Among the threats to the American political system you fail to mention were the weaponizing of the FBI/CIA and organization of the "Resistance" against a duly elected President, albeit severely flawed. This "Resistance" filled the NYT/WaPo with daily false reports of Russian conspiracy then perpetrated and threatened further violence in American cities unless it got its' way. Is there no intellectual space to acknowledge BOTH that Trump was unsuited for the Presidency AND that the much opposition to him was underhanded, deceitful and undemocratic?
As for disenfranchisement of women voters - "Historically, too many citizens have been excluded from political participation because of race or gender . . .", I recommend that you check your facts before writing 'woke truth'. Women have been voting in higher percentages then men in presidential elections for the past 40 years, cf. Historical Reporting Rates in US Census.
Lastly, I disagree that the Electoral College is a flaw. Much like the structure of the Senate, it was designed to limit political domination by large urban centers of the mostly rural rest of the US. I can think of few better ways to promote dissolution of the US than the elimination of barriers to tyranny of the majority by elimination of the Electoral College, packing the Supreme Court (and the Senate), and elimination of the Senate filibuster. What possible motive would there ever be for compromise with minority views?
Just one quick comment on the EC. I don't see it necessarily as a flaw. As you write, it was designed to balance regional representation, which is entirely legitimate and was perhaps essential to political stability back when the EC was implemented. But this was before partisan politics became thoroughly nationalized and before the partisan cleavage mapped neatly onto urban/rural differences. That's a big reason why there were only three split elections (EC winner lost the popular vote) between 1788 and 1999, but an additional three split elections between 2000 and 2020. This might turn out to be a fleeting phase. But if we end up with large and consistent EC/popular vote splits, it raises all sorts of questions about the democratic mandate... especially b/c parties now have every incentive to ignore the interests of "safe" regions of the country and focus on a handful of swing states instead. I don't have a strong opinion on whether the EC should be abolished b/c, realistically, it won't be.
One of the questions your article begs so vehemently is the scope of "Trumpism". To the extent it includes the antithesis of Nixon's approach to China, supporting legal immigration (which necessarily means creating strong disincentives to illegal immigration), banning overtly racist "sensitivity" training based on Critical Race Theory, and favoring low regulation/low taxation as the best means of supporting an economy faltering hard as a result of COVID-19, then you're going to have a hard time finding conservatives who will disavow it. To the extent, in contrast, you intend it to be limited to constantly divisive non-factual rhetoric, disrespecting almost every political institution in the United States (the presidency most of all), refusing to negotiate and compromise with political opponents for the good of the country, and failing to provide even a modicum of leadership on COVID-19 and racial strife, then I think you will find a welter of conservative support. Put differently, "Trumpism" sometimes is broadened to include traditionally conservative policies that are not going to be abandoned solely because Trump supported them.
Four days ago, the Persuasion staff asked Teixeira the key question “Did the woke help Trump?” This post omits wokeness and attributes success first to “urban college-educated liberals,” and second to minorities.
These urban liberals did vote for Biden, but according to Teixeira the woke helped Trump by branding the Democrats with “defund and abolish the police” wokeness. Of course, the woke are mostly “urban college-educated liberals.”
(Also according to Teixeira, “The bigger movement was a reduction of the deficit among White non-college voters.”)
A new post on The Hill says wokeness explains the two huge surprises of this election: Biden barely squeaked by, and the Democrats did considerably worse than Biden. I can’t say how accurate it is, but it’s worth reading.
I don't want to dive too deeply into 2020 voting patterns because (1) it's not really my area of expertise and (2) it's still too early for robust conclusions.. some states haven't even finished counting the votes yet. But I think we're beginning to see a few patterns emerge. First, a shift of nonwhite voters towards the GOP... not just in Florida but also along the Texas border and in some cities. We can have a long debate why that happened. My sense is that it probably has a lot to do with the Dems taking minorities for granted as a constituency, and perhaps with the social conservatism of those voters as well (compared to urban liberals). Second, suburban white voters shifted towards Biden in crucial swing states and helped Dems to rebuild the "blue wall". I don't know how that shift breaks down into college-educated vs non-college whites. Third, turnout was super high, but especially so among whites (https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1326243759005249536). Fourth, Biden outperformed down-ballot Dems and Trump underperformed down-ballot Republicans and *also* underperformed predictions based on fundamentals. I think there are a few stories that are broadly compatible with these patterns, and it'll take some time to sort out which one is most plausible. One story is that "wokeness hurt the Dems" because it limited voter conversion outside of the "Whole Foods zip codes" (I think that's how Dave Wasserman calls them?). Another story is that messaging didn't really matter too much in the end -- the election was a personal referendum on Trump (which drove up turnout and tipped a few states towards the Dems), but voters basically stuck with prior party allegiance to make their down-ballot choices. This intuitively makes sense to me, given the high level of polarization and the low % of genuine non-partisans in the electorate. And a third story is some combination of base mobilization + swing voter conversion: GA turned blue because of strong ground game and automatic voter registration (which still tends to benefit Dems); AZ might end up in the blue column because of Dems' appeal to urban college-educated populations around Phoenix; PA and parts of the Midwest went blue because of voter persuasion, etc. I'd add one more thing: I'm often not sure what exactly we mean by "wokeness", partially because the term is descriptive (you are woke if you believe X, Y, and Z) but also a branding strategy (you are wrong because you are woke!) and an identity category (I am more woke than you!). And those are quite hard to disentangle, so we often end up with hot takes that turn personal preference into prediction.
I agree, it's too soon to know. And yes, wokeness gets defined differently in different contexts, and I'd guess it's not quite the right focus. We need is a definition for election analysis -- that would be the slogans that the Republicans tarred us with: medicare for all, socialism, defund and abolish the police, and calling all Trump voters "white supremacists."
One data point: a Bernie Sanders-style candidate, Kara Eastman, who backs “Medicare for all” and was endorsed by progressive groups like the Justice Democrats for a House seat. She lost her race by almost five percentage points, while Biden won the district by almost seven points.
That's quite a spread considering that poli-sci is telling us ticket-splitting is almost a thing of the past.
Among the threats to the American political system you fail to mention were the weaponizing of the FBI/CIA and organization of the "Resistance" against a duly elected President, albeit severely flawed. This "Resistance" filled the NYT/WaPo with daily false reports of Russian conspiracy then perpetrated and threatened further violence in American cities unless it got its' way. Is there no intellectual space to acknowledge BOTH that Trump was unsuited for the Presidency AND that the much opposition to him was underhanded, deceitful and undemocratic?
As for disenfranchisement of women voters - "Historically, too many citizens have been excluded from political participation because of race or gender . . .", I recommend that you check your facts before writing 'woke truth'. Women have been voting in higher percentages then men in presidential elections for the past 40 years, cf. Historical Reporting Rates in US Census.
Lastly, I disagree that the Electoral College is a flaw. Much like the structure of the Senate, it was designed to limit political domination by large urban centers of the mostly rural rest of the US. I can think of few better ways to promote dissolution of the US than the elimination of barriers to tyranny of the majority by elimination of the Electoral College, packing the Supreme Court (and the Senate), and elimination of the Senate filibuster. What possible motive would there ever be for compromise with minority views?
Just one quick comment on the EC. I don't see it necessarily as a flaw. As you write, it was designed to balance regional representation, which is entirely legitimate and was perhaps essential to political stability back when the EC was implemented. But this was before partisan politics became thoroughly nationalized and before the partisan cleavage mapped neatly onto urban/rural differences. That's a big reason why there were only three split elections (EC winner lost the popular vote) between 1788 and 1999, but an additional three split elections between 2000 and 2020. This might turn out to be a fleeting phase. But if we end up with large and consistent EC/popular vote splits, it raises all sorts of questions about the democratic mandate... especially b/c parties now have every incentive to ignore the interests of "safe" regions of the country and focus on a handful of swing states instead. I don't have a strong opinion on whether the EC should be abolished b/c, realistically, it won't be.
One of the questions your article begs so vehemently is the scope of "Trumpism". To the extent it includes the antithesis of Nixon's approach to China, supporting legal immigration (which necessarily means creating strong disincentives to illegal immigration), banning overtly racist "sensitivity" training based on Critical Race Theory, and favoring low regulation/low taxation as the best means of supporting an economy faltering hard as a result of COVID-19, then you're going to have a hard time finding conservatives who will disavow it. To the extent, in contrast, you intend it to be limited to constantly divisive non-factual rhetoric, disrespecting almost every political institution in the United States (the presidency most of all), refusing to negotiate and compromise with political opponents for the good of the country, and failing to provide even a modicum of leadership on COVID-19 and racial strife, then I think you will find a welter of conservative support. Put differently, "Trumpism" sometimes is broadened to include traditionally conservative policies that are not going to be abandoned solely because Trump supported them.
Four days ago, the Persuasion staff asked Teixeira the key question “Did the woke help Trump?” This post omits wokeness and attributes success first to “urban college-educated liberals,” and second to minorities.
These urban liberals did vote for Biden, but according to Teixeira the woke helped Trump by branding the Democrats with “defund and abolish the police” wokeness. Of course, the woke are mostly “urban college-educated liberals.”
(Also according to Teixeira, “The bigger movement was a reduction of the deficit among White non-college voters.”)
A new post on The Hill says wokeness explains the two huge surprises of this election: Biden barely squeaked by, and the Democrats did considerably worse than Biden. I can’t say how accurate it is, but it’s worth reading.
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/525227-another-reason-to-celebrate-the-implosion-of-woke-identity-politics
I don't want to dive too deeply into 2020 voting patterns because (1) it's not really my area of expertise and (2) it's still too early for robust conclusions.. some states haven't even finished counting the votes yet. But I think we're beginning to see a few patterns emerge. First, a shift of nonwhite voters towards the GOP... not just in Florida but also along the Texas border and in some cities. We can have a long debate why that happened. My sense is that it probably has a lot to do with the Dems taking minorities for granted as a constituency, and perhaps with the social conservatism of those voters as well (compared to urban liberals). Second, suburban white voters shifted towards Biden in crucial swing states and helped Dems to rebuild the "blue wall". I don't know how that shift breaks down into college-educated vs non-college whites. Third, turnout was super high, but especially so among whites (https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1326243759005249536). Fourth, Biden outperformed down-ballot Dems and Trump underperformed down-ballot Republicans and *also* underperformed predictions based on fundamentals. I think there are a few stories that are broadly compatible with these patterns, and it'll take some time to sort out which one is most plausible. One story is that "wokeness hurt the Dems" because it limited voter conversion outside of the "Whole Foods zip codes" (I think that's how Dave Wasserman calls them?). Another story is that messaging didn't really matter too much in the end -- the election was a personal referendum on Trump (which drove up turnout and tipped a few states towards the Dems), but voters basically stuck with prior party allegiance to make their down-ballot choices. This intuitively makes sense to me, given the high level of polarization and the low % of genuine non-partisans in the electorate. And a third story is some combination of base mobilization + swing voter conversion: GA turned blue because of strong ground game and automatic voter registration (which still tends to benefit Dems); AZ might end up in the blue column because of Dems' appeal to urban college-educated populations around Phoenix; PA and parts of the Midwest went blue because of voter persuasion, etc. I'd add one more thing: I'm often not sure what exactly we mean by "wokeness", partially because the term is descriptive (you are woke if you believe X, Y, and Z) but also a branding strategy (you are wrong because you are woke!) and an identity category (I am more woke than you!). And those are quite hard to disentangle, so we often end up with hot takes that turn personal preference into prediction.
I agree, it's too soon to know. And yes, wokeness gets defined differently in different contexts, and I'd guess it's not quite the right focus. We need is a definition for election analysis -- that would be the slogans that the Republicans tarred us with: medicare for all, socialism, defund and abolish the police, and calling all Trump voters "white supremacists."
One data point: a Bernie Sanders-style candidate, Kara Eastman, who backs “Medicare for all” and was endorsed by progressive groups like the Justice Democrats for a House seat. She lost her race by almost five percentage points, while Biden won the district by almost seven points.
That's quite a spread considering that poli-sci is telling us ticket-splitting is almost a thing of the past.