… For Democrats, much of the debate about running in and winning big northern industrial states is that we have to choose a style of campaign. Either we talk to blue-collar voters about issues like economics and manufacturing, or we talk to suburban women about abortion. Either we use progressive […] Read more »
The Democrats’ Tenuous Hold on the Suburbs
Democrats are feeling good about their prospects in 2024. There appears to be little interest in changing their party’s image, which remains pretty terrible in most voters’ eyes. … The idea seems to be that the suburbs are full of liberal, highly-educated voters who are likely to be permanent recruits […] Read more »
How the Diploma Divide Is Remaking American Politics
… John F. Kennedy lost college-educated voters by a two-to-one margin yet won the presidency thanks to overwhelming support among white voters without a degree. Sixty years later, our second Catholic president charted a much different path to the White House, losing non-college-educated whites by a two-to-one margin while securing […] Read more »
Lost Hope of Lasting Democratic Majority
Today we wish a belated and maybe not-so-Happy 20th Birthday to “The Emerging Democratic Majority,” the book that famously argued Democrats would gain an enduring advantage in a multiracial, postindustrial America. There are countless explanations for the rise of Donald Trump and the growing dysfunction of American political life. This […] Read more »
Why Aren’t You Voting in Your Financial Self-Interest?
Why do millions of Americans on both the right and the left ignore their own economic self-interest when they choose which political party to support? Partisan prioritization of cultural and racial issues has, to a notable extent, superseded the economic conflicts that once characterized the nation’s politics, leading to what […] Read more »
What the Student-Loan Debate Overlooks
A core conservative critique of President Joe Biden’s executive action on student-debt forgiveness is that the plan requires blue-collar Americans to subsidize privileged children idly contemplating gender studies or critical race theory at fancy private colleges. That idea, articulated by Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, among others, aims to […] Read more »