How the Rural-Urban Divide Became America’s Political Fault Line

It’s true across many industrialized democracies that rural areas lean conservative while cities tend to be more liberal, a pattern partly rooted in the history of workers’ parties that grew up where urban factories did. But urban-rural polarization has become particularly acute in America: particularly entrenched, particularly hostile, particularly lopsided […] Read more »

Revisiting What Happened in the 2018 Election: An Analysis of the Catalist Voter Registration Database

… Thinking about the change from 2016 to 2018, it is clear that both mobilization and persuasion were critically important in producing this scale of victory for Democrats. When it comes to turnout, the composition of the electorate roughly “broke even” with 2016, much different than the past two midterms. […] Read more »

Framing the Economic Debate

… How can progressives frame the economic debate on their own terms? All conservatives want to talk about is capitalism and socialism, but in doing so, they expose one of their greatest weaknesses – support for an economic system that puts the wealthy ahead of regular people. CONT. – pdf […] Read more »

The Democratic Party is being transformed. These House votes show how.

The decisive House of Representatives vote last Friday barring discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity marked a milestone in shifting American attitudes toward gay rights. But it also represented a landmark in the evolution of the Democratic Party into an urbanized coalition centered on the voters and communities […] Read more »