America The Liberal?

The New Republic: Obama's Victory Marks A Radical Realignment In American Politics. But What About An Enduring Dem. Majority?

(The New Republic) 
Geographically, the new Democratic majority is, to a great extent, the mirror image of Republican William's McKinley's 1896 majority, with the Deep South being Republican rather than Democratic and with the northeast being Democratic rather than Republican. (Vermont, now thought of as a leftwing Democratic bastion, voted for only one Democratic presidential candidate before backing Bill Clinton in 1992.)

But there is another dimension to the new political geography created by the new post-industrial economy. If you look at a map of where the post-industrial metropolitan areas are concentrated, this is where the Democrats are now enjoying the greatest success. That includes high-tech metropolitan areas and regions like Boston, Chicago, and the San Francisco Bay Area. But it also includes areas in what were the Republican south, such as Charlotte (a financial center), the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill research triangle in North Carolina, the northern Virginia suburbs, Orlando, and south Florida. That explains why a state like Colorado, with the Denver-Boulder metro area, has turned Democratic, or why metro areas within red states have done the same.

If you look at states Obama won, and compare them to the states that have the highest percentage of people who have completed an advanced degree, you find Obama won the 19 top states--all of them, which together account for 232 electoral votes. He won 21 of the top 24, accounting for 280 electoral votes. Conversely, McCain won the six states that had the lowest percentage of people with advanced degrees. That's almost a perfect match between Obama's and the Democrats' new majority and the contours of the new post-industrial economy.

In Colorado, for instance, Obama won post-grads, who make up 22 percent of the electorate, by 62 to 35 percent. In Pennsylvania, where they make up 24 percent, he won them by 61 to 37 percent. In New Hampshire, where they are 25 percent of the electorate, he won them by 68 to 31 percent. If you add those kind of numbers to Obama's and the Democrats' edge among minorities and working women, that is a good basis for winning elections.

To be sure, Obama and the Democrats needed to win about 40 percent of the white working class that used to be the bulwark of the party's New Deal majority. And the recession and financial crisis certainly helped bring them home. But the heart of the new majority is no longer blue-collar workers, but the professionals, minorities, and women who live and work within post-industrial metropolitan areas. And they are a growing part of the overall electorate, while the traditional working class is shrinking. According to Alan Abramowitz and Ruy Teixeira, the traditional white working class (who don't hold managerial, professional, or sales jobs) has already gone from 58 percent of the work force in 1940 to 25 percent in 2006.

The rise of these voting groups within the new post-industrial economy has brought in its wake a new political worldview. Call it "progressive" or "liberal" or even "Naderite" (for Ralph Nader the consumer advocate, not the egomaniacal presidential candidate). If the unionized industrial workers were the vanguard of the New Deal majority, the professionals are the vanguard of the new progressive majority. Their sensibility is reflected in the Democratic platform and increasingly in the country as a whole. It has sometimes been described as socially liberal and fiscally conservative, but that doesn't really get at it. They are socially liberal on civil rights and women's rights; committed to science and to the separation of church and state; internationalist on trade and immigration; skeptical, but not necessarily opposed to, large government spending programs, particularly on healthcare; and gung-ho about government regulation of business, including K Street lobbyists.

They are seen as children of the '60s and '70s--heavily influenced by Martin Luther King, Jr., Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, and Nader--but their views are clearly reflected in succeeding generations of college-educated Americans, particularly the "millennials" who grew up during the administrations of Clinton and George W. Bush. UCLA's annual study of incoming college freshmen across the country found in 2006 that 28.4 percent of them identified themselves as "liberal"--the highest percentage since 1975.

If you compare Americans' attitudes from the '70s and '80s with attitudes today, you see how much the worldview of professionals has permeated. In March 1981, two months into the Reagan administration, the Los Angeles Times found that 54 percent of respondents thought there was "too much regulation of business and industry" and only 18 percent thought there was "too little." By October 2008, 27 percent thought there was "too much," and 45 percent thought there was "too little." In a Pew poll released in March 2007, 83 percent backed "stricter laws and regulations to protect the environment," and 66 percent supported "government guaranteeing health insurance for all citizens, even if it means raising taxes."

Attitudes on social issues have also changed dramatically. The Pew poll from March 2007 found that the percentage of Americans who believe that school boards should have the right to fire homosexual teachers has fallen from 51 percent in 1987 to 28 percent in 2007. Those who want to make it "more difficult" for a women to obtain an abortion has dropped from 47 to 35 percent. The percentage of those who think that "it's all right for blacks and whites to date each other" has risen from 48 to 83 percent--and as much as 94 percent of Generation Y-ers born between 1981 and 1988. The poll also found that 62 percent--83 percent among college graduates--disagreed that "science is going too far and hurting society."

Americans held some of these opinions well before this year's election; in fact, these opinions had become prevalent in the 1990s. But September 11 and the fear of an imminent terrorist attack temporarily revived the conservatism of the '80s, especially on social issues, and eclipsed concerns about government regulation and the economy. These liberal views have re-emerged, however, with a vengeance, and can be expected to shift further leftward--especially on economic questions--in the face of coming recession. That recession will represent a stiff challenge to the Obama administration, but also an opportunity to solidify and harden the realignment that took place in this election.

In American history, there have been hard and soft realignments. The realignments of 1896 and 1932 were hard; they laid the basis for party dominance for over 30 years, where the same party won the bulk of the national, state, and local elections. During the New Deal realignment, from 1932 to 1968, Republicans controlled the presidency for only eight of 36 years and Congress for only four years. But the conservative Republican realignment of 1980 was soft: it began in 1968, was interrupted by Watergate, resumed during Carter's presidency, and climaxed in Reagan's landslide. But even then, Democrats retained control of the House and got back the Senate in 1986. Republicans did win Congress in 1994, but a Democrat was president and was re-elected easily in 1996. Burnham characterized the '90s as an "unstable equilibrium" between the parties.

What made the 1896 and 1932 realignments hard was that they coincided with steep downturns in the business cycle. The trends were present in prior elections--in 1928, for instance, Al Smith began to win urban voters back to the Democrats--but the depression of the 1890s and the Great Depression catalyzed and accelerated these trends. McKinley and the Republicans blamed the depression of the 1890s on Democrat Grover Cleveland. Franklin Roosevelt, of course, blamed the 1929 stock market crash and the depression on Herbert Hoover. And in both cases, the stigma remained for decades. Democrats were still running successfully against Herbert Hoover 20 years after he left office.

In 1980, Reagan and the Republicans were able to take advantage of deep divisions within the Democrats over civil rights (and later abortion), but for a catalyst, they had to rely on the Iranian hostage crisis and on the stagflation of the late '70s, which led to a recession in 1979. By the 1992 election, the impressions created by these events had largely worn off. That prevented the Reagan Republicans from developing the kind of hard, enduring majority that the New Deal Democrats had enjoyed.

Will this new Democratic realignment of 2008 be hard or soft? Initially, it seemed it would be soft. Like the Reagan realignment, it began in fits and starts-- Clinton's victory in 1992 was comparable to Richard Nixon's victory in 1968, with Ross Perot playing the schismatic role that George Wallace had played in 1968. The Democratic trend was slowed by the Clinton scandals and interrupted by September 11. By this measure, 2008 seemed to be 1980, not 1932 or 1896. But the onset of the financial crisis and the recession may have changed this.

The subsequent downturn may more closely resemble the 1930s depression than the relatively shallow recessions of 1979 or 1991. There are, sad to say, striking resemblances between the circumstances that led to the 1930s downturn and those that led to the current one. In both cases, the downturn was preceded by several years by overcapacity in an industry that had been key to growth--automobiles in the 1920s, and telecommunications and computers in the 1990s.

In both cases, there were mild recessions that preceded the final downturn--1927 and 2002, respectively--that were overcome by government policies. The Fed lowered interest rates in the 1920s and 2000s, and the Bush administration created deficits through tax cuts. But instead of fuelling a genuine recovery, these government policies fuelled a speculative bonanza in the stock market of the late 1920s and in the housing market of the last years. That created a tower of toxic debt. When consumer demand and productive investment began to lag again, this tower collapsed, accelerating the downturn in the economy and the loss of jobs. And in both cases, the downturn, instead of being confined to the United States, was international, making recovery even more difficult.

There are differences, of course, between the two periods. While the tortuous currency relations between the U.S. and China and Japan contributed to the financial crash, there is much more prospect now than in the 1930s for international cooperation to prevent a recession from becoming a global depression. Still, there is a likelihood that this recession will deepen over the next year and raise the specter of a new depression--something that never occurred in 1979-80 or in 1992.

If Obama and the Democrats in Congress act boldly, they can not only arrest the downturn, but also lay the basis for an enduring majority. As was the case with Franklin Roosevelt, many of the measures necessary to combat the recession--such as spending money on physical and electronic infrastructure, adopting national health insurance--will also help ensure a Democratic majority. The rural South remained Democrat for generations because of Roosevelt's rural electrification program; a similar program for bringing broadband to the hinterland could lead these voters back to the Democratic Party. And national health insurance could play the same role in Democrats' future prospects that Social Security played in the perpetuation of the New Deal majority.

Americans, to be sure, are always reluctant to undertake ambitious government initiatives. This is, as historian Louis Hartz once demonstrated, a country founded on Lockean liberalism. But as Roosevelt discovered when he was elected, a national crisis creates a popular willingness to entertain dramatic initiatives. Obama and the Democrats will also not face the same formidable adversaries that Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton had to face. The Republican Party will be divided and demoralized after this defeat. Just as the Great Depression took Prohibition and the other great social issues of the 1920s off the popular agenda, this downturn has set aside the culture war of the last decades. It wasn't a factor in the presidential election. And the business lobbies that blocked national health insurance in 1994 will incur the public's wrath if they once again try to buy Congress.

If, on the other hand, Obama and the Democrats take the advice of official Washington and go slow--adopting incremental reforms, appeasing adversaries that have lost their clout--they could end up prolonging the downturn and discrediting themselves. What could have been a hard realignment could become not merely a soft realignment, but perhaps even an abortive one. That's not the kind of change that America needs or wants--and, hopefully, Obama and the Democrats understand that.

[virginiaharr]

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[kaelinda]

Marriages should be performed in church. Marriage is a religious ritual, not a civil ritual. Civil unions exist already between men and women - ceremonies or rituals performed by a justice of the peace. But marriages are religious, not secular. Our nation has already thrown God out of church, out of court, out of city hall - why not throw him out of the family, as well?

[samthetvcat]

---"actually Obama did endorse the "No on 8" side"---
Posted by andor3

Actually Double-talk Barack true to form took all sides of the issue and when his own words saying he was against gay marriage were used in robocalls to target his supporters to get support for passing prop 8, he didn''t speak out on the issue at a time when he could have made the difference.

I think he could have made a difference . . .

[andor3]

"Marriage is a term used for a man and a women."

yes. it is a term used for any two people in love who want to make their union official. Some of those people are men and some are women as you say. The state does not have the right to decide which gender pairs are acceptable. Now California has a choice: throw out Prop 8 or invalidate ALL marriages, anything else is discrimination based on gender, which is not legal.

[andor3]

"I kind of know how you must feel that he didn''''t do it this time around because look at the blowout he had at the poll"

actually Obama did endorse the "No on 8" side.

[samthetvcat]

PS My math might be a little off . . .

[samthetvcat]

---"Now I just want to forget about all of it, because I am not sure I can handle the rage and sorrow I feel today"---
Posted by aakalan

This probably isn''t much comfort to your feelings of betrayal, but since the last time a gay marriage amendment was put to the public in 2000 something like 8% of the population have changed their minds.

Hopefully Jerry Brown''ll be able to keep the marriages that have already taken place legal, and in 2016 maybe another 8%''ll come around . . .

Maybe by then Barack''ll be in more of a position to take a stand to make it legal too (?) I kind of know how you must feel that he didn''t do it this time around because look at the blowout he had at the polls - with that cushion he totally could have gone to bat for somebody else, like by putting Hillary on the ticket . . . it blows that women might have to wait another 25 years for the next chance at the White House.

Whatever . . .

[darrren12000]

Sorry but your article is a piece of dung.

Try this out for a reality check:

http://dissentingjustice.blogspot.com/2008/11/free-at-last-no.html

[sincity_q]

The mistake that all political types make, especially in an election year, is in assuming a mandate where one doesn''t exist.

America is, for the greater part, a nation of centrists. They don''t buy into half of the extremist crud shoveled by the bureaucrats but rather... merely vote for the lesser of the available evils.

Sorry, that''s just how it is.

In 2004, Bush made the mistake of assuming he had a mandate, referring to it as ''political collateral'' and then promptly nose dived into pitiful abscurity.

Obama is now in that sweet spot where one''s ego gets really hard to ignore. The humble man will be grateful, reaching back out to those who elected him while adjusting his rhetoric and agenda to fit the moment. The narcissist, though, will assume his own infallibility and ignore the voices of his people.

One thing is for sure; our media is lost in its own brand of narcissitic bliss, ignoring history and the people who keep them in ink.

[ausus-2009]

I can''t see the big deal over gay marriage. A full civil union with full rights should have no legal difference from a marriage. The difference is only semantic. I just happen to prefer the dictionary definition and the common usage to be that marriage is a union between a husband and wife, with the husband male and wife female. There should be no prejudice or bigotry. It''s a bit like preferring male only and female only toilets to unisex toilets.

[thuderstone]

Liberal should be redefined simply because the Clintons are a bunch of Zionist arse-kissers. Libreal non-Zionist should have its own fraction.

[pmaldona]

With 9 of 10 marijuana reform laws passing around the country, if Obama were able to legalize, regulate, and successfully tax marijuana (we''re talking hundreds of billions of dollars in additional revenue), anything else he did for me would be icing on the cake.

=)

[endofempire]

freelysboy: Barak Hussein Obama (I guess nobody now will be called a racist now that he''s won) pretended to go centrist during his campaign. Whether he''ll stay with the change on his traditional lean towards the hard left, that remains to be seen.
What is more likely is that he will not antagonize the Pelosi doctrine and take advantage of his four years to institute as much change as he can get away with. Unemployment "reforms", socialized healthcare, universal post-secondary education will be the ones he will be remembered for. The ones people will prefer to forget will be the property ownership reforms and the nationalization of much of American industry. All good stuff that has worked in France and Spain, at the cost of 15% unemployment.
Consider yourselves lucky if three or four justices don''t cede their slots or die of "natural causes" in the next couple of years. If that happens, the 22nd amendment could be history and we could be in for several presidencies'' worth of Change.
For now, lets all give Barak Hussein the benefit of the doubt, all the while keeping our powder dry.

[ioweign]

Marriage is a term used for a man and a women.

Civil is for the rest of you.

Posted by mopar1956 at 08:53 AM : Nov 06, 2008


There is more important things in life than this.

When is MacDonald''s going to get rid of that "special sauce"??

[freelysboy]

At the end of the day nothing in the electorate has changed. Obama won, not by being liberal but by staying in the center. He won a lot of electoral votes, but that roughly 6 million popular vote edge could very easily be in the republican column the next time around. there should not be to much read into it.

[markangeloo]

Define man & woman!!
What was that that had a baby this summer.
Mopar U are a clone.

[pdchapin]

On election night in 1980, Senator Goldwater was asked if the Reagan win represented a fundamental change in American politics. He responded (the following is a paraphrase - it was a will back) "No. We''ll have a good 25 years and then we''ll run out of ideas and the Democrats will come back."

It took 28 years, but the principle still applies. We Democrats should have a good run for a few years but eventually we''ll get something very wrong and be voted out again.

[mopar1956]

akaalan,
You are the one that doesn''t get it. They have a civil union in law now that gives all of you the same rights.

Marriage is a term used for a man and a women.

Civil is for the rest of you.

[darrren12000]

Another white guy says the country is now radically leftwing. Probably a heterosexual too. So, Calif. just voted to strip gay people of equality. So did Florida and Arkansas. Nebraska to get rid of affirmative action. And a lot of the big wins were actually close. Anyway, I''m a black man, and I am happy but because I know what discrimination means, I wish these white liberals would shut up.

[aakalan]

Oh how I wish you were right.
Unfortunately, you''re not.

You''re claiming minorities as one of the legs of your 3-legged stool - as liberal bulwarks.

Then why did they vote 70%-30% against gay rights in California? That''s not liberal, as far as I know. That''s downright reactionary - to take away people''s civil rights.

I had hoped, truly hoped that the ascendence of Barack Obama might be the indication of a more compassionate, caring, tolerant and positive nation.

My hope has been dashed in California, Arkansas (big surprise) and Florida. The religious zealots, the haters, have won once again. And, just as one opressed group finally sees their dream come true, they turn their wrath on another opressed group.

I was delirious when Obama won. I am brokenhearted, and afraid for America, when Prop 8 passed.

Now I just want to forget about all of it, because I am not sure I can handle the rage and sorrow I feel today.