How uneven economic growth feeds political turmoil

When it comes to economic innovation, the rich are getting richer — and that’s generating increasing social frustration and political turmoil for the winners and losers alike as the digital revolution rolls through the American economy. Over the past 15 years, employment in the computer- and science-based industries at the forward edge of economic change has further concentrated into a handful of superstar cities, according to a sweeping new study released Monday by the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program and the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. …

The report underscores the historic reversal of roles between the Democratic and Republican parties that has accelerated during Trump’s polarizing presidency. In imagery that still shapes each party’s political message, Democrats have long considered themselves the party of voters left behind in the economy, while Republicans usually portray themselves as the champions of the winners — the “makers” rather than the “takers,” as former GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan was fond of saying.

But the winners in the digital economy are collected overwhelmingly in large metropolitan areas that are moving steadily toward the Democrats, largely around cultural and social issues from race relations and immigration to guns, gay rights and the role of women in society. Republicans have consolidated a dominant position in the places that feel most excluded and threatened not only by those cultural and social shifts, but also by the economic changes driving the transformation to an information-based economy. CONT.

Ronald Brownstein, CNN