Tag Archives: Democratic Party

The Democrats: America’s Aspiring Vanguard Party

16 Tuesday Feb 2021

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In the 2020 election, Donald Trump won 83 percent of the nation’s counties – small wonder people speak of the red American heartland- but those counties only accounted for 30 percent of the national GDP

This is a remarkable development considering that Republicans as recently as 2016 have been historically derided as the “fat cat” corporate party, though their power was limited, as they faced rather intractable opposition in the academy, public education, ths media, Silivon Valley, and the arts and entertainment sectors.

We now inhabit a country in which a single party, the Democrats, wield something approaching cultural and political hegemony, which, aside from academia, traditional and digital media and Big Entertainment, includes deepening support from the national security apparatus as well as the corporate sector.

As this column by American Consequence’s Shane Devine points out, Wall Street contributed more than $74 million directly to Biden’s campaign. Trump, by contrast, received $18 million, even less than the paltry $20 million he received in 2016.

The massive corporate support for the Democrats evident in the last two election cycles likely portends a major U.S. political realignment. As this column stresses,

Of Wall Street’s total 2020 contributions, not only to campaigns but to all political organizations, including “dark money” groups, 62% went to Democrats and 38% went to Republicans. Comparatively, in 2016, they gave 50% to Republicans and 49% to Democrats. In 2012, they gave 69% to Republicans and 31% to Democrats. The Chamber of Commerce, which has long been the top-spending lobbying client, endorsed 30 Democratic House candidates in the 2020 election.

In the face of these sweeping changes, the Republican Party increasingly is signaling its aspiration to function as a worker-nationalist party, appealing not only to aggrieved, increasingly economically marginalized white heartland voters but also the growing cultural demographic of Hispanic blue-collar workers.

Yet, one is led to wonder how far such an increasingly marginalized party will get in the future, especially one now so isolated from main sources of cultural power as well as the political power that actually counts in this post-constitutional landscape: adequate levels of support within the federal bureaucratic sector.

Meanwhile, the Democrats, the ascendant party, confident in their increasing cultural clout, will undoubtedly follow through with their plans for a transformation of the federal judiciary. Among other things, this will pave the way for Democratic aspirations for through-going electoral “reform,” ultimately enabling them to erode Republican dominance in the red heartland.

In time, the Democrats will be emboldened to leverage their immense political and cultural clout to undertake a thorough-going cultural transformation to their liking – something that they already feel confident boasting about. Securing statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C., they will virtually assure their control of the Senate for generations.

Small wonder why the Democrats are increasingly behaving like a vanguard party, not all that different from the ones in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe that functioned as cultural and political monoliths but that also kept tame opposition around for domestic and international consumption.

We Need Systemic Federal Reform

13 Sunday Nov 2016

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Well, let’s see: rioting in the streets,  the possible breakup of our two-party system  into a multiple party system and growing calls for secession in major U.S states. When are we going to come to terms with the fact that we are two and possibly even three or more nations shoehorned into one?

When are we going to realize that a one-size-fits-all governing strategy simply can’t be imposed on us any longer? When are we going to embrace systemic federal reform?

The Democrats’ Federalist Redux

10 Thursday Nov 2016

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A depiction of Federalist support (Federalist States depicted in blue) in post-colonial America.

As my beloved 8th grade history teacher liked to say, history repeats itself.

One of the remarkable outcomes of Tuesday’s election is how the Democratic party seems to be transforming into a predominantly bi-coastal and urban party – a sort of 21st century updating of the Federalists and their successors, the National Republicans and Whigs.

Upscale, Gentrified and Urban

Much like them, the Democratic Party has become an upscale, gentrified  and urban party pitted against a country party, the GOP, which resembles in many respects Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans, though, to be sure, it still maintains a significant urban presence throughout the American heartland.

Earlier this year, a number of astute pundits pointed out that the Democrats would be in exceedingly dire straits if they lost, which,at the time, of course, was considered a far-flung possibility.

A Democratic Reckoning?

Last Tuesday’s upset does portend a reckoning for the Democrats.  The bi-coastal and urban makeup of the Democrats was not so much a pressing concern while they were in power.  But without the patronage associated with the presidency and a sufficient foothold within the vast American heartland, they face acute competitive disadvantages for the foreseeable future.
I was reminded of the Democrats’ hard reality viewing the splendid interactive post-election map posted by the New York Times, depicting presidential voting patterns on a county-by-county basis. Running my cursor across a wide swath of “Flyover Country” from the Shenandoah Valley region of northern Virginia to the upper northwest corner of Nevada I crossed many counties with Trump support as high or even higher than 70 percent.

From Yellow Dog to Ruby-Red Pachyderm

Incidentally, in my native northwest Alabama, which used to be one of the most solidly and assertively Democratic enclaves in America, those margins ran even higher.  Seventy-nine percent of voters supported Trump in my native county of Franklin.  In neighboring Colbert County, once a heavily unionized and arguably the state’s most consistently Yellow Dog Democratic county, Trump support exceeded 69 percent.

The Democrats dominated local politics when I attended high school in the region in the late 70’s, though large percentages of people supported GOP nominees in presidential elections, notably in 1964, 1972 and 1980.

Now even that has changed.  The GOP in northwest Alabama and in most of the rest of the state dominates politics at all levels, municipal to the federal.

What remains of the Democratic presence Alabama Alabama is in the predominantly African-American sections of Black Belt Alabama and Jefferson County, of which Birmingham serves as the county seat. Most of the rest of the state is deep-dyed red. And that holds true for virtually all of the South – deep red heartlands, punctuated by large urban, predominately African-American areas, though, to be sure, cultural creatives with strong Democratic sympathies are evident in many of these areas.

This steep demographic decline isn’t limited to the South. Throughout much of Red State America, state Democratic parties are coming to resemble the GOP patronage parties that soldiered on in the South from the end of Reconstruction until the Reagan Revolution in 1980.

It is even possible to travel thousands of miles across the breadth of the American heartland without even passing through a blue county. And this brings me back to my original premise:  The present-day American political party system bears a remarkable resemblance to the emerging political system of post-colonial America. We are increasingly divided between blue cities comprised of highly educated cultural creatives and the deep-dyed red rural heartland.

Federalist Redux?

The short-term problem for them, at least, as I see it, is that they are currently shut out of some states in the South, parts of the Midwest and large parts of the Far West. To be sure, the GOP faces its own demographic challenges: the decline of its main base, whites,  its reputation among millions of millennials as an obscurantist know-nothing party and its comparative failure to make inroads into emerging demographic groups.

Even so, the Democratic party seems to face the biggest challenge – at least, in the short term: It’s separation from much of the American heartland and it’s all but total reliance on a coalition of affluent, highly educated urban elites and minorities.

For now, it seems, the Democratic party’s great Federalist redux doesn’t bode well for it’s future – it’s immediate future, at least.

Are the Democrats the New Federalists?

09 Wednesday Nov 2016

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Alexander Hamilton, Founder of the Federalist Party.

The prairie winds that swept across the great American heartland last night do not bode well for the future of the Democratic Party.

By becoming, however unwittingly, a bi-coastal party, the Democratic Party is arguably the 21st century equivalent of Federalists and their successors, the Whigs – an party of gentrified, well-educated urban elites. As my beloved 8th grade history teacher used to say, history has repeated itself. In a remarkable way, the 21st century American party system resembles the proto-party system that emerged in the years following constitutional ratification, pitting an upscale urban Federalist Party against a country party, Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans.

 

Earlier this year, a number of astute pundits pointed out that the Democrats would be in exceedingly dire straits if they lost, which,at the time, of course, was considered a far-flung possibility. I think that this is an important point to bear in mind. Things only worked for the Federalists when they wielded power and the political patronage that comes with it. Without this patronage and without a sufficient foothold within the vast American heartland, they will find themselves at an acute competitive disadvantage.