Back in August, I wrote a piece for The Nation, "The End of Bubba Dominance," arguing that the major demographic significance of Obama's winning coalition is that it will not consist of a noticeably increased Democratic percentage among socially conservative whites. This achievement should have functioned as a major shift in the perceived anchor of American political power, since, for the past several decades, the rising conservative and Republican tide was closely connected to a belief that socially conservative whites were the most important swing voting block in the enter nation. From the article:
Since 1968 American presidential elections have been defined as a competition over fundamentally conservative identity groups. Even though they are not precisely congruous, a direct lineage exists from the Nixon-forged Southern Strategy of the 1960s and '70s, to the Reagan Democrats of the '80s, to Mark Penn's Bubbas of the '90s and on to the Values Voters of this decade. These swing voting groups are overwhelmingly white, not very urban, heavily blue-collar, generally Southern and always socially conservative. Even though the labels have changed, these four criteria have been the genetic code of swing voters for nearly forty years. In every case, the decisive swing voting group has been hostile to impending social change brought on by various civil rights movements and resentful of the cultural predilections of an urban, bicoastal "liberal elite." The quest to capture these voters has created an entire generation of pundits, strategists and party leaders who will do everything possible to appear not-liberal, not-elite and in touch with the values of small-town America, whatever those values happen to be at any given moment. A Southern accent helps, too. A Democratic politician's willingness to distance himself or herself (but usually himself) from -- and to use "Sister Souljah" moments frequently to denounce -- the left wing of the Democratic Party helps even more.
The basic idea of my article was that if you could win without these socially conservative voting groups, then fewer politicians will feel accountable to these groups. This seems to have partially come true since, two months later, most pundits accept, as First Read kept describing it, "the three-legged stool of support that Obama received from African Americans, Hispanics, and voters 18 to 29" was the key to his victory. And, yet, as both Josh Marshall and Paul Krugman note today, the fundamental character of the Republican Party and the political media corps does not seem to have changed at all. There is simultaneously a recognition that Obama won without increased Democratic support among socially conservative voting groups, and a lack of recognition that this signals a major shift in the center of American political power. Democrats don't need Bubbas anymore, or at least they need Bubbas a lot less than they need young voters and racial minorities.
Some of this lack of recognition probably comes from its novelty. After all, conservatives were winning national elections based on racial backlash since 1968, and Democrats only managed to defeat this strategy starting in 2006. Perhaps there needs to be further electoral landslides after 2006 and 2008 in order for more people to start accepting it at a gut level, rather than just admitting it on paper. Thirty-six years of Bubba dominance in elections is difficult to erase in many political minds.
Further, some of the lack of recognition comes from a belief that Obama won these voters, not Democrats in general. There is a common strain of thought that it was Obama's personal appeal and vast organizational structure that led to huge turnout among African-Americans, and landslide numbers among Latinos and young voters. There might be some truth to this, as Obama did outperform Democrats among African-Americans, and as African-American turnout was enormous.
Mainly, however, I think there is a failure to recognize how most of the new demographic groups Obama and Democrats are using to win are closely connected to one another, and that these connections represent a new American majority. For example, newfound Democratic success with voters under 45 is closely connected to voters under 45 being far less white than voters over 45 (40% of voters between 18-44 are non-white, compared to 20% of voters over 45). The same can be said of LGBT voters, single women, and voters who do not self-identify as non-Christian. Most of these demographics--young voters, LGBT voters, non-Christians, Asians, African-Americans, single women, Latinos, low-income voters--heavily intermix with one another. The significant majority of people who fit into one of these eight demographic groups actually fit into two or more of these demographic groups. Democrats tend to perform well in each of these groups because they perform well in all of them. It is a trend toward Democrats that is reinforced, for most people, in multiple areas, and should not be understood as success for Obama and Democrats in a laundry list of isolated, ghettoized, discrete demographics. It is a rising pluralist majority, rather than successful politicking with individual groups.
One thing this group lacks is an easily understandable descriptor. After all, as George Lakoff has repeatedly argued, it is difficult to accept, much less understand, a new idea without there at least being words to conceptualize such ideas. Right now, no such frame exists to describe the Democratic pluralist majority. Perhaps the frame "pluralist majority" itself will suffice, but no matter which frame will actually work, the need for any frame is essential to switch the locus of political power. We need politicians from both parties to lust after the progressive version of the Silent Majority, Reagan Democrats, Bubbas and Values Voters. While this progressive group exists, there is no broad linguistic consciousness of how to describe it. Most political professionals and political observers are aware of its existence, but until there is a widely accepted way to talk and think about this group, our political institutions will not cater to it. As such, this is an instance where we can change the country by changing our language. Anyone have any bright ideas?
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