The emerging Democratic majority was a perfectly reasonable thesis had Democrats had the self-discipline to stick with their early 2000s-era platform, and I don't think even the most ardent Republican of that era would have expected Democrats to go as far off the deep end as they have. In my experience it was their surprisingly comfortable reelection in 2012 that really supercharged the feeling that the permanent majority had arrived and caused all voices of caution to be cast aside.
There's a feeling of inevitability to the collapse of the Obama coalition now, but had things gone ever so slightly differently in Butler, Pennsylvania we might be looking at President Harris expanding the censorship apparatus, dismantling voter integrity procedures, and seeking to give voting rights to so many more millions of illegal immigrants that there really would be a permanent Democratic majority. They came very, very close to succeeding in their goal of creating a one-party state.
The Republican Party collapsed completely in 2008, and deserved it. Trump came along and put a competitive GOP product on the table, including, at least relatively, with Hispanics.
Obama quite frankly went up against a weak GOP, his success wasn’t tested.
Further, the two big changes under Obama, the ACA and gay marriage (which he opposed until the Supreme Court did it for him), left the coalition with literally no reason to exist anymore. What was Hillary running on in 2016, beyond it being “her turn.” How was she planning to change the country?
Biden (or his handlers) sort of gave the left purpose with his New Deal larping, but it turned out the “meritocratic technocrats” didn’t actually know what they were doing when it came to the economy. Now we are out of money.
Oh, sure, because white supremacist autocracy and fascism are just the absolute best, right? Nothing like maintaining white male dominance to really make the world a better place!
My sense is that the Obama coalition always had the progressive white college-educated class in the drivers seat of determining policy with the various minority groups being given money, jobs and symbolic support via DEI and social programs. Racial minorities were always just told what to believe and had little real influence within the party.
This made the Obama coalition far more narrow than it appeared. Once blacks, Hispanics, and Asians realized how far to the Left the party had become, then they started leaving the coalition in droves. This is more or less what happened to the white working class in previous generations.
What kept the whole thing going was partisan identification. I know so many older Democrats who are loyal to the party and seem oblivious to the fact that the party they are loyal to no longer exists.
My guess is that the Democratic Party will become more class based on increasingly lose support from working-class voters of all races. This will work fine in the 12-15 Blue states, but it will make them uncompetitive in federal elections and 25 Red states. Democrats need a fundamental rethink, but my guess is that it will take a decade out of power for them to have the courage to do it.
I'm actually bearing on the Democrats becoming class based again. They absolutely are going to want to be giving policies they think will benefit working people to buy them off. What they won't want to do for a host of complex reasons is give working class populists seats at the table and control. They will therefore operate more like the historical Progressive Movement, which sought to help working people while the working people politically supported Democratic populists and Tammany Hall.
Frank, in reading your article about the Democrats, I couldn't help but realize that there IS a working model of Democratic one party rule... California.
That's where the Obama coalition was taking America.
And the NEXT stage beyond that shithole is Canada, where I'm living. You would not believe the news blackouts up here on sooo many topics.
The Democrats may try, but I really do not think that they will succeed unless they radically change their policies. I just do not see them being willing to fundamentally change until they lose three straight Presidential elections like in the 1980s.
As for "becoming class based again." I think that is a myth. American politics has always been about ethno-religious groups and regions.
The quasi-religious self-righteousness of Democratic Party agenda is repulsive. It’s almost Calvinistic in its premises. No one wants to be told they are “going to Hell” if they don’t confess to sins they are not guilty for. Especially egregious is the public behavior of the leaders of this movement. Eventually, the lesson in “The Emperor has no clothes” came to be seen as the reality of the Left. It’s still playing out, fortunately.
I tend to agree with folks who think the New England Puritans are the true ancestors of todays' progressives (which is why the heart of both is in New England). The religion is quite different, but otherwise they're similar movements in structure, form, and goals.
Oh sure, because nothing screams "modern politics" quite like a bunch of right-wingers with a pedigree tracing back to German or Italian fascism. You know, like Ron DeSantis and Christopher Rufo—just your everyday, run-of-the-mill, democracy-loving folks! What a charming little lineage they've got going on!
This is my favourite article of yours from this Substack so far Frank, because it answers something that has been bothering me for a few years.
Since I began as a student in political thought in 2016, conferences have been obsessed with populism. At first I didn't pay much mind to it, but as I began reading about farmer populism and early trustbusting movements, a few claims that are taken as premises of academia's anti-populist project started rubbing me the wrong way. Particularly, the claim that populism=racism. This never made any sense to me, because the question of whether a populist movement is racist is particular to the movement, not inherent in the nature of it being a populist movement. At first I just chalked this up to "well this cohort of people calls anything they don't like racist" and they think the average person is racist.
The framing of it as a consequence of the ad-hoc coalition of technocratic governance and identity groups makes it make a lot more sense. The technocrats and the groups are one, and so populism, which by definition attacks technocratic governance, so by default they are also attacking the groups.
Good essay. The ferocious tenacity of the technocratic elite is splendidly illustrated in four years of trying to pull the wool over the collective eyes about who’s actually running the country. Media and government in lockstep. A more dramatic example would be hard to find.
Major political realignments were initially driven by one particular issue that sent one group from one party to another. Slavery created the Republican Party in the 1850s and railroad shipping rates created the Populist Party of the late nineteenth century. However, these were only the catalysts for more fundamental ideological and socioeconomic shifts in American politics. Republicans represented the rising influence of the Northern business elite over the Southern plantation aristocracy. The avarice of railroad robber barons led to a broader revolt against Gilded Age corruption and the advent of the Progressive era.
As I have written before in my New Nationalism Substack, I believe we are in the midst of a realignment to a political divide based on globalism vs. nationalism. Immigration was the catalyst issue of this realignment and Trump took full advantage of it. If the Democrats are to survive, they must adopt a progressive form of nationalism.
I roughly agree with that, although that's not exactly the framework I would apply! I've spent a lot of time thinking and writing about and studying American political realignments, and I therefore have my own (I believe correct!) take on how this all works.
I would say realignments are triggered by great a crisis of legitimacy caused by the decline of the old issues holding our parties together and their failure to address the new ones under the existing framework.
I definitely believe we're in the middle of a realignment. I'm not entirely committed yet to the true nature of the crisis, and am still working on it for (hopefully) a future book. I think globalism is part of it, but I suspect it's a second order affect or symptom or contributing factor of a greater trigger. I think there are some big issues and changes (economic, social, ideological) undercutting some baseline foundations of the American republic.
If you want a quick take on my view of the realignment process, this article I wrote a while back in American Interest is a good summary.
I apologize for taking so long to respond and appreciate your kind words about New Nationalism. For a “quick take”, your post on historical realignments was a fascinating and comprehensive analysis of an important aspect of American history. In particular, your theory that realignments are tied to moral and religious Great Awakenings is very interesting. As you write your book, you may want to consult V.O. Key’s 1965 article “A Theory of Critical Elections” and his book “The American Voter” if you haven’t already done so. Key and his colleagues proposed that American politics has regularly realigned in 36-year cycles since the adoption of the Constitution. Recent history appears to disprove that thesis, though I believe a more likely explanation is that the increasing politicization of our society has reduced the term of the cycle to a generation; i.e, 24 years.
Thanks again for your perceptive analysis. I learn from all your posts and look forward to continuing to do so.
I need to book about a 1/2 hour to your articles, they're so good.
Here's something I realized and just chatted w/my wife about...
Let's fast forward to '28 primaries and keep everything going on today as being equal at that time. Specifically, the primaries...
I'm looking back at the '20 Dem primaries... 'I was that girl', but Haris. 'Latinx' by Warren. Overall, it was a freaking clown show then, and I'm taking bets that it will even be worse in 4 years b/c I think AOC will take a run at it...
Now compare that to the possible runners on the Republican side...
Oh boy... Vivek, Tulsi, Gov Desantis, JD... and I could go on and on. If I was presented w/ just the aforementioned, I would probably just write in "All Of The Above!" if I were in a voting booth. My point is that the Republican bench is sooo deep.
A perfect example for ME is Tulsi's turn around re that Patriot Act law or subsection people are calling her 'turncoat' for this past week or so.
My take?
I trust that woman. Period. She saw stuff I didn't, and I respect her integrity enough that her decision is enough for me.
That TRUST on my part towards the New Republican elite is pretty strong on my part (of course seasoned w/ skepticism, but the Trust is stronger right now).
How much trust do I have in the Democrats?
ZERO.
And if a guy like me feels this way... oh man, you're so right Frank. This is a generational shift I think. I mean, OK, I'm elderly (66); but I believe my rebuke of Democrats goes deeper and wider than just me.
It's not going to be pretty, man. The assholes won't go away quietly.
But what was the alternative? Bill Clinton necessarily followed the politics of premption, as did Eisenhower and Wilson, achieving only what the dominant party's dispensation would permit them. Obama was the second opposition party president, like FDR and Nixon. The reigning Republican dispensation had been totally discredited under Hoover and FDR took advantage of the big electoral victory this gained him to establish a new dispensation as I describe here:
Nixon did not see himself in a position to do the same, so he abandoned the fiscal conservatism his party long stood for, but labeled it as "Keynesian". Reagan later took this ball, added tax cuts and voila transformed "Keynesian" into "supply side" economics, but they really are the same thing (we plan to run deficits indefinitely). Otherwise he governed as a moderate preemptive.
Obama did pretty much the same thing as Nixon. What would Clinton have done that was different?
Granted I critique Obama in my post for failing to prevent the TARP from being passed and letting the financial system collapse. But I myself *supported* the TARP as a right thing to do in 2008, so I can I condemn Obama for doing what I would have done in his shoes?
The single most important thing the Democrats could have done in 2009 to reinforce a level of popular support that was already formidable was: Abolish The Filibuster. Or reduce it to, say, 55 votes, with a sunset clause dated right before the election. Then the Democrats could have done something similar to what Trump is doing now, only with Congressional legislation. And after two years of passing bills that would actually have effect by 2010 (i.e., not the ACA), they could have put their track record of successes to the test in the midterms.
But they didn't do it.
So they got stonewalled by filibuster threats, and then put so far in check in the midterms that it was all that Obama could do to use executive orders over the next six years to accomplish a very circumscribed agenda. He didn't even control his own budget. In the era of 0% Fed interest rates, the Dems could have put a comprehensive national infrastructure upgrade (which we still need) in place as a bargain front-end loaded investment. Instead, it was all about the Fed doing quantitative easing, and wrapping up the bailouts that had begun in the previous administration, and having the budget run by the dictates of "the sequester."
So I don't buy that the possibility of an enduring Democratic Party majority was foredoomed. It was squandered because of indecision, inaction, and inability to envision lasting improvements in public works and job stimulus for any constituency that didn't partake of the obsessions of the top 10% of bien pensant liberals (and the select beneficiaries of that patronage.) The Dems evidently still can't tell effective and innovative spending on the public commons from the pork barrel, as is becoming increasingly clear. The only difference is that the pork barrel got postmodernized, in partnership with lifestyle liberal nonprofits and NGOs.
The Obama coalition gave Democrats their only popular vote victories since the start of the Reagan political order. Economic appeals died with the end of the New Deal economy in 1973. Between them and Obama, Democrats won the popular vote only once due to an unforced error by Nixon.
To say that was an error would be to acknowledge Democrats would never be competitive again.
Actually none of this matters. Democrats were always going to win in 2008 and lose in 2016 no matter what they did it who they ran.
I’m not sure the collapse of this coalition was inevitable. It came awfully close to enduring control of the country. That it DID fail, this time around, was good for the country, but I don’t think it’s dead forever. And believe me - I wish it WAS.
BY DEFINITION, elites are smart and ambitious. I should know - I went to college with a lot of them. The elites will figure out a way to regain control. They just need a little more institutional capture - a little more control of the media and school boards, maybe. I think they probably have maxed out their control of universities and the federal government.
I think a major reason Obama won twice is that he rarely talked explicitly about race. He largely let his being the first major black candidate, and then the first black president, speak for itself. And he was smart to be tough on illegal immigration in his first term - the left may have called him "deporter in chief," but it gave him credibility, and there were/are good reasons for being tough.
If Obama and then Hillary had kept this up from 2014 onward, the Democrats might have won a third time. Progressives' reaction to Michael Brown's death - even when it turned out, as Jonathan Capehart put it, "hands up, don't shoot" was based on a lie - was a disaster. Instead of balancing law and order with needed reforms, Dems showed far too much sympathy with BLM and their claim that America was inherently racist. Maybe Obama was fed up with all the racism the right had flung at him over the years, but he should have been firmer with the left on this one: "chill out, kids, don't go alienating middle America."
Now, though, I agree the Democrats need to push out the activist entirely. The very presence in the Democratic party of such ideas as gender transition for kids, decriminalizing illegal border crossings, an all renewable energy supply, and the concept of "systemic" racism hold the party back. If we can't push them out, the Republicans will have a period of dominance as the new New Deal party.
I think Obama first got elected in 2008 under the old Democratic plan exactly for the reasons you said. He was the perfect human form of liberal universalism in the flesh. Then instead of doubling down in it they walked away.
In 2008 Hillary won the counties that would eventually support Trump. But by 2015 the Democratic Party was high on Hopeium and then the Bernie Bros moved it even further left with Andrew Gillum being the Bernie Bros’ biggest “success” by winning a major state nomination with 35% of the vote over the sure-fire nominee Gwen Graham.
That said, Obama was a very good president but the right wing echo chamber continued to get more powerful during his 8 years. And the right wing echo chamber excels at jacking up negatives of Democrats by either disseminating #fakenews (Hillary gave a stand down order) or getting people lost in the weeds (Hillary’s emails).
So the right wing echo chamber is still driving up Biden’s negatives even after he lost because it’s been so easy with Substack and podcasts and social media. So Bari Weiss who is positioning herself as a slightly right leaning fair and balanced news site is currently spreading the easily provable #fakenews that Biden didn’t know about an executive order when talking to Speaker Johnson. Why are they doing this? Probably because the right wing echo chamber want to engage in whataboutism when Trump’s brain turns into mashed taters in 16 months. Don’t fall for it!
Bottom line—the “problem” isn’t the Obama Coalition…it is that Republicans, via the right wing echo chamber, are better at politics than Democrats! I personally believe being better at governing is more important than politics…but you have to win elections to govern!
The emerging Democratic majority was a perfectly reasonable thesis had Democrats had the self-discipline to stick with their early 2000s-era platform, and I don't think even the most ardent Republican of that era would have expected Democrats to go as far off the deep end as they have. In my experience it was their surprisingly comfortable reelection in 2012 that really supercharged the feeling that the permanent majority had arrived and caused all voices of caution to be cast aside.
There's a feeling of inevitability to the collapse of the Obama coalition now, but had things gone ever so slightly differently in Butler, Pennsylvania we might be looking at President Harris expanding the censorship apparatus, dismantling voter integrity procedures, and seeking to give voting rights to so many more millions of illegal immigrants that there really would be a permanent Democratic majority. They came very, very close to succeeding in their goal of creating a one-party state.
+1
The Republican Party collapsed completely in 2008, and deserved it. Trump came along and put a competitive GOP product on the table, including, at least relatively, with Hispanics.
Obama quite frankly went up against a weak GOP, his success wasn’t tested.
Further, the two big changes under Obama, the ACA and gay marriage (which he opposed until the Supreme Court did it for him), left the coalition with literally no reason to exist anymore. What was Hillary running on in 2016, beyond it being “her turn.” How was she planning to change the country?
Biden (or his handlers) sort of gave the left purpose with his New Deal larping, but it turned out the “meritocratic technocrats” didn’t actually know what they were doing when it came to the economy. Now we are out of money.
Oh, sure, because white supremacist autocracy and fascism are just the absolute best, right? Nothing like maintaining white male dominance to really make the world a better place!
Very interesting article.
My sense is that the Obama coalition always had the progressive white college-educated class in the drivers seat of determining policy with the various minority groups being given money, jobs and symbolic support via DEI and social programs. Racial minorities were always just told what to believe and had little real influence within the party.
This made the Obama coalition far more narrow than it appeared. Once blacks, Hispanics, and Asians realized how far to the Left the party had become, then they started leaving the coalition in droves. This is more or less what happened to the white working class in previous generations.
What kept the whole thing going was partisan identification. I know so many older Democrats who are loyal to the party and seem oblivious to the fact that the party they are loyal to no longer exists.
My guess is that the Democratic Party will become more class based on increasingly lose support from working-class voters of all races. This will work fine in the 12-15 Blue states, but it will make them uncompetitive in federal elections and 25 Red states. Democrats need a fundamental rethink, but my guess is that it will take a decade out of power for them to have the courage to do it.
I'm actually bearing on the Democrats becoming class based again. They absolutely are going to want to be giving policies they think will benefit working people to buy them off. What they won't want to do for a host of complex reasons is give working class populists seats at the table and control. They will therefore operate more like the historical Progressive Movement, which sought to help working people while the working people politically supported Democratic populists and Tammany Hall.
Frank, in reading your article about the Democrats, I couldn't help but realize that there IS a working model of Democratic one party rule... California.
That's where the Obama coalition was taking America.
And the NEXT stage beyond that shithole is Canada, where I'm living. You would not believe the news blackouts up here on sooo many topics.
The Democrats may try, but I really do not think that they will succeed unless they radically change their policies. I just do not see them being willing to fundamentally change until they lose three straight Presidential elections like in the 1980s.
As for "becoming class based again." I think that is a myth. American politics has always been about ethno-religious groups and regions.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/understanding-american-political
I do think American politics will become more class-based, but the Democrats are far more likely to continue representing the professional class.
The quasi-religious self-righteousness of Democratic Party agenda is repulsive. It’s almost Calvinistic in its premises. No one wants to be told they are “going to Hell” if they don’t confess to sins they are not guilty for. Especially egregious is the public behavior of the leaders of this movement. Eventually, the lesson in “The Emperor has no clothes” came to be seen as the reality of the Left. It’s still playing out, fortunately.
I tend to agree with folks who think the New England Puritans are the true ancestors of todays' progressives (which is why the heart of both is in New England). The religion is quite different, but otherwise they're similar movements in structure, form, and goals.
Oh sure, because nothing screams "modern politics" quite like a bunch of right-wingers with a pedigree tracing back to German or Italian fascism. You know, like Ron DeSantis and Christopher Rufo—just your everyday, run-of-the-mill, democracy-loving folks! What a charming little lineage they've got going on!
This is my favourite article of yours from this Substack so far Frank, because it answers something that has been bothering me for a few years.
Since I began as a student in political thought in 2016, conferences have been obsessed with populism. At first I didn't pay much mind to it, but as I began reading about farmer populism and early trustbusting movements, a few claims that are taken as premises of academia's anti-populist project started rubbing me the wrong way. Particularly, the claim that populism=racism. This never made any sense to me, because the question of whether a populist movement is racist is particular to the movement, not inherent in the nature of it being a populist movement. At first I just chalked this up to "well this cohort of people calls anything they don't like racist" and they think the average person is racist.
The framing of it as a consequence of the ad-hoc coalition of technocratic governance and identity groups makes it make a lot more sense. The technocrats and the groups are one, and so populism, which by definition attacks technocratic governance, so by default they are also attacking the groups.
Good essay. The ferocious tenacity of the technocratic elite is splendidly illustrated in four years of trying to pull the wool over the collective eyes about who’s actually running the country. Media and government in lockstep. A more dramatic example would be hard to find.
Major political realignments were initially driven by one particular issue that sent one group from one party to another. Slavery created the Republican Party in the 1850s and railroad shipping rates created the Populist Party of the late nineteenth century. However, these were only the catalysts for more fundamental ideological and socioeconomic shifts in American politics. Republicans represented the rising influence of the Northern business elite over the Southern plantation aristocracy. The avarice of railroad robber barons led to a broader revolt against Gilded Age corruption and the advent of the Progressive era.
As I have written before in my New Nationalism Substack, I believe we are in the midst of a realignment to a political divide based on globalism vs. nationalism. Immigration was the catalyst issue of this realignment and Trump took full advantage of it. If the Democrats are to survive, they must adopt a progressive form of nationalism.
I roughly agree with that, although that's not exactly the framework I would apply! I've spent a lot of time thinking and writing about and studying American political realignments, and I therefore have my own (I believe correct!) take on how this all works.
https://www.amazon.com/Next-Realignment-Americas-Parties-Crumbling/dp/1633885089
I would say realignments are triggered by great a crisis of legitimacy caused by the decline of the old issues holding our parties together and their failure to address the new ones under the existing framework.
I definitely believe we're in the middle of a realignment. I'm not entirely committed yet to the true nature of the crisis, and am still working on it for (hopefully) a future book. I think globalism is part of it, but I suspect it's a second order affect or symptom or contributing factor of a greater trigger. I think there are some big issues and changes (economic, social, ideological) undercutting some baseline foundations of the American republic.
If you want a quick take on my view of the realignment process, this article I wrote a while back in American Interest is a good summary.
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2019/03/27/the-end-of-the-new-deal-era-and-the-coming-realignment/
(And I like your stuff at New Nationalism!)
I apologize for taking so long to respond and appreciate your kind words about New Nationalism. For a “quick take”, your post on historical realignments was a fascinating and comprehensive analysis of an important aspect of American history. In particular, your theory that realignments are tied to moral and religious Great Awakenings is very interesting. As you write your book, you may want to consult V.O. Key’s 1965 article “A Theory of Critical Elections” and his book “The American Voter” if you haven’t already done so. Key and his colleagues proposed that American politics has regularly realigned in 36-year cycles since the adoption of the Constitution. Recent history appears to disprove that thesis, though I believe a more likely explanation is that the increasing politicization of our society has reduced the term of the cycle to a generation; i.e, 24 years.
Thanks again for your perceptive analysis. I learn from all your posts and look forward to continuing to do so.
OK already! Just call me a 'DiStefano-stan!' LOL
I need to book about a 1/2 hour to your articles, they're so good.
Here's something I realized and just chatted w/my wife about...
Let's fast forward to '28 primaries and keep everything going on today as being equal at that time. Specifically, the primaries...
I'm looking back at the '20 Dem primaries... 'I was that girl', but Haris. 'Latinx' by Warren. Overall, it was a freaking clown show then, and I'm taking bets that it will even be worse in 4 years b/c I think AOC will take a run at it...
Now compare that to the possible runners on the Republican side...
Oh boy... Vivek, Tulsi, Gov Desantis, JD... and I could go on and on. If I was presented w/ just the aforementioned, I would probably just write in "All Of The Above!" if I were in a voting booth. My point is that the Republican bench is sooo deep.
A perfect example for ME is Tulsi's turn around re that Patriot Act law or subsection people are calling her 'turncoat' for this past week or so.
My take?
I trust that woman. Period. She saw stuff I didn't, and I respect her integrity enough that her decision is enough for me.
That TRUST on my part towards the New Republican elite is pretty strong on my part (of course seasoned w/ skepticism, but the Trust is stronger right now).
How much trust do I have in the Democrats?
ZERO.
And if a guy like me feels this way... oh man, you're so right Frank. This is a generational shift I think. I mean, OK, I'm elderly (66); but I believe my rebuke of Democrats goes deeper and wider than just me.
It's not going to be pretty, man. The assholes won't go away quietly.
Too kind. (But I’ll take it!)
obama was a terrible mistake
But what was the alternative? Bill Clinton necessarily followed the politics of premption, as did Eisenhower and Wilson, achieving only what the dominant party's dispensation would permit them. Obama was the second opposition party president, like FDR and Nixon. The reigning Republican dispensation had been totally discredited under Hoover and FDR took advantage of the big electoral victory this gained him to establish a new dispensation as I describe here:
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/how-the-new-dealers-gained-the-ability
Nixon did not see himself in a position to do the same, so he abandoned the fiscal conservatism his party long stood for, but labeled it as "Keynesian". Reagan later took this ball, added tax cuts and voila transformed "Keynesian" into "supply side" economics, but they really are the same thing (we plan to run deficits indefinitely). Otherwise he governed as a moderate preemptive.
Obama did pretty much the same thing as Nixon. What would Clinton have done that was different?
Granted I critique Obama in my post for failing to prevent the TARP from being passed and letting the financial system collapse. But I myself *supported* the TARP as a right thing to do in 2008, so I can I condemn Obama for doing what I would have done in his shoes?
So what would you have seen done?
The single most important thing the Democrats could have done in 2009 to reinforce a level of popular support that was already formidable was: Abolish The Filibuster. Or reduce it to, say, 55 votes, with a sunset clause dated right before the election. Then the Democrats could have done something similar to what Trump is doing now, only with Congressional legislation. And after two years of passing bills that would actually have effect by 2010 (i.e., not the ACA), they could have put their track record of successes to the test in the midterms.
But they didn't do it.
So they got stonewalled by filibuster threats, and then put so far in check in the midterms that it was all that Obama could do to use executive orders over the next six years to accomplish a very circumscribed agenda. He didn't even control his own budget. In the era of 0% Fed interest rates, the Dems could have put a comprehensive national infrastructure upgrade (which we still need) in place as a bargain front-end loaded investment. Instead, it was all about the Fed doing quantitative easing, and wrapping up the bailouts that had begun in the previous administration, and having the budget run by the dictates of "the sequester."
So I don't buy that the possibility of an enduring Democratic Party majority was foredoomed. It was squandered because of indecision, inaction, and inability to envision lasting improvements in public works and job stimulus for any constituency that didn't partake of the obsessions of the top 10% of bien pensant liberals (and the select beneficiaries of that patronage.) The Dems evidently still can't tell effective and innovative spending on the public commons from the pork barrel, as is becoming increasingly clear. The only difference is that the pork barrel got postmodernized, in partnership with lifestyle liberal nonprofits and NGOs.
The Obama coalition gave Democrats their only popular vote victories since the start of the Reagan political order. Economic appeals died with the end of the New Deal economy in 1973. Between them and Obama, Democrats won the popular vote only once due to an unforced error by Nixon.
To say that was an error would be to acknowledge Democrats would never be competitive again.
Actually none of this matters. Democrats were always going to win in 2008 and lose in 2016 no matter what they did it who they ran.
I’m not sure the collapse of this coalition was inevitable. It came awfully close to enduring control of the country. That it DID fail, this time around, was good for the country, but I don’t think it’s dead forever. And believe me - I wish it WAS.
BY DEFINITION, elites are smart and ambitious. I should know - I went to college with a lot of them. The elites will figure out a way to regain control. They just need a little more institutional capture - a little more control of the media and school boards, maybe. I think they probably have maxed out their control of universities and the federal government.
Rejection of incompetents is always a possibility
Just restate the primacy of society.
It's not hard.
Process that inspires confidence should be at its heart.. and women sacrosanct.
Sure.. it will be disappointing for identitarian absolutists... but that is a good thing.
The first step would be to define what is a "Democrat" in some more fundamental way than a supporter of the Democratic party.
I think a major reason Obama won twice is that he rarely talked explicitly about race. He largely let his being the first major black candidate, and then the first black president, speak for itself. And he was smart to be tough on illegal immigration in his first term - the left may have called him "deporter in chief," but it gave him credibility, and there were/are good reasons for being tough.
If Obama and then Hillary had kept this up from 2014 onward, the Democrats might have won a third time. Progressives' reaction to Michael Brown's death - even when it turned out, as Jonathan Capehart put it, "hands up, don't shoot" was based on a lie - was a disaster. Instead of balancing law and order with needed reforms, Dems showed far too much sympathy with BLM and their claim that America was inherently racist. Maybe Obama was fed up with all the racism the right had flung at him over the years, but he should have been firmer with the left on this one: "chill out, kids, don't go alienating middle America."
Now, though, I agree the Democrats need to push out the activist entirely. The very presence in the Democratic party of such ideas as gender transition for kids, decriminalizing illegal border crossings, an all renewable energy supply, and the concept of "systemic" racism hold the party back. If we can't push them out, the Republicans will have a period of dominance as the new New Deal party.
I think Obama first got elected in 2008 under the old Democratic plan exactly for the reasons you said. He was the perfect human form of liberal universalism in the flesh. Then instead of doubling down in it they walked away.
In 2008 Hillary won the counties that would eventually support Trump. But by 2015 the Democratic Party was high on Hopeium and then the Bernie Bros moved it even further left with Andrew Gillum being the Bernie Bros’ biggest “success” by winning a major state nomination with 35% of the vote over the sure-fire nominee Gwen Graham.
That said, Obama was a very good president but the right wing echo chamber continued to get more powerful during his 8 years. And the right wing echo chamber excels at jacking up negatives of Democrats by either disseminating #fakenews (Hillary gave a stand down order) or getting people lost in the weeds (Hillary’s emails).
So the right wing echo chamber is still driving up Biden’s negatives even after he lost because it’s been so easy with Substack and podcasts and social media. So Bari Weiss who is positioning herself as a slightly right leaning fair and balanced news site is currently spreading the easily provable #fakenews that Biden didn’t know about an executive order when talking to Speaker Johnson. Why are they doing this? Probably because the right wing echo chamber want to engage in whataboutism when Trump’s brain turns into mashed taters in 16 months. Don’t fall for it!
Bottom line—the “problem” isn’t the Obama Coalition…it is that Republicans, via the right wing echo chamber, are better at politics than Democrats! I personally believe being better at governing is more important than politics…but you have to win elections to govern!
Fake news is symmetric. One sides fake news is the others real news. Winning requires breaking symmetry in your favor.