The Democrats Loss of the Working Class was Fifty Years in the Making

 One month out after Donald Trump and the Republicans beat Kamala Harris and the Democrats, the

reasons for the electoral defeat are still being debated. Yet, while it is possible that Harris could have won, but for several mistakes that she made, it is not clear that any Democrat could have won this election. In fact, the roots of Harris’s and the Democratic losses in 2024 are deep going back at least to three previous Democratic presidents.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the 2024 presidential race was close. Had Harris picked up approximately 124,000 votes in the critical swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, she would have been an electoral college winner for the presidency. This is comparable to how in 2016 Hilary Clinton would have won the presidency had she picked up 90,000 more votes in the same three states, or had Trump won 43,000 more votes in 2020 in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin.

Some might argue that had she picked a different vice-presidential candidate, such as Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania, which might have made a difference. Or that had she developed a better narrative or broken with Biden sooner, perhaps the results would have been different. But the roots of her and the Democratic Party’s failure to win, and especially to lose the working class, go back decades.

It started in the 70s and 80s, when the US economy was restructuring away from manufacturing. The jobs that were lost belong to the working class and with the new economic employment opportunities going to those who were college educated. As manufacturing disappeared from the US, the gap between the rich and poor accelerated, starting in the eighties up to the present. The Democrats did little to address this growing inequality, and in fact, embraced it and the new economy and the new workers who would be the winners.

The first major mistake was under Bill Clinton. His endorsement and support for NAFTA clearly demonstrated an indifference to how free trade would hurt the working class and people of color. The enthusiasm there and among the Clinton Democrats for free trade drowned out critics who said that unless the agreement protected the working class, it would have hurt them, even though it generated, perhaps overall greater net worth for the business community. NAFTA had winners and losers, and it favored the business community, as well as eventually favoring those college, educated, trained individuals who were to benefit from the new internet based intellectual service economy, of which NAFTA was part.

The second mistake was with Barack Obama. In 2008 as the global economy collapsed due to bank failures in the United States, initially, George Bush pushed through TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, to help bail out banks. Once in office, Obama continued that approach to bail out the too big to fail. His Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, when asked at one point about all the hundreds of thousands or millions of homeowners who were going to lose their houses, he demonstrated a tin ear by saying that that would have to happen to save the banks.

Finally, under Joe Biden, his support for the working class was supposedly what led him to defeating Donald Trump in 2020. It was probably less that and more that Trump mishandled the pandemic. But among Biden’s signature achievements was the Inflation Reduction Act, a commitment of hundreds of billions of dollars to transition the United States to the green economy with green jobs. Yet again, these were not jobs that were going to benefit the working class that used to support the Democratic Party. Instead, it would go to those with different skill sets, and not necessarily in areas such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin, where Democrats needed votes.

Three Democratic presidents, three critical choices that demonstrated a turning away from the working class. What is not surprising is that they finally abandoned the Democrats en masse in 2024 what is more surprising is that they did not do it sooner. As the Democrats regroup, they need to think about these broader and deeper structural choices that the party made and how it has walked away from the working class under each Democratic President for the last fifty years.

Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar: It’s my party (and I’ll do what I want to)

Lesley Gore’s famous lyrics It’s my party (and I’ll cry if I want to) are the words to define  the
Democratic Party on Super Tuesday, especially for its moderate wing.  They seem prepared to  take back control of the party in a way that prevents the voters from making the same mistake the Republicans did four years ago which unfortunately resulted in them winning the presidency with Donald Trump.
In my election law seminar I ask from a constitutional perspective who is the party?  Is it the candidates, party leadership and officials, convention attendees, primary voters, or general election voters.  The legal implications of who is the party are significant as they determine whose rights are recognized or prioritized.  Yet politically determining who is the party is equally an interesting question as it raises questions about orthodoxy and what it stands for and whose interests it represents.
For mainstream Democratic and leaders, Bernie Sanders represents an existential threat.  He is an outsider raising the spectre of democratic socialism and supporting the interests of younger people and marginalized voters who have felt they have no voice.  These individuals, including Millennials and Gen Zs, have not seen capitalism work. Their parents or they lost homes in 2008, wages have not gone up, home prices are out of sight, student loan debt is beyond manageability, and compared to other generations at a similar age, they have less wealth.    They like Sanders because he speaks to their reality.  He represents their Democratic Party, the one they want to join.  They are now the largest generational voting bloc in the US and want to assume the mantle of power.
The party they do not want to join is the one of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and Peter Buttigieg. That is the party of the Baby Boomers, the affluent who have already made it.  It is of a Democratic Party who has Wall Street members such as former Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein and self-described Democrat who said “It would be harder to vote for Bernie than for Trump.”
Establishment Democratic Party leaders, mainstream media, and the political science field are apoplectic over Sanders.  He challenges orthodoxy in so many ways.   He challenges the neo-liberalism of the Party over the last 40 years that pushed the white working class over to Trump.  He also questions the wisdom of the idea of moving to the center to win, contending that with the disappearance of the bell curve shape of the American electorate and the demise of swing voters, it may not make sense to move to the center any more and instead appeal to a new rising generation of voters.  Despite what Democratic Party moderates and mainstream political science contends, there is more evidence than they think that a Sanders’ strategy might work.  After all, it was these same people who thought Trump was impossible.
The point is that there is now a panic within the moderate wing of the Democratic Party.  Fearful of a Sanders’ takeover similar to a Trump takeover of the Republican Party, they are fighting back.  Now many of my political science colleagues scoff, contending that parties are weak and think super delegates would never pull a coup.  However, 70 years the political science profession advocated for stronger party government.    Ask any third party about how strong the two parties are for an answer.
What we are seeing on the eve of Super Tuesday with the withdrawal of Buttigieg and Klobuchar from the race is first recognition of the reality they were going nowhere.  Second, it was fear that their  party was going to Sanders and to those whom they perceived as outsiders.    If Sanders is Robespierre then what is happening now is the Thermidorian Reaction. 
The mainstream  is crying over where their party is going.

Bernie Sanders and the Revenge of the Superdelegates

Today's blog originally appeared in Counterpunch.

Unless Bernie Sanders wins enough delegates to capture the Democratic Party nomination on the first ballot, he is not going to be the nominee.  The reason will be that the superdelegates–those same people who were his wrath in 2016–will come back to deny him the nomination.

The Democratic Party’s superdelegates were a reaction to the 1970 McGovern-Fraser reforms that sought to open the party to the people.  Criticism after the 1968 Democratic Convention that party elites had too much control over the presidential nomination process–the proverbial smoke-filled backroom–led to a recommendation to create more political primaries. The goal was to let rank and file have more say on the party nominee.  Yet by 1980 party elites felt there was too much democracy within the Democratic Party; they, not the base, still knew best who the nominee should be and what the party should stand for.

In 1980 the Democratic Party’s Hunt Commission recommended that 30% of all the Democratic National Convention delegates be reserved for members of Congress and state party chairs and vice chairs.  These are the superdelegates.  That 30% figure was originally implemented at 14% but by 2008 the percentage rose to nearly 20%.  Their purpose was ostensibly to provide leadership, but in practice it was to maintain orthodoxy, serving as a check on primary voters who might make the wrong choice.

It was in 2008 that most Americans first heard of Democratic Party superdelegates.  When Hillary Clinton first ran for president in 2008 she was presumptively the presidential heir apparent, only to come in third in the Iowa caucuses and then fall behind Barack Obama in the delegate count.  Going into the Democratic National Convention she pulled one last move, convince the superdelegates to vote and throw the nomination to her.  She failed in that attempt.

Eight years later the ballot for the presidential nomination pitted again the presumptive presidential heir apparent Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders. As it was true in 2008, she was heavily favored to win the nomination, with initial polls giving her a 50%+ lead over Sanders.  She again floundered, with Sanders racking but victories and delegates.  While superdelegates were in theory supposed to be uncommitted until the convention, Clinton secured the support of many, included them in her delegate count, and encouraged the media to report them in her totals.  The purpose was to create the illusion that she had a bigger lead over Sanders than she did as part of her effort along with the Democratic leadership, as revealed in leaked emails, to make sure Sanders did not win.

Criticism from the left wing of the Democratic Party forced one change post 2016.  Superdelegates could no longer vote in the first round at the national convention unless a candidate had a majority of the delegates secured to win the nomination.  After the first round the superdelegates can vote.

In 2020 there will be 3,979 delegates to the Democratic National Convention who will be selected as a result of primaries and caucuses.    To win the nomination one needs 1,991 delegates.

If Bernie Sanders does not get to this number by the first round, the 771 Superdelegates will get to vote, and he will need 2,376 votes to win.  Fat chance!

Much in the same way that the Democratic Party and its leadership including Deborah Wasserman Schultz were stacked against Sanders in 2016, Tom Perez and much of the party leadership are opposed to him again.  Perhaps proof of this opposition is the disappointment in this year’s presumptive presidential heir apparent Joe Biden and the search for his moderate replacement in Peter Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and Michael Bloomberg.

Despite coming behind Sanders twice in the popular vote in Iowa and New Hampshire, Buttigieg is seen in the media and party as the alternative to Sanders.  Despite fifth and third place finishes in these states, Klobuchar is seen as a winner and rising moderate alternative.  And without a delegate to his name but $400 million already spent, Bloomberg is the billionaire anthesis to Sanders who has pledged to take on the billionaires.  The moderate choice to Sanders is thus to vote for a billionaire or candidates who take money from billionaires.  In either case the message is clear, the Democratic Party establishment–one that has been pro-business, corporate, and complicit in shoving neo-liberalism down the throats of the American public and pushing white working class over to Trump and the Republicans—does not want Sanders.

By all accounts Sanders should be considered the populist frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.  Yet the plethora of candidates who are running and eating up delegates will make that hard.  Bloomberg on Super Tuesday when 34% of the pledged delegates are in play, stands a great chance of winning enough to reduce the mathematical probability that any candidates can get to 1,991 by the first round.  Should they happen, the superdelegates enter and they will no doubt cast the die against Sanders.

Sheryl Sandberg, Nancy Pelosi, and the Suburbanization of the Democratic Party

By now as all the post-2018 midterm elections have made clear, the Democratic Party’s blue wave was driven in larger part by female voters in middle class to affluent suburbs.  The question now to be answered is what will be the policy consequences of this?    Of course starting in January one will find out, with the question being will women do politics differently than men or will they conform to the rules of power that confront them?  The answer may be a little bit of both, but it is important to understand the perspective that the female suburbanization of the Democratic Party offers, and perhaps how the experiences of Sheryl Sandberg and Nancy Pelosi tell us something about what difference women do or do not make in the world of work and politics.
The question of whether women offer a unique perspective started with Carol Gilligan’s 1982 In a Different Voice.  It argued that men and women morally perceive the world in different ways, with the former depicting it in a hierarchical, right/wrong, black/white way versus a more nuanced  relational way.  Gilligan’s work was a landmark in psychology, paralleled by Mary Field Belenky’s, et al, 1986 Women’s Ways of Knowing and  Deborah Tannen’s 1990 You Just Don’t Understand,  which described the unique ways women come to learn, know, and communicate.  The core arguments for all three, and subsequent feminist writers, was that the unique experiences of women compared to men provide a female perspective in critical activities in life.  Men and women performing similar functions do things differently, might be one way to capture this idea.
Politically the argument would be that female legislatures would do politics differently, both in terms of style and policy agenda.  Margaret Conway’s 1995 Women and Public Policy noted important differences along these fronts, and since then other scholars have found contrasting ways men and women politically engage or act as public officials.  However, as other scholars, such as Robin West, have noted, lumping all women together in one group is stereotyping–there are important differences in perspectives among women based on race and class, for example. This is the concept of intersectionality recognizing the interplay of gender along with race, class, and sexual orientation,  for example. Much, but certainly not all of the  political research has focused on middle class white women, ignoring important perspective and policy differences that may divide women across a range of variables that also divide men.  Enter Sandberg and Pelosi.
Sandberg is a feminist icon to some for her book Lean In and claims that women should take charge.  Yet as many critics point out, she spoke with the voice of white affluent privilege, largely  ignoring the circumstances that women of color and less modest means face.  Her book was a claim that women would do business differently, but as the recent NY Times expose on Facebook and she revealed, it is hard to see how Sandberg brought a different way of doing business to the corporate world.  She adopted the same techniques and perhaps dirty tricks that men used when Facebook was challenged.
Nancy Pelosi ranks among the richest members of Congress, with net wealth estimated at nearly $30 million.  She is the former Speaker of the House, skilled legislatively, as a fundraiser, and as a leader.  It is hard to argue that her career has demonstrated a real difference compared to men in terms of the work she has done.  However both she and Sandberg are accomplished and represent one important perspective of women, but it is far from clear that they represent transformative figures that embody a unique female perspective.  They changed their worlds and conformed at the same time.
Why is all this significant?  The suburban blue wave that occurred on election day was one driven by affluent white women.  When it comes to partisan politics and policy,  the Democratic Party is largely being remade in the image of this powerful group of women.  If these women are the drivers of the Democratic Party now, their views should inevitably come to dominate as they take ownership of the party. Almost anyone, except former governor Chris Christie, gets this.  Sunday on ABC’s This Week when asked if it was a problem that women were not joining the Republican Party, he said they were welcome so long as they “believe in Republican philosophies and Republican approaches to government.”  Christie apparently thinks he and his other white male friends own the Republican  Party, define its orthodoxy, and that its principles are immutable.  Such an attitude is a recipe for political extinction.
The new Democratic Party will evolve;  it  is a party of women who share affinities with Sandberg and Pelosi.  It will be a perspective representing one set of middle to upper income values, but it is not clear that the interests served will necessarily be as progressive or as representative of the interests of the poor and people of color as some might think.  The challenge for the new Democratic Party will be how to hold together a constituency that contains suburban white women, people of color, urban liberals, and perhaps the poor.  These three sets of values are not necessarily compatible, and the challenge facing this new suburbanization of the Democratic Party is to ask whose preferences are not only included by excluded, and whether the female vote will really be transformative.

Trump's America

The best thing one can say about Trump’s America as we approach the fourth of July is the
practice for free speech he exudes in his tweets!  He is willing to say whatever is on his mind, no matter how sexist, demeaning, juvenile, or small it may be.  Case in point, his latest attack on Mika Brezinski.  But that may be the extent of Trump’s knowledge or respect for the Constitution and Bill of Rights–rights for he but not for thee.
No one should be surprised by Trump’s crassness and sexism.  It was on display during the election. It is embarrassing enough to have a juvenile-in-chief as President of the United States, but it is even worse to think about the contempt or ignorance he has shown for the rest of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  Abusing the press by blocking cameras from press conferences, spewing alternative facts, and Muslim travel bans, are only part of the vision of Trump’s America.  But it also how he is providing a role model for a culture that feels it is okay to be mean toward others with whom you disagree.  All this is bad enough.
But now pity the Republican and Democratic parties.  For the Republicans this should be their hour.  They control all the institutions of federal power, many of the state ones too, yet they look perfectly inept.  When given the institutions of power to govern they look worse than the gang that could not shoot strait.  Trump has no major legislative policy victory yet and it still may not happen with health care.  And even if it does, it will do little to benefit the very constituencies that elected him and so many Republicans.  Republican governors and members of Congress, confronting the reality of their policy rhetoric and proposals for the last few years, are blinking.  They can actually do what they want and either are scared to do it or realize they have no plan, no narrative, no clue to how to govern or rule.
I remember late last fall after the election when I was asked to give a talk about what the election meant and what the future would look like under Trump.  The other speaker was simply a  former Republican lieutenant governor candidate in Minnesota who described how “giddy” Republicans were in Washington at the prospect of doing what they wanted.  Not sure giddy is the word I would use now.  Trump has proved to be one of several impediments to the GOP getting anything done.  Trump is a diversion from Republican governance, preventing them from getting anything accomplished.  Throw in the Russian probe and it is intra-party gridlock through 2018.  And if the Democrats manage to get their act together and take back the Senate in 2018, gridlock  through 2020 and into 2021.
But the Democrats getting their act together is a big if.  They are the party without a narrative, a strategy, and a clue to how to win again except in the cities and communities where any Democrats can win.  While opposition to Obama was enough for Republicans to win, opposition to Trump is not enough.  The Democrats are a party on the run, lacking an alternative narrative to free markets and no government über alles and to the insufficiencies of the watered-down neo-liberal welfare state  policies they embraced for the last quarter century that failed to benefit the working class who fled them for the GOP.
Trump’s America is not just about Trump.  It is about a United States that is less than believing that all of us are created equal.  It is one that is about a divided country where the democratic institutions are still working, although barely, but certainly not in the way we hoped they would be.  It is about a failure of leaders, parties, and even people to act responsibly and work together.  Trump is not the cause, he is the symptom of something more deeply wrong in America  right now.  Making America great again should not be a slogan, it should be about addressing the racial and economic gaps in the country, about making it possible for people to afford to buy health insurance, eat, live in a decent neighborhood, raise children and send them off to an affordable college, and be able to drink clean water and inhale clean air.  It is about everyone having a place at democracy’s table.  This is what July 4, 1776 was about, not what it has become under Trump.

The Two Walls of American Political Discourse

The Trump presidency shows how the United States is trapped by its own
political walls and  tradition, creating a problem both for the Democratic and Republican parties.  The problem is that the current range of political options to address many of the most entrenched policy issues in the United States is caught between failed fundamentalist market solutions of the Republican Party and the neo-liberal regulatory proposals offered by the Democratic Party.

Louis Hartz’s The Liberal Tradition in America is a classic book often forgotten.  It describes a country that was born of a liberal tradition indebted to the political philosophy of John Locke. This is an ideology of limited government, protection of individual rights, and a belief in the centrality of private property.  Hartz contends that the American political tradition demonstrates a core political consensus around these values, with historians such as  Richard Hofstadter, Daniel J. Boorstin, Clinton Rossiter, and Henry Steele Commager argue the same, alleging that there is a powerful core ideology in the United States favoring these liberal values, along with a commitment to market capitalism.   Hartz once correctly argued that the reason there is no viable socialist tradition in the US is because of the strong consensus and support for market capitalism.   McCarthyism and disdain for truly progressive politics are both a product of the liberal consensus and xenophobia and the paranoid style of politics that historian Richard Hofstadter described.  In effect, there is a left wall to American politics beyond which is appears no politician can go, with market fundamentalism describing the right wall.

At its core, American politics has that of a liberal capitalist (representative) democracy.  Markets are presumed good, government bad, and government intervention into the economy to address market failures is a last resort, not a first policy option.  New Deal and Great Society regulation is the exception and not the preferred first approach to solving social, political, and economic problems.  Contrary to what many may think, both the contemporary Democratic and Republican parties ascribe to this belief, with the latter clearly favoring more market fundamentalist solutions while the former endorses more regulatory approaches at times.

How its political tradition affects politics in the United States is playing out now under the Trump presidency.    In many ways the reason why Trump got elected and his message resonated so well with so many is that the political-economic institutions have not benefitted the majority of Americans for the last 40 years.  It is not necessary to recount here the statistics pointing to the widening gap between the rich and poor since the 1970s, producing what is today the most maldistributed US economy since the 1920s.  Many feel they are no longer living the American Dream, and there is ample evidence to support that.  In part, the reason why so many have been left behind is that American public policy since the 1970s has not favored the middle class or the poor, working instead to the advantage of the already most affluent.

Both the Democrats and the Republican Parties have been guilty in not addressing the needs of the former, but the Republicans clearly have pursued  policies more supportive of the rich than the working or middle class.  And now under Trump, Ryan, and McConnell, their embrace of market fundamentalism will do little to help those who voted for them.  Instead, if the history of the last 40 years has shown anything, less regulation and more markets fail to address issues such as economic inequality, health care, the cost of higher education, and the loss of jobs overseas.  There is little evidence that even if the Trump-Ryan-McConnell agenda gets enacted, it will help those who most need help.  The right wall of American politics–market fundamentalism–cannot solve many of the most entrenched problems the United States confronts.

But conversely, the Democrats are trapped by a different wall.  In many ways the crisis of this party is all about the limits of regulation.  The timid regulatory politics that mark Democratic politics from Carter to Obama had limited benefit to the poor, working class, and the middle.  At some point, minor redistributive politics and limited market regulation is not enough. Bolder and broader solutions may be required.  Yet there is a left wall–the wall that defines the limits of progressive politics– as political scientist Charles Lindblom calls it, which imprisons what the Democrats can offer as policy solutions.

The irony of the Trump era is that his call for a wall is a wonderful metaphor for the limits and poverty of American political solutions offered not just by him and the Republicans, but also by the mainstream Democratic Party now.

Constitution 7, Trump Administration 0.

But it is still early in the first quarter and we know what happened to the
Atlanta Falcons in the Super Bowl.
It was no surprise at all that Trump lost in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals when it came to his travel ban.  Even though the decision was not on the merits but only on the stay, the Court indicated that the challengers were more than likely to win on the merits when it came to two constitutional claims–a Fifth Amendment Due Process claim regarding revocation of travel privileges without hearings, and a First Amendment Freedom of Religion claim.  The Trump administration lost because it was sloppy.  The executive order–as with most of them–are more showmanship than substance.  His Administration is full of a bunch of amateurs who do not know how government works and they think they can flout the law and rules and do whatever they want.  And Trump himself is unwilling to listen and take advice from those who k ow their way around Washington.
Trump’s performance after three weeks is a reminder of what I have been arguing for weeks.  There is this amazing document out there called the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that has nifty things such as checks and balances, separation of powers, due process, equal protection, federalism, and an independent judiciary.  These structures actually do work and mean something.  They were meant to frustrate rapid political change, to make it difficult for a–as James Madison described in Federalist Paper number 10: “[M]majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”
For all those liberals or conservatives who moaned that they could not get rapid or significant political reform accomplished, in part the reason was the structural design of the Constitution meant to prevent that. Thus, for the Trumps and Jason Lewis types of the world who whine that politics in the United States is played between the 40 yard lines, guess what?  It was designed to do just that.  We may live in a time of polarization where many want to go for the Hail Mary pass but the reality is that in politics as in football, such plays seldom work.
But having said all the above, remember it is early still in the first quarter and lots can happen in this political game.  There will be many forces converging that will tame Trump.  The foreign policy establishment that is so powerful in Washington is already constraining Trump when it comes to China.  Week three into his term and the Iran Nuclear deal is not torn up.  No one sees the first brick being laid along the Mexican border.   Free markets and returns on investment will largely doom many of the ideas to bring back coal and kill off renewable energy.  
Yet complacency is a real danger, and Democrats are hobbled by it.  Across the country one hears repeated talk of impeachment, or of the idea that Trump will be so inept that he will bring himself and Republicans down in 2018 and 2020.   Thus, the complacency is the idea that Trump is so bad voters will return to their senses and vote for Democrats and the DFL in two or four years.   One might as well wish for a pony.  This was Clinton’s strategy in 2016. Remember, in part she lost because she had no narrative, no message.  She assumed voters were hers.  The Democrats thought their policies for the last eight if not more years were fine and that they did not need to do anything wrong.   If only it were not for the FBI Director Comey letter or some other freak occurrence such as the Electoral College, she would be president.  She was not the problem, the message was not the problem, the strategy was not the problem, it was someone, somebody, or something else that was to blame.  That seems to be the message of the 2017   Minnesota DFL listening tour according to my friends who have attended.  It is less listening and more about what we were right and the tide is now turning to the DFL and Democratic party advantage.
The reality is that  Democratic party policies, narratives, and strategies,  for the last generation were part of the problem.  From Bill Clinton to Barack Obama the Democrats failed to treat seriously the needs of the working class.  The bailed out the banks but ignored the homeowners after the crash of 2008.  Obama never moved on minimum wage when he could, he failed to push for the Employee Free Choice Act to help the labor unions, he did nothing to address the role of money in politics.  Democrats across the country supported tax cuts that favored the rich.  No, they did not support the wholesale attack on the welfare state but neither did they endorse a major restructuring of it to improve it.  Instead, they went along with the thousand nicks and cuts that undermined it.
Obama and Clinton left the Democratic Party in the weakest position it has been in since the 1920s.  Hoping to run out the clock when it is only in the first quarter is not a viable game plan.  Yes, the Constitution has won and it should be recognized that it sets the rules for the game of American  politics.  But Democrats if they are to be successful, they need to have a real team with a real game plan and strategy beyond one that assumes that Trump and the republicans will simply continue to fumble or commit fouls.

Trump, Clinton, and the Crisis of the Democratic Party

To the surprise of many of many Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton to become the next
president of the United States.  The reasons for Clinton’s loss are many, but the real issue is what’s next for America and the world under a Trump presidency?

Why Clinton lost?
There are many reasons why Hillary Clinton lost; some are self-inflicted, others a consequence of bad timing and luck.  Clinton was in the end a weak candidate.  She was a poor public speaker, she lacked a clear rational for why she wanted to be president, and she had a strategy that simply did not resonate with many voters, especially the white working class who voted for Trump.  She never had a good explanation about her e-mails and the use of a private server, or about her Wall Street speeches. She was someone that many voters did not feel passionate about, resulting in her holding less of her Democratic party base to vote for her than Trump did with his Republican party base.  Clinton also was unable to capture the swing or undecided voters in large percentages, and it was these voters who broke decisively in the last few days and went for Trump.
But Clinton was also a victim of circumstances.  Her greatest asset was her experience as a senator and Secretary of State, yet in a year where being a Washington insider was a liability it hurt her.  She ran as the status quo candidate who will continue Obama’s policies, but the mood of the country was for change. She was also a victim of sexism, facing unique problems as a woman that no previous major party presidential candidate faced in American history.  There was the unfortunate luck of the cost increases under the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, and she also became the fifth victim in American presidential history to be the winner of the popular vote but lose the electoral vote.

The Crisis of the Democratic Party
In addition, for those who wondered why the polls failed the answer is that they did not.  In the end the last polls said she was ahead by a percentage point or so and the final election totals confirmed that.  Clinton did win the popular vote but remember, it is the electoral college that decides the winner and not the national popular vote.  Clinton lost narrowly, it coming down to swing states.  In these states last minute voters broke against here, similar to what happened in 1980 when undecided voters at the last second voted against Carter and for Reagan.  Additionally, the voter turnout in 2016 was the lowest in 20 years–Trump and Clinton were candidates who turned off many voters, especially those who were occasional voters.  In 2008 and 2012 they went for Obama but Clinton could not convince them to vote for her.  Many of the 2008 Obama voters wanted change, Obama did not provide it and Clinton as the status quo president who would continue the Obama agenda too did not represent it.
In the end as Top O’Neill once said, no one owns a voter or vote and you have to ask for it and earn it.  Clinton and the Democrats failed to ask for the votes of many people and they did not earn it.  In fact, the real story of 2016 is the collapse of not the Republican but Democratic parties.  Obama and Clinton leave the Democratic Party far weaker today than they did in 2008.  It is a party  unable to speak to working class whites, rural, and suburban America.  A party that actually does  take for granted people of color and liberals whom they assume will vote for them because they have no other choices.  It is also a party that blew off young people–the Millennials–with repercussions  down the line.  No, contrary to what so many Clinton supporters are whining about, the Sanders and Trump people are not idiots and voting for Johnson and Stein did not cost Clinton the election.  Clinton and the Democrats lost it themselves; the voters were often rational in voting not their fears but their hopes.

The Trump Presidency
Trump is now president and the question is what will he do?  He made lots of noise about building a fence along the US-Mexican border, wanting to renegotiate trade deals, and of perhaps  rethinking NATO and the US relationship with Russia and Putin?  How much of this will or can he actually do?
Domestically Trump has called for many changes but it is unclear what he can do on his own.  Historian Richard Neustadt once said that the power of the presidency is the power to persuade.  Presidents are not generals, business leaders, or monarchs and they cannot just order people around.  They need to persuade others, including Congress, the bureaucracy, the states, the media, and the public if they as presidents want to succeed.    Trump’s close victory in a divided America means he will be limited in terms of whom he can persuade.  His own Republican Party is divided and it is not sure he will get an easy path to success in Congress.  Because Trump ran a campaign largely devoid of policy he has no real clear policy agenda path.
In addition, presidents are constrained by a power bureaucracy, federalism, checks and balances, and separation of powers.  At the end of the day there will be no wall along the Mexican border, and mass deportations will not occur.  Trump will make America a less kinder and gentler place, but the extremism that some worry about will not occur.  US political institutions are not that fragile, I hope.
In the area of foreign policy often the best predictor of what a new president will do is to look at the previous president.  There is far more continuity across presidential foreign policy than there is divergence.  Obama made marginal changes from Bush.  The foreign policy establishment is power and it transcends political parties.  Trump may find he is captured more by this bureaucracy than he realizes.
Trump may try to force changes in trade deals but face retaliation from China and the European Union who will not passively sit by.  The same is true of the World Trade Organization.  Trump may think he knows Putin but after he gets burned by him a couple of times he may turn on him.  Trump wants to tear up the Iranian nuclear deal, but it is not clear what he has to replace it with and it is doubtful the rest of the world will go along.  Unilateral action in Syria and against ISIS or Dash is possible, but Trump seems not to have real alternatives.  And even his talk about NATO and its alternatives may be more talk than reality.  It just does not seem feasible that the US foreign and miliary policy establishment will let that happen.  Yes, perhaps a new global order needs to emerge, but te US in 2017 is not in the same position to force this change as it was in 1946, or even at the end of the Cold War.
In short, Trump may simply misunderstand or not appreciate how little power he actually has.  He is potentially clumsy, undiplomatic, unskilled, and clueless about world politics, but it is doubtful he will have the ability to affect the scope of changes that he blustered about during his campaign.

Why Orlando Will Not Change the Politics on Gun Control (Okay, Maybe a slight chance)

After Representative Giffords was shot they said it would change the politics on gun control in

America.  The same was said after Aurora, Colorado.  Sandy Hook.  Charleston.  And Waco. It’s too unlikely that Orlando will change the politics on gun regulation.  The reason is simple:   The political forces and incentives to change the laws just do not exist as a result of the political geography in the United States.
This year I have already given several dozen talks on the 2016 elections, seeking to make sense of the politics this year.  To do that I have drawn a contrast, examining how American politics  has changed since 1976 compared to today.  My discussion begins with drawing a bell curve.  The curve  represents the distribution of American public opinion in 1976. If one were to look at a series of survey s or polls we would find that the vast majority of public opinion converged toward the center.  Yes there were some far right and left voters, but a large percentage of the public shared a powerful consensus on a range of social, economic, and foreign policy issues.
With the majority of the public sharing similar views, it also made sense for the Republican  and Democratic Parties to nominate centrist candidates.  After all, that it were most voters were and if you want to win nominate candidate centrist candidates.  In many ways, in 1976, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford were good examples of that; two candidates who ideologically were not that far apart.
Additionally, we know back in 1976 that both the Democrat and Republican Parties were more coalitional and less ideological than today.  There were liberal Republicans in NY and New England and conservative Democrats in the South.  The two major parties had liberal, moderates, and conservatives among their ranks.  Such ideological diversity made bipartisanship possible and in 1976 the percentage of straight party-line votes was quite small compared to today.  Additionally, in 1976 political scientists estimated that about one-third of the 435 US House of Representative  seats came from swing districts–those where either a Democrat or a Republican could be elected.  It was these swing districts too which helped drive bipartisanship.  Representatives there had an incentive to work across the aisle–become too partisan on one side and you would lose an election to someone on the other side.
But 40 years later politics has changed.  Today the state of public opinion looks more like a camel’s back–a double  hump curve.  The percentage of voters describing themselves as moderate has decreased and the percentage saying they a liberal or conservative has increased (although those who say they are very conservative has increased far more than those who say extremely liberal).   This means that the center of the Republican and Democratic parties is moving apart from one another and that within each party candidates who wish to win their nomination must increasingly appeal to where their shifting bases have moved.
Why the electorate has bifuricated and sorted itself out in such a way that partisanship and ideology overlap is a product of many factors.  These include the embracing of civil rights by the Democrats, social issues such as abortion and LGBT rights, generational shifts, and economics. All this has contributed to a sorting.  But another sorting is occurring–geography.
At the same time that America has become more conservative and liberal it has also become more segregated many ways, including politically.  We now politically sort ourselves out with Democrats choosing to live in the cities and inner-ring suburbs, Republicans in outer-ring suburbs and rural areas.  The Red and Blue states the media describes really are red and blue cities, regions, even streets and blocks.  We wish to live near others who share our political views and avoid those with whom we disagree.
We have created overwhelming Republican and Democratic areas.  Nationally now the best estimates are that barely 20-25 House seats are swing.  Instead 95% are securely one party.  Candidates from these safe seats have no incentive to compromise politically and if they do they will get primaried from the right if a Republican or from the left if a Democrat.  Geography reinforces  and exacerbates partisanship and extremism.
The result is that now there are fewer bipartisan bills and a greater percentage of straight party-line votes than in 1976.  Evidence suggests that the most conservative Democrat now is still more liberal than the most liberal Republican.  Fewer swing districts and more safe seats mean polarization.
One result is that there is a cluster of core issues over which there is manor disagreement.  One example is guns.  There are some regions of the US where there is strong support for gun control and some where there is not.  These are areas where guns are and are not part of its culture.  Representatives from the gun regions in so many ways are actually representing their constituents  interests in the same way were those from the non-gun regions represent their voters.
Simply put, representatives in areas such as the south or rural areas have little political incentive to support gun control.   If they do they face political reprisals from within their party.  On  top of that, the NRA supports these candidates, occupying a powerful interest group role to reinforcing Republican, rural, and outer ring-suburban opposition to gun control.
Those who favor gun control include urban dwellers, people of color, women, and Democrats.  They do not live in the Republican areas or at least in sufficient numbers to matter politically, or they do not vote sufficiently Republican to move Republican voters.
Now consider Orlando.  It is perhaps an issue about LGBT phobia and how someone targeted  a gay night club.  This issue might move some but think about it–how many in the LGBT community  are voting Republican, identify Republican, or even live in Republican areas in sufficient numbers to move Republican Congressional members?  To be blunt: LGBT issues are not the kind that receive support from the Republican community and casting Orlando as such will not change the political debate or vote .  In addition, because the killer was Muslim it implicates another set of wedge issues, terrorism and Islamaphobia, there too is little indication that it will alter the political debate and forces within many pro-gun districts to support ne gun regulations.
Overall, the simple point here is that there is little chance that Orlando will change the debate and politics on gun control.  The one slight chance is that if the LGBT community can unite with other gun regulation forces, creating a powerful bloc of voters to challenge the NRA.  But even them it will require this new bloc to leverage political power in areas where there is little support for LGBT issues and a lot for guns.  Until and unless this happens, do not look to Orlando to change the politics of gun control.

Super Delegates, Diversity, and Party Democracy

My recent blog and Minnpost essay sharply criticized party democracy in both the Republican and Democratic parties, expressing concern about who is the party and the clash between party elite and rank and file or voters.   One issue was the role of super delegates within the Democratic Party.  Less the point was missed, one part of the story about them is how their introduction in the 1970s was in fact to democratize the party.  More specifically, until the 1970s the face of the Democratic Party was White Caucasian male.  The delegates expressed little diversity and the same could be said about the party leadership.
Super delegates were a reform measure.  They brought women, people of color, and other groups and voices into the Democratic Party.  For that the super delegates should be applauded.  The issue one should not ignore is that balancing democracy with diversity, or majority rule with minority rights is a central tension for all societies including the US, and it also a problem for the parties.   I generally remain concerned about the role that Super Delegates have in the Democratic Party but also think we should not lose track of another overriding concern–inclusion and diversity.  Should there be an effort to get rid of the super delegates one must also make sure processes are in place to guarantee diversity and respect for a range of voice and perspectives within the party, including those who represent the next generation of members.
For the Democrats the challenge seems to be with bringing in and accommodating the Millennials in the party.  The Democratic Party is really torn now between Baby Boomers and Gen Xers (to a lesser extent) and more strongly Boomers and Millennials. Clinton is challenged to reach out to those who are younger than 30, and it is not clear that they will turn out for her should she secure the nomination.    Moreover, even among those who support Clinton, including  people of color, their turnout is weaker than for Obama in 2008 and overall the enthusiasm factor for her among Democrats tepid.  For Clinton to win she needs to bridge these gaps, and part of her problem still is about constructing a narrative for her presidency as well as about her being the candidate of status quo and the establishment in a year yet again about change and the anti-establishment.
For Republicans the issue of inclusion pits the main line members against the core Trump supporters.  Many Republicans want the party to change and shed its plutocratic and socially conservative image.  This too is a debate about party democracy and inclusion of diverse view points.

The States that Matter
There is an Internet post that points to Clinton doing well in Republican states a Democrat will not win in November and how Sanders is doing well in swing states. That post makes a good point.   As I argue in my new book all things considered the presidential race is effectively over in 40 states and there are only 10 swing states that will decide the fate of the presidency.  Among those 10 swing states, Iowa, New Hampshire, Virginia, Colorado, and Nevada.  These five states also happen to have already had Democratic caucuses or primaries.  Sanders has won two (Colorado and New Hampshire), Clinton two (Virginia and Nevada), and one was essentially tie (Iowa).   More or less they are even in the swing states so far.
Yet one needs to worry about the average turnout in these states for Democrats compared to Republicans.  Second, in thinking about the general election the winner of these and the other swing states will be the candidate who can mobilize the swing voters.  Swing voters really do not swing that much between Republican and Democrat, but instead swing in or out of voting, with people of color, single and suburban woman, and young voters being the most important.  These are the people Democrats need this November and it is not clear (as noted above) they will vote or turnout in the numbers Democrats need.  Finally, among swing voters, Clinton and Trump and not viewed favorably and instead have 50%+ negatives.
In sum, the presidential election is about how swing voters in swing states view Clinton and Trump, assuming they are the nominees.

Sanders and the Millennials: The Old Left Meets the New New Left

Clinton has a generational problem more so than a gender problem.  Polls suggest that for Democratic voters under the age of 30 they overwhelming supporting Sanders over her.  For college age students, it is approximately an 80%/20% split.  Women under the age of 45 clearly prefer Sanders to her, and in the recent New Hampshire primary, the only age group Clinton won were those over age 65.  Even among African-Americans and people of color, the Washington Post reports that her commanding lead is slipping, and one might surmise if the data is crunched, the racial divide too has an age dimension to it.  Why is Clinton so unappealing to younger voters?  Conversely, why is Sanders at age 74, someone even older than Clinton (68), the darling of Millennials?  The answer is generational, but also resides in the nature of the progressivism Sanders and Clinton embody.

The Sanders-Clinton schism is a replay of the Old Left/New Left battle lines that surfaced in the 1960s.  The Old Left was the politics that emerged in the 1930 with FDR.  The Old Left drew some of its inspiration from Marxist theories of class struggle.  Politics was about social justice, the battle between rich and poor, and it involved labor unions, the working class,  and workers.   It was about fighting for economic equality and democracy, seeing political unity in the shared struggle of class.  In contrast, the New Left was the politics of the 1960s.  It was born in the student campus movement against the Vietnam War, and for civil rights.  The New Left was less about class than about identity politics, and it had stronger middle class roots than did the Old Left.  The Old Left and New Left both sought to transform American politics, yet their visions of what a revolution would look like and what would emerge were different.  The Old Left saw the revolution rooted in class struggle and transformation that would eventually achieve liberation for oppressed groups, the New Left focused directly on the liberation of groups because of their social identity.

Sanders’ politics is Old Left, Clinton’s New Left.  Or sort of.  Sanders’ talk of political revolution is primarily that of economics and class, Clinton’s that of identity.  Sanders speaks to the problems of economic inequality, the problems of capitalism, and the need to change the basic structural inequalities (corporate power and money and politics) in American society as a prerequisite to bringing about other changes.  American politics is so corrupted only a paradigm change will fix it.  Yes Sanders does discuss specific battles for freedom but they are part of a larger economic battle.  Women and people of color can only achieve so much identity freedom before class and economics intrudes to limit them.

Clinton is about identity politics and micro change.  She speaks well to specific groups, especially those who came of age in the 1960s and 70s.  Politics is less if at all about a unity in a shared class struggle but in appealing to coalitional interest group politics.  Political change is about empowering individual groups, the daily grind of groups using the official institutions of power to achieve change.  America is less fundamentally corrupted and can be incrementally reformed.

Clinton’s message resonates with those who were part of the 60s struggle who have seen some progress.  It appeals to the Black civil rights activists who saw success in their movement when Obama was elected and to Feminists who hope to see the same when a woman does the same.   It is also a message of middle class progressives, who have a stake in the political system, who are mostly benefitting, but really not struggling.  The New Left message as appropriated by Clinton is that slow reformism is the way to go.  Obamacare is a good first step, as is Dodd-Frank.  The political institutions are basically fine and just need some tinkering.  This is perspective of someone who is middle aged, middle class, and basically has made it within the political system.  The message of the haves.

 Yet Clinton’s  is not a message that appeals to a younger group not part of the 1960s.  To a group that sees a bleak economic future with limited job opportunities and large student debt, they do not look at politics from the comforted position of aging middle class baby boomers who have money, homes, and Social Security.  They see a world of inequality and limited opportunity, a world where while social identity in important, the major battles have been won and now one needs to win the struggle for economic inequality.  This is Sanders’ message.  The message of the have nots.

The Clinton/Sanders divide between New and Old Left plays out in other ways.  Clinton’s narrative is flawed for a new generation of activists coming up.  Much in the same way Obama represented a forward looking narrative that spoke to a new generation compared both to Clinton and McCain in 2008, Clinton is again looking backward speaking to an older generation.  She still talks of 1990s politics (“Before there was Obamacare there was Hilllarycare”), she ties herself to Obama, and she appeals to the old constituencies that were part of her husband’s coalition.  As one of my female Millennial students said to me: “Hillary is my grandmother’s candidate.  She does not represent me.”

While Sanders is old, his message appears fresh.   He looks to the future and not back to the 1990s. He talks to a rising generation about economic struggles that they face now and into the future.  He speaks to the future of the Democratic Party, seeking to engage and hold them into the future.  Clinton speaks to the Baby Boomers, hoping that she will be the last Boomer president before they transition out of power.

Sanders and Clinton are building coalitions around different generations, looking forward and backward, representing two different sets of interests and approaches to politics. The Millennials coming up are a synthesis embodying and sharing interests and messages of Old and Left politics, yet Sanders more so than Clinton seems to better capture the Millennial synthesis than does Clinton.

Obama's Presidential Legacy: A Weakened Democratic Party and Timidity of Reform

Obama's final State of the Union speech was about his legacy.  While Obama has accomplished a lot–far more than often given credit and his speech detailed what he did–one of his great failings is his inability to restructure the Democratic party and build a new majority coalition to support his policies.  Instead, he leaves the Democratic Party far weaker now than when he was first elected, and his legacy more fragile and timid than it should be.

            Many saw Obama’s 2008 victory as potentially significant.  His presidency portended the possibilities of a critical political realignment.  He represented generational change as the first Gen X president.  It was the passing of the political torch from the Boomer Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush when he defeated the Silent or Greatest generation candidate John McCain.  He was the first non-white president, supposedly the first post-racial one, and his candidacy seemed to bring young people and non-traditional voters into the Democratic Party.  His election produced enormous Democratic congressional majorities, and all signs were that he was capable of being a transformative president who would politically restructure the American political landscape.

            But then somewhere along the line the Obama realignment collapsed, dead by 2010.  Yes the Affordable Care Act passed, as did Dodd-Frank, the stimulus bill, and a host of other important measures.  Yet all of them suffered from the same fate–their sense of timidity.  Whenever Obama had a chance to look history in the eye he looked away from making the type of reforms that would do two things.  One, that would truly restructure American politics.  Two, reform that would link his reforms to building a new political coalition to support them and be the basis upon which to build a new and future Democratic Party.

            The Affordable Care Act is insuring millions of new people but it is a warmed over Republican idea largely imitating Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts model.  It makes few changes in the basically free market model for health care delivery and it does little to address major issues such as cost.  Dodd-Frank was a watered down version of significant Wall Street reform that has been weakened even more by regulatory agencies.  Neither of these laws makes transformative changes in the health care insurance or financial regulatory markets, and polls suggest they are largely misunderstood or disliked.  In terms of foreign policy and the environment, Obama has made some progress, but it not clear the Middle East or the world is safer now than eight years ago or that he has made the progress toward the green economy he promised.  And should a Republican win the White House and retain Congress, many of Obama’s accomplishments may be undone.

            Obama leaves the Democratic party far weaker today than when he was elected.  The statistics are chilling.  In 2009 there were 257 Democratic House and 58 Senate members, today there are 188 and 44.  In 2009 there were 4,082 Democratic state legislators, today there are 3,163.  In 2009 55% of state legislators were Democrats, today it is only 43%.  In 2009 Democrats controlled 27 legislatures and 28 governorships, today it is 11 and 18.  No matter what the statistics,  the Democratic party is weaker today than in was in 2009.

            The collapse of the Democratic party under Obama is even more glaring given that demographic trends potentially suggest a brighter future for the party.  Yet there are signs that Millennials, the most liberal and largest generation in American history, once excited by Obama in 2008,  have disengaged.  In a famous 2010 New Yorker cartoon a character exclaims that “Obama has the potential to get a whole new generation disillusioned.”  Granted part of Obama’s problem was Republican intransigence, but he even had problems getting his own party members to follow him.

            The weakened Democratic Party under Obama explains the 2016 presidential campaign.  The choice for the nomination is Hillary Clinton–a candidate from the party’s old establishment–or Bernie Sanders–essentially an outsider to the party. Obama has left the Democratic Party without a varsity team of players, and the JV and freshman teams are also thin.  This will also make it difficult for Democrats to recruit strong candidates to retake Congress.  The weakened Democratic Party at the state level puts reapportionment and election laws in the hands of Republicans who are using both to further entrench themselves.

            What should Obama have done? In his first year in office when he had Democratic majorities he should have enacted policies that made major structural reforms that would have benefitted and empowered his voters.  He alienated many of his supports by following Bush’s policy of bailing out the banks but he did little for homeowners. He should have raised and  embraced inflation-indexed minimum wage laws, expanded earned income tax credits for working families, and taken bolder moves to address structural income and wealth inequalities.  He also could have pushed to support the Employee Free Choice Act which would have updated the New Deal era National Labor Relations Act.  This law would have reinvigorated labor unions.  Obama also should have pushed for federal laws on voting, such as outlawing voter identification in national elections, allowing for same day registration, and permitting ex-felons to vote.

            Instead of using his political capital, public support, congressional majorities, and a demand for change to adopt real transformational policies, his spent it all on timid reforms that while good, really failed to build the future coalitions and politics he needed to support his legacy for the future.  Instead, his biggest accomplishment may be in how he help sustain the forces to undermine his own legacy.

The P—ed Off Voter: Trump, Sanders, and the Failures of the Mainstream Republican and Democratic Parties

Two interesting pieces in the New York Times on December 31, point to important role of the p---ed off or disaffected voter and the mainstream Republican and Democratic voters in the 2016 presidential election.

The first article examines who are the Trump voters, finding many to be individuals–mainly but not exclusively white male, low income, no college–who still consider themselves Democrats but recently vote Republican.  They are the voters Democrats lost when the party embraced civil rights–as told by Mary and Thomas Edsell in Chain Reaction–and they became the Reagan Democrats in the 1980s, when they vote.  But many do not vote.  They are the ones who have lost out in the nearly two generation economic grind that has produced the economic inequalities that we now see in our society.  They see Democrats as having abandoned them as many of their candidates have walked away from talking about economics and class and instead turned into the party of people of color. When they do vote they support Republicans, but there too they see a party that no longer speaks to them. Trump’s message does (even if his solutions will do little to help them too).

The other article is how the battle for New Hampshire is about capturing the 40%+ independent voter in that state who could vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary.  Trump and Sanders are fighting for these voters, as are of course the other candidates.  This article too speaks to the voter who no longer feels that the two mainstream parties generally represent them, and instead their decision to vote and for whom is really up for grabs.  With it high percentage of these independent voters New Hampshire is typical of many of the swing states examined in my book.

We hear terms to describe these voters as swing or independent.  I think the best term is actually the p---ed off or disaffected voters.  There is little evidence that many voters actually swing in terms of switching to voter for candidates across parties.  Instead, they make a decision to vote or not.  Swing might more aptly describe swinging in or out of electoral politics.

The disaffected voter is central to the 2016 election prospects for Trump, Sanders, and the two parties.  There is evidence that the two parties do not adequately capture or speak to the interests of many voters.  This is the reason explaining why there is a strong force behind Sanders and against Clinton, and the same with the support for Trump and against Bush, for example. Robert Michael’s Political Parties well describes the tendency of parties to become less democratic and open over time.  One result might now be that the Republican and Democrat parties no longer resonate with many voters–young (especially Millennials), the poor, many people of color, and low income white males without college degrees. And in some cases women.  These are people who the political economic system has ignored, and whom the political parties too seem to have left behind or fail to give voice to.

The two NY Times pieces speak to a society where there is a disjuncture between the political and economic systems, where the leadership and mainstream of the two parties fails to capture the political frustrations and interests of many people in the US.  If that is the case t hen perhaps 2016 is  the basis of what political scientists call a critical election or realignment.  Such an election or alignment would produce a new political alignment and set of policy positions among the parties, or  new parties might emerge.  There is no guarantee that this will occur here.  Many thought that 2008 would produce a critical alignment and it did in some ways, one that seemed to benefit Republicans  more than Democrats, at least for now.  Longer term though the generational changes in the US that will see the Silent and Baby Boomers exit politically to be replaced by Gen Xers, Millennials, and post-Millennials (the Digitals) will reveal something that may not benefit either of the two major parties as they now stand.  Instead, the voters of these generation may be driving political changes because they are part of a large cohort of disaffected or p---ed off voters not happy with the status quo.