… In the broadest sense, “cultural” matters have been challenging and bedeviling Democrats for well over half a century. The backlash to civil rights pulled the South away from the Democratic Party in the mid-’60s; crime, welfare, campus and urban violence eroded white working-class loyalties. These issues helped win Republicans the presidency in five out of six presidential contests from 1968 to 1988; only the post-Watergate fallout took Jimmy Carter to a narrow electoral win in 1976.
All through this period, Democrats were arguing that the public, by large measures, preferred their actual policies — their approaches to education, health care, taxes. Sometime in the ’80s, I sat with House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt as he explained to a roomful of journalists that once voters understood what Democrats were going to do about the high cost of college, health care and housing, electoral success would naturally follow.
Spoiler alert: It didn’t. CONTINUED
Jeff Greenfield, Politico Magazine
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