How Democrats Lost Their Way
You might have noticed I have written a few articles defending President Trump’s legitimacy in spite of his reality-show White House. As a utilitarian, I believe the American economy needed tax and regulatory reform. As a consequentialist, I believe Trump is the consequence for Bush Republicans and Obama-Clinton Democrats ignoring how permissive immigration and outsourcing inflicted pain upon working-class Americans. By the way, this information was no secret in 2016.
This information was made available to every 2016 campaign by Scott Miller of the Core Strategy Group, whose research found widespread anger throughout the electorate – regardless of race, region or party. His report was available to every campaign, but only Donald Trump chose to buy the report and heed the advice: fix the economy, immigration and trade. This begs the question: why was Trump the outlier in 2016?
Moderate Republicans and all Democrats were afraid of a single fact: the greatest fear and anger was being expressed by Americans that were white and not college educated. This group's desire for national sovereignty was labeled anti-Hispanic and Islamophobic. Their disgust with Obamanomics was called racist, and their anger over free trade was rejected as anachronistic protectionism. The fact that many working-class minorities were just as fearful and angry was disregarded because it did not align with Democrat campaigns based on identity politics.
Not only did Hillary Clinton (and other Democrats) lose because she lost the non-college white vote, the pollsters (pre-election and exit) greatly under-estimated this voting bloc’s numbers. New data from Pew Research, the Center for American Progress, and Stanford University’s Institute for Research in the Social Sciences should invite Democrats to moderate and include the white working class (that is, if they want to win in 2020). To wit, three demographic and political revelations have surfaced since the 2016 election.
FIRST REVELATION – college graduates alone cannot put a candidate in the White House. Only 31.9 percent of adult US citizens have college degrees. With 138.8 million voters, 97 percent of college graduates would have to turn out on election day to comprise 50 percent of the electorate (source: Stanford). Not gonna happen!
SECOND REVELATION – many polls, such as Edison Research, over-estimated the 2016 election’s college-educated white vote as 37 percent of the total, and under-estimated the non-college white vote as 34 percent. Wrong! Pew Research now reports the 2016 college-educated white vote at only 30 percent of the total, and the non-college white vote at 44 percent (60.1 million ballots). It is no wonder Democrats over-estimated the strength of new economy voters.
THIRD REVELATION – the single biggest 2016 voting bloc was actually non-college whites (60.1 million votes and 44 percent of the vote total). Take Republicans and conservatives out of the mix: amongst registered Democrats and Democratic leans, non-college whites (33%) are the largest voter bloc - followed by non-college minorities (28%), college-educated whites (26%), and college-educated minorities (12%).
Hillary Clinton lost because she only won 28 percent (16.8 million) of the non-college white vote: far less than Barack Obama’s 36 percent in 2012. According to Ruy Teiceira of the Center for American Progress: “If Hillary had done as well with non-college whites as Obama, she would have carried, with robust margins, the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Florida and Ohio.” It's obvious Democrats used bad campaign calculus, but what about their policy positions? Consider the left-leaning Brookings Institute's most recent voter profile:
Most non-college whites make less than $50,000 a year and describe their financial condition as fair to poor. 62 percent think America’s culture has changed for the worse since 1950 and global trade agreements have driven down wages by sending jobs overseas. Almost 70 percent think America’s way of life needs to be protected from foreign influences and immigrants weaken the USA by driving down wages. 59 percent believe illegal immigrants should be deported.
Most college-educated whites have annual incomes above $50,000 and describe their financial condition as good to excellent. 54 percent think America’s culture has changed for the better since 1950, and 48 percent think trade agreements have opened up overseas markets to the USA. About half think America’s way of life is unaffected by foreign influences and today’s immigrants actually strengthen America. Only 33 percent think the government should deport illegal immigrants.
Obviously, the Democrat's message targets college-educated whites. If they want to appeal to non-college whites, Democrats must moderate their positions on immigration and trade, and articulate stronger support for the rule of law. William Galston of the Brookings Institution explains: “Controlling borders is a legitimate exercise of sovereignty, and the appropriate number and type of immigrants is a legitimate subject for debate. There’s nothing illiberal about the view that too many immigrants stress a country’s capacity to absorb them.”
Furthermore, college-educated white Democrats are in no position to feel the negative impact of too many immigrants or too much crime because they don't work and live in that space. Intellectual elites, such as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, have no business denouncing non-college whites as bigots. Creating a basket of deplorables does not help the substance or the politics of immigration and border control. Remember, there was a time when under-employed and under-educated rural rednecks got a helping hand from Washington - - and put FDR and JFK in the White House.
There is a moral imperative for Democrats to accept as fact that today's working-class whites are just as stressed as other ethnic groups. To wit, the Brookings Institution reports a frightening discovery: 66 percent of non-college whites say that discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities – and 62 percent believe Christians suffer discrimination. The problem and solution are obvious, and I posit Bill Clinton would be all over it.
Yes, working-class blacks feel beset with financial difficulties, but so do working-class whites. They feel the American Dream is under attack: their culture and neighborhood's safety appear to be threatened. Democrats can listen with curiosity when working-class white Christians discuss their difficulties and fears (and learn) without dismissing them as protectionists, racists and Islamophobes. The DNC can also abandon strict litmus tests that discourage moderate Democrats who support Israel, right-to-life, and Christianity. Above all, Democrats must develop and articulate real solutions to permissive immigration and wage suppression.