Can the Democrats Rise Above?

As the Democratic electorate has bifurcated along economic and racial lines, intraparty tension is rising.

One manifestation of this tension is the eruption of competition over access to high performance magnet schools in heavily Democratic metropolitan areas like Washington and New York. …

Virtually every prospective Democratic presidential candidate has singled out the broader problem of inequality as one of the most serious facing the country. …

Income inequality and school reform both point to another core Democratic problem: the party can, and does, win elections, but it struggles when it is in power because it faces competing policy demands. Those policy demands often pose zero-sum choices for rival constituencies: what one group gains, another loses. CONT.

Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times