News poll in April found Democrats held a 38-point lead among women with college degrees -- up from 10 points from 2010. Democrats lost ground with nearly every other demographic group tested in the survey.

...

What's happening: Democratic strategists say the party's biggest vulnerability is assuming that the priorities of progressive activists are the same as those of working-class voters.

Progressive activists led the push to cut police budgets. Communities of color have borne the brunt of higher crime.

Hispanics living on the U.S.-Mexico border are more likely to favor tougher border security measures that Republicans have championed.

The recall of liberal school board members and a district attorney in San Francisco was fueled by disillusioned Asian-American Democrats.

Between the lines: Add the reality of growing inflation and worries of recession, and you see why Democrats are losing ground with a core part of their coalition.

Wealthier Americans aren't feeling the day-to-day hardship hitting the working class.

This week's Times/Siena poll found affluent voters care about gun control and abortion rights. Working-class voters are squarely focused on the economy.

Did they not notice that the Democrat Party was anti-working class when Trump announced a strongly pro-working-class agenda and the Democrat Party mocked and opposed it? They didn't even try to co-opt it, which is a time-tested political strategy -- just pick off some of the best and most popular parts of your opponent's agenda.

No, they opposed it entirely.

And the media -- which has long fancied itself "Champions of the Forgotten Man" -- gleefully joined them, siding with Wall Street and corporate off-shorers over American workers.

But see, this all happened "quietly," which is why the Democrat White Wealthy Progressive media didn't notice that they themselves were aligning with the corporate monied classes and against the actual workers and working poor until just five second ago.
John Sexton wrote about this.

He pointed to Ruy Texiera, a longtime leftwing analyst who has pushed the idea of an "Emerging Democrat Majority" based partly on the burgeoning Hispanic population, who is warning White Woke Ultraprogressives that they are driving Hispanics away from the left.

The crosstabs provided by Echelon allow for a comparison of strong progressives' basic political views with those of Hispanic and working class voters. Here are some examples:

1. America is not the greatest country in the world vs. America is the greatest country in the world. By 66 percent to 28 percent, strong progressives say America is not the greatest country in the world. By 70-23, Hispanics say the reverse and working class voters as a whole concur by 69-23.

2. Racism is built into our society, including into its policies and institutions vs. Racism comes from individuals who hold racist views, not from our society and institutions. Strong progressives are very, very sure of America's systemic racism, endorsing the first statement by an amazing 94-6 margin. But Hispanics disagree, endorsing the second statement that racism comes from individuals by 58-36, as do working class voters by 57-33.

3. The government should deal with illegal immigration by making it easier to immigrate to the US legally vs. The government should deal with illegal immigration by increasing border security and enforcement. Strong progressives have no doubts on this one, favoring easier immigration by 97-2. Hispanics, however, are split down the middle with 44 percent favoring increased border security and enforcement and 47 percent opting for easier immigration. Working class voters go farther, endorsing more border security and enforcement by 58-32.

4. Transgender athletes should be able to play on sports teams that match their current gender identity vs. Transgender athletes should only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth gender. Strong progressives overwhelmingly endorse allowing athletes to play on the sports team that matches their gender identity by 66-19. But Hispanic voters by 64-22 say athletes should only play on teams that match their birth gender; working class voters are almost identical at 63-22.

5. We need to reallocate funding from police departments to social services vs. We need to fully fund the budget for police departments. Strong progressives want to reallocate police funding by 87-12. In contrast, Hispanic voters want full funding of the police by 50-41 and working class voters are even stronger on full funding by 59-31.

6. Hard work and determination are no guarantee of success for most people vs. Most people who want to get ahead can make it if they're willing to work hard. Strong progressives don't evidence much faith in upper mobility, endorsing the first statement on the questionable efficacy of hard work by 88-12. Hispanic voters, on the other hand, embrace the view that hard-working people are likely to get ahead by 55-39, as do working class voters by 55-40.

Strong progressives clearly live in a different world than Hispanic and working class voters. In strong progressive world, views on abortion, gun control and January 6th fit neatly into an overarching set of sociocultural beliefs that are highly salient to them and increasingly drive the Democratic party's priorities and rhetoric. Hispanic and working class voters lack this overarching set of beliefs--in fact, don't share many of them--and are much more concerned with the basics of their material lives. It should thus be no surprise that these voters are increasingly losing interest in the party of abortion, gun control and January 6th. As Josh Kraushaar notes:

Democrats are becoming the party of upscale voters concerned more about issues like gun control and abortion rights.

Republicans are quietly building a multiracial coalition of working-class voters, with inflation as an accelerant.

Exaggerated? Maybe. But consider this: between the 2012 and 2020 elections--which Democrats won by similar popular vote margins--Democrats' advantage among nonwhite working class voters decreased by 19 margin points (Catalist data). Over the same period, Democrats' performance among white college-educated voters improved by 16 margin points. So perhaps we're just on trend.

Interesting little tag to that: because Ruy Teixeira has become too toxic to the left because he keeps telling them that the Woke Whities are too woke for the Latinxes -- and also, the Latinxes hate being called Latinxes -- he's been driven from his former think tank at the leftwing Center for American Progress to work at the "rightwing" (really: corporatist cvck) American Enterprise Institute.

Because he doesn't think he has free speech on the left.

Ruy Teixeira is one of Washington's most prominent left-leaning think-tank scholars, a fixture at the Center for American Progress since the liberal organization's founding in 2003. But as of August 1, he'll have a new professional home: The American Enterprise Institute, the longtime conservative redoubt that over the years has employed the likes of Newt Gingrich, Dinesh D'Souza, and Robert Bork.

Teixeira, whose role in the Beltway scrum often involved arguing against calls to move right on economic issues, insists his own policy views haven't changed -- but says the current cultural milieu of progressive organizations "sends me running screaming from the left."

"My perspective is, the single most important thing to focus on in the social system is the economic system," he tells me. "It's class."

...

To hear Teixeira tell it, CAP, and the rest of Washington's institution-based left, stopped being a place where he could do the work he wanted. The reason, he says, is that the relentless focus on race, gender, and identity in historically liberal foundations and think tanks has made it hard to do work that looks at society through other prisms. It also makes people nervous about projects that could be accused of giving short shrift to anti-racism efforts.

"I would say that anybody who has a fundamentally class-oriented perspective, who thinks that's a more important lens and doesn't assume that any disparity is automatically a lens of racism or sexism or what have you ... I think that perspective is not congenial in most left institutions," he says.

I'm not sure AEI wants to hear that, either.

It's been hard not to notice that AEI and the Bulwark fairies and NeverTrump are chiefly animated by a revulsion at the White Working Class, and have rushed to join the Democrat Party out of class loyalty.

posted by Ace at 03:41 PM

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