As Americans were hanging on every update of the vote counting, Inside Higher Education posted a fascinating–and overall encouraging–graphic.
The embedded image shows the election results we would have gotten had we counted only the votes cast by those under 30. In a real sense, it also is a snapshot of each state’s “political future.” Overall, the map is comforting–results range from light to dark blue in large areas of the country, confirming my often-stated belief that the younger generation overall is more inclusive, more community-minded and “with it” than my own.
Voters under age 30 leaned heavily Democratic, favoring Joe Biden over President Donald Trump by a wide margin (61 versus 36 percent) in the recently-called presidential election, but there were key differences among young voters across gender, racial and state lines, according to an analysis of exit polling data from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University in Massachusetts
That said, there are some disappointing elements to the analysis. For one thing, young white men supported Trump by a six-point margin (51 versus 45 percent).( I am happy to report that young white women favored former vice president Biden by 13 percentage points (55 to 42 percent)).
Even more disquieting for my family of Hoosiers, Indiana remained red amid the varying shades of blue. Young people in Indiana will evidently carry on the state’s tradition of minimal, largely ineffective government and widespread racial antagonism. As my son recently pointed out, higher-education levels are low in the state, and young Hoosiers who graduate from college leave Indiana at a high rate.
Other states show evidence of evolution, albeit with that same disquieting racial breakdown:
In Georgia and North Carolina, 90 percent or more of young Black voters chose Biden, while more than half of young white voters (54 percent in North Carolina and 63 percent in Georgia) favored Trump.
In Texas, Latinx voters supported Biden over Trump by a nearly 50-percentage-point margin (73 versus 25 percent), while a majority of young white voters preferred Trump (51 versus 45 percent for Biden).
My son pointed to the analysis as justification for his advice to his teenage children–“find a better place to live; don’t come back to Indiana; we’ll follow you.” That advice was more anecdotal evidence supporting Bill Bishop’s Big Sort assertion that Americans are voting with our feet, and “sorting” geographically into locations where our neighbors share our political convictions.
None of this bodes well for Indiana. The past couple of decades have seen small towns continue to empty out. Children born in those towns, and the rural areas that surround them, have migrated either to metropolitan areas within the state, or left Indiana entirely. The super-majority of Republicans dominating our state’s legislature has waged war on public education, creating a voucher program that sends already scarce education dollars to (almost always religious) private schools, several of which teach creationism in lieu of science.
Indiana’s legislature has also defunded higher education, resulting in Indiana’s finest colleges admitting ever more out-of-state students who tend to leave after graduation.
The low levels of education and the relatively low levels of diversity around the state contribute to a situation that’s exacerbated by the “winner take all” law that is the worst aspect of the Electoral College. Even if 49.5% of Hoosiers somehow voted for a Democrat, the state’s Eleven Electoral Votes would be awarded to a Republican who received 50.5%, a situation that encourages the legislature to ignore dissenting voices. That’s not a situation likely to bring talented people to Indiana, or to keep those we manage to raise.
People move to livable communities. Strike one against Indiana’s creation of such communities is our neglect of infrastructure. Strike two is inadequate funding of education. Strike three, as displayed on the embedded map, is the fact that Indiana voters — today and evidently into the future — can be counted on to support know-nothings and White Supremacists up and down the ballot.
Indiana–the Mississippi of the North….
Like your son’s advice to his children, I have urged my grandchildren to leave the state also. I hope they do, but know that it is hard.
Three of my siblings left Indiana for the west coast back in the 60s and from time to time talk of moving back to be closer to family. Alas, they each drop that idea when they consider the political and social backwater that Indiana has become. One sister who moved to New York and then moved back now regrets her return citing the conservative and religiously controlled society that offers so little to anyone with an open mind.
When I look at the statistics on the recent vote here I am beyond discouraged for this state. “Hopeless” is the one word that describes Indiana.
This must be changed in Indiana. I attribute this to two things: gerrymandered districts that swallow up the Democratic vote, and the “winner-take-all” decision for the electoral votes. Indiana might not have a large percentage of people with college degrees but that does not mean that these two issues cannot be resolved. I was embarrassed when Indiana was the first state in the nation to post 11 electoral votes for Trump when the political desk indicated that only 13% of voting results were in. Makes me feel that any Democratic votes were not counted at all. We need a grassroots measure to flip these two issues so that all are more fairly represented in our state.
Sheila,
this is all quite fascinating, but, when people abandon the states they live in, searching for a state with more progressive leanings, those abandoned states are not going to change. A more advantageous approach would be to change the laws so that elections are based on the majority vote rather than some manufactured electoral college nonsense that supposedly equals the playing field.
Democratic rule has to be decided by the voters/citizens, not corporations, not super PACs, not lobbyists, not deep pockets! One citizen, one vote, one outcome! Until that is repaired, nothing will be accomplished. You heard the Republicans talking about wasted votes, that in Democratic strongholds or Democratic leaning regions, everyone that votes Democratic is just wasting their vote because the outcome is already a foregone conclusion.
It seems to me, that would work both ways! In a Democratic stronghold, why would GOP voters cast their vote? If it was a foregone conclusion they would lose, wouldn’t that be just a wasted vote? The GOP logic is flawed, and the only way to rectify the issue is through changing election laws sure every single vote counts one way or the other. Disenfranchisement of voting groups cannot be tolerated and cannot continue.
If there was any doubt the current president is the Muscovian and candidate, this Daly Mail article sheds plenty of light on it! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html
It would be beneficial for all concerned if Donald Trump was removed immediately rather than allowing him to demolish her as a young folks say, smash his way through the government or 70 some days.
There has already been shootings of supporters across the country, and a lot of it’s not reported. The blood being spilled is just getting started, this is a coup by the current president to prevent his predecessor from even taking office.
I hope I’m wrong, I hope he’ll just leave, but his surrogates are saying otherwise. Republican Congressman and women are refusing to abide by an election, exactly like those in other countries that they’ve criticized for decades. The hypocrisy runs deep, the white Protestant evangelical Christian male is an extremely cowardly animal, they are pack beasts and predatory in nature. They enjoy the turmoil and smell of blood as long as it’s not their own.
I have read articles where it’s claimed that Trump is just looking for an offramp to save face, unfortunately I don’t believe that. I believe he is trying to force some sort of revolution and allow his minority to keep power. The longer this is allowed to go on, the more ensconced in the White House he is going to be, and the more tumultuous and insane his followers will become. This country is no stranger to assassinations, so, Trump really is not beating around the bush so to speak and neither are his sycophantic bootlickers. They are in lockstep with their own little Adolph. They are calling for heads on pikes and bodies hanging in public squares. That kind of talk by politicians is way out of bounds, those individuals need to be taken out of society and locked up because there is no room for that sort of opinion. This is what happens when there are no guardrails.
Somebody better realize there needs to be some hard-hitting repercussions and drastic intervention for what is happening right now, and not lulled to wait for 70 more days, because there might not be much left in 70 days! Will there be blood? There is blood already! If you look at Night Of The Long knives, you’re seeing the same trajectory here.
“The embedded image shows the election results we would have gotten had we counted only the votes cast by those under 30.”
That statement took me back to the early 1980s while working with a group of voters in that age group; we had two one-year contracts with the City of Indianapolis working with local teens to better education and job opportunities. The director Mike Priller sent me to the State House to research a bill before the Legislature to allow 14 year-olds to quit school; when I questioned the common sense of that issue, he told me I can find statistics to prove any point if I know where to look. Fortunately that bill did not pass. I have doubted statistics and polls since then.
“Indiana’s legislature has also defunded higher education, resulting in Indiana’s finest colleges admitting ever more out-of-state students who tend to leave after graduation.”
It appears that for at least 40 years Indiana has been working on uneducating our young people in all levels of education. No wonder we don’t move from Red State position which keeps us in the past mid-century mind set.
Stepping into our current presidential election “situation”; we have all watched Trump’s heavy-handed battle against mail-in votes (which he participated in) by trying to destroy the USPS and the Florida battle against allowing convicted felons to vote. The Republicans have now started claiming many voters are deceased and are attempting, sometimes succeeding, in purging their votes. I turned to Fox News to see the end of one tirade by a woman whose identity I missed, saying “…people are voting twice, they are crossing state lines to vote twice.” In 2000 I lived in Florida for that infamous recount; they claimed dead people had voted as well as convicted felons and purged their votes. During the recount someone “found” a locked closet filled with boxes of mail ballots which had arrived prior to the election; it was decided they did not arrive in time to be counted and all were purged. George W’s brother Jeb Bush was governor of Florida at that time. These issues are being used today; they must be on the “Republican Election Reclamation To-Do List”; only that crossing-state-lines-to-vote appears to be a new claim. Will this continue till January 20, 2021, and end after Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ inaugurations have been completed? Where have Mike and “Mother” Pence been through this?
My son (now in his early thirties) moved to Indianapolis for grad school (IUPUI) and stayed. He and his girlfriend and other friends canvassed neighborhoods and worked at polling places during early voting. They kept voters aware of waiting times. I know, based on what he has told me and what I have read here, that Indy is a blue pool in the state, but I am inspired by their activism and they have no plans to move. (Although this Illinois mom wishes he was closer!)
We might have gotten the same map in 1968, when many of us were young, but look at us now.
So IN, GA and MS becomes the core of the American Fascist Party. I’ve been railing against Indiana’s RTBM (race to become Mississippi) for years. Our girls live in South Bend and Chicago. At least South Bend gave us Mayor Pete and still serves as one of Indiana’s few blue ponds in an otherwise red ocean. We live on one of Northern Indiana’s beautiful natural lakes and have limited engagement with the local community. Pre-Covid I volunteered as a mentor to K-2 boys with social-emotional challenges and also helping the naturalist at our county parks system – one of the best in Indiana. So, we’re going nowhere because we won’t ever live far away from our family. If THEY were to pick up and leave it wouldn’t be an issue for us to follow them, provided we still have our health and mobility.
I really don’t see anything changing in Indiana’s future….and especially not after this election, where a far-right extremist won an open US House seat by a greater margin than Trump topped Biden and in an area of the state where low educational attainment and median incomes cannot be factors. It’s much deeper than that. We have been inoculated against anything remotely progressive and to fully embrace the Darwinian policies of crony-capitalist Reaganomics that feeds corporations a steady diet of tax cuts, cheap labor, free infrastructure, direct subsidies and a very friendly regulatory environment. It’s no wonder we always rank high in CEO surveys except in that one little trouble-spot: the health and education of our workforce.
And all our Governor can do is pump his cheerleader pom-poms and yell “SKILL UP – MASK UP HOOSIERS!!”.
This article is very timely since I am speaking with a group of young people in Indianapolis about getting more democrats voting in Indiana. Let’s face it, the Coastal Liberals who set policies don’t really have Indiana in mind when advocating for social or economic advancements.
However, if Georgia can turn a light shade of blue, I think Indiana can also. I would think Medicare for All and a $15.00 an hour minimum wage would convince voters to get off their asses to cast a ballot.
I really don’t see anything on the Biden/Harris platform to get excited about. They’ll spend two years patching up the major wounds.
Progressives listen to Republicans like Romney and Kasich and wonder if the DNC is getting ready to screw them over again. In short, they will. You’d think by now that Bernie would learn he is just a tool for them. Progressives will have to bury the DNC soon. It will be fun to watch.
Unless I missed something, why aren’t Indiana’s politicians advocating for drug and alcohol rehabs in our state? The mid to small urban communities are getting ravaged by drug use. The less mobile kids feel hopeless, so they are escaping their living hell with drugs and booze.
Are corporate farms okay with that so they can bulldoze the building remaining to add more farmland?
The Republican party politicos don’t seem to have the desire to help the people. They don’t give a shit about workers, the environment, our infrastructure, etc. It seems like self-destruction is their model versus creative policymaking. Have they turned over the public sector to the oligarchs and just walked away?
I forgot to mention that if the Hoosiers keep beating good football teams they’re going to have to leave the Big Ten and join the SEC!
Of course there’s that old adage: “If you’re not a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart. If you’re not conservative when you’re older, you have no brain.”
Hard to say if those liberal voters of today will still be liberal voters in 10 or 20 years.
I have often tried to discuss moving back to Indiana with my wife (I left Indiana in 2000 and she is from Michigan but lived in CO for her PhD program and IA for work). I am fond of Indiana and have a lot of friends still in the trenches around the state. My wife, however, will not even consider this as an option… her view of Indiana is not good, at all. So, we will stay here OR move someplace that is not Indiana. You would think that we would be a likely target family to relocate but it is an uphill climb… a steep one. Indiana just seems like a state that merely wants to exist, and not grow. I wish it luck. Sheila has identified a few of its problems.
I don’t think any young person will ever move based on electoral college votes, or at least I would not have, because I was blissfully unaware of how it mattered until I was well into my 30’s. The thing that would make somebody move are jobs, infrastructure, and having a like mined community. By community, I mean the people you interact with on a daily basis, be it your neighbors, co-workers, or community organizations.
Like somebody else pointed out, there are a pockets of blue in a deep red state, and downtown Indianapolis is one of those. But, it does make me wonder how long we are going to stay, given how politically backward the rest of the state is.
Trump and the Republicans are still peddling one more big lie, riling up anger in many voters, and angry voters whether justified by the truth or not, vote. It also looks like a divided federal legislature may be able to manufacture another long painful slow recovery like they did starting in 2008 when they were claiming to be “fiscally conservative”, but actually trying to tap in the that voter anger or a perceived poor economy. Unfortunately Indiana Republicans will be able to capitalize on this manufactured anger and retain power.
It is also disappointing to see Kansas as pink on that map. Kansas Republicans have strangled the government so much that I had thought people had woken up to what is expected from a real government. It is going to be a tight race between Indiana and Kansas to see who makes it to the bottom first.
Two things: I wouldn’t be too encouraged about young voters, since people, esp. young men, tend to grow more conservative as they age.
Secondly, and more importantly, encouraging young people to leave strikes me as a form of irresponsible passivity. Those of us who care about civic engagement should be beating the drums for organizing Hoosiers for better choices, not opting out! The only people who can change minds are people who know the local culture and figure out constructive ways to engage. (Pete Buttigieg’s being a sterling example.) If we all leave, or just moan, the right wing is handed an uncontested field. In the long run, that jeopardizes all of us, everywhere. The social advances in the first half of the twentieth century were not made by top down elites arguing policy proposals, but by local organizers in every corner of the country making the case with working class people they were closely related to and understood. When Democrats stopped doing that, and Republicans learned how to, Republicans were able to gain control. Only where this grassroots organizing is rebuilt (as in Arizona and Georgia) will Democrats be able to regain lost ground. Four decades of Republicans mastering the art while Democrats keep offering wonky policies and lamenting that ordinary people don’t get it, and we still can’t figure it out?!
Thank you, Carol Frances Johnston! Food for thought. A direction for action.
I have heard the adage “Change or Die”. Indiana Republicans don’t understand that we now have a brain drain. Talented young people are leaving due to the dismal policies of the Republicans in our state around social issues. Republicans don’t really support scientific innovation that would improve our lives nor do the realize how we are already being affected by global warming. They just want to stay in their comfort zone like lots of people in rural areas. Over time should the census drop dramatically, our voice in Washington will be smaller.
Born in Terre Haute, grew up in Indianapolis, went to Broad Ripple. Picketed the White House against Medicare as a conservative kid, then at IU turned a model Senate around from a right-wing propaganda tool to pass the Great Society and Civil Rights bills as a Democrat. I left IU for Harvard Graduate School in 1966 and moved to Washington State in 1972. Here, especially Seattle, is one of the most liberal, diverse communities in the nation. I put 40+ years into the LGBTQ+ movement here. It took us 29 years to get anti-discrimination statewide and 17 years to win marriage equality by winning 2 referenda with strong statewide support. In 2018 I came back to see the Indy 500, got to talk to Birch Bayh by phone from a dinner for ex-staff and interns (1965 was my intern year). and visited conservative, creationist family members. I considered living in Indianapolis again – apartments cost half of what they cost here – but my addiction to activism and enjoyment of fighting the fundamentalists and Birchers and delight in winning would have been frustrated by the lack of co-conspirators and progressives to hook up with. I left Indiana to find my true self, a quest still going on at age 75. I cheer for IU basketball because it’s the one thing my preacher dad and I could talk about. I respect the faith of my family members, who seem drawn to the right mainly by the “pro-life” values that make them overlook the hypocritical morals of the Republicans today. I dreamed of a Biden landslide, saying Indiana would report early and, if it went blue, my wish came true, but I ended up posting “Indiana is a good place to be FROM!” For all my fondness for my state of origin, that’s how it is. I was well educated in Indiana in the ’50s and ’60s, when the state had Hartke and Bayh and the smell of white supremacy wasn’t quite the stench it had been before the War. It prepared me well to go away as a 20 year old. I’m sad to hear the trend continues 55 years later.
It will be interesting to see how many of the eligible young voters registered and voted, percentage-wise. Historically, this has been pathetic. If this continued, considered the impact they could have had.
Live next door-Ohio-raised and educated in Indiana 70+ yrs ago. Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati newspapers sent reporters to the large Ohio towns (15000) when they were young to report on the present town. With the exception of Bay Village, a very upper middle class older suburb of Cleveland on Lake Erie, the communities have lost their young adults-NO MANUFACTURING JOBS that used to exist; automotive, steel mills, steel products, electrical equipment, etc. These were high paying jobs with solid benefits gone forever. The public schools the reporters attended now have less than half students.
Ohio is no longer ‘the bell weather state’ of national politics. Lost one House Representative in 2010 census and will lose another in the 2020 census. The counties that include Cleveland, Toledo, Youngstown, Columbus, Cincinnati and Athens voted largely for Biden, Dayton voted closely for Biden, the rest of the state voted for Trump who easily carried Ohio. Demographics in the state now result in high school educated middle aged white voters as the majority of small city and rural voters who vote about 75% Republican.
Grade level/college level education, Ohio is 34th and Indiana is 48th ranked in the USA. The good paying factory jobs available in both states are less than half of what they were 50 yrs ago. The small/middle size family farms that raised live stock are gone and the elderly farmers are now part of a modern form of share cropping. The movers and shakers, both rural and urban, have mostly gone away as have local businesses(retail and wholesale) and banks that have been critical to local business/industrial growth have been absorbed by national and/or regional banks. As we age, we become more possessive of our ‘way of life’ that exists more in selective memory and criticize the rapid social, informational, educational changes that we don’t understand.
Are you sure the Indiana legislature cut higher education spending? I reviewed the article you linked to and here is the key phrase:
“As a share of GDP, spending dropped from 0.74 to 0.62%. That is more than $2,300 less per Hoosier college student each year.”
Instead of doing a straight comparison of spending from one year to the next, the author weirdly ran it through the GDP (which depends on the performance of the economy) in order to come up with a supposed $2,300 decrease. Why do that? If you’re going to try to make adjustment from year to year, you’d use the inflation rate. But he didn’t do that.
My guess is spending for higher education did not actually go down in real numbers or even in inflation-adjusted numbers, and since his goal was to show a decrease in spending he went the GDP route.
One thing I’ve learned being involved in Hoosier politics is despite the rhetoric of some one the left, we spend more on K-12 and higher education virtually every year and those increases are often above the inflation rate.
John,
Your point is very solid. Texas, Georgia, Colorado and a few others I don’t know about are receiving new residents from California and other liberal states. That is shifting the voting identity quite dramatically. In Colorado, only 13 of our 30+ counties trended red. Even the red counties showed slippage in the blue direction. Hoosiers really do need to take back their state from institutionalized ignorance and morons like Mike Pence.
It’s an awful feeling to have my ballot not count on the national level, buried under Indiana’s oppressive Republican structure. The electoral college (let’s see how that goes this time), gerrymandering, citizens united(lots of Alec influence) & voter suppression add up to Republican barricade for constructive change. My republican neighbor received three mail-in ballots as reminder to vote & saw on news many people(assuming democratic) received theirs too late to mail in. Mailboxes & mail sorting machines removed prior to election are obvious deterrents. Indiana is Pence politics, with Holcomb doing his bidding.
“…a voucher program that sends already scarce education dollars to (almost always religious) private schools, several of which teach creationism in lieu of science.”
Sheila – Did you mistype a word in the above quotation? Did you mean to say “cretinism”?
I think if more young people learned civics in school and fewer learned politics on social/entertainment media one result would be that they would understand the real definitions of the progressive/conservative and liberal/authoritarian axis and make more informed decisions about their future here.
Back in the day it seemed to me more prevalent that wives politically followed their husbands. Tomorrow I can easily see the opposite happening a lot, husbands following their wives instincts. To whatever degree it changes it will be an improvement in the lives of both genders and the nation.
BTW, I was conservative when my life was absorbed by the business authoritarian/conservative world and learned as the businesses that I was involved in did not fare well the consequences of operating that way. Then I retired and joined the bigger world and that sealed the deal on my movement to liberal/progressive.
If America eventually manages to look anything like the Tufts map of young people, we will slowly regain our innovation, our respect for higher learning, our competitiveness, our prosperity, our sense of fairness and justice, our belief in science, our empathy, our widening opportunities, our understanding of why social good outweighs the prejudices of any given individual (“hell no I won’t wear a mask and keep your mitts off my gun”), our love of diversity, our respect for the rule of law, our kindness and understanding, our practice of critical thinking, our sense of humor, our sense of togetherness, our high esteem for freedom and democracy and patriotism, our reliability, and will restore countless other national traits that Trump seems to have taken from us. We will certainly lie less and not try to create hatred among various groups and stop treating government as if it were the problem (actually that’s a Reaganism).
“Democrat” is how we refer to people who agree on almost all of these principles. Now what we have to do is convert the non believers – not impossible when they get a better grasp on what policies and principles serve their personal interests.
BTW, I hear the terms “fiscally conservative” quite a bit. What does it even mean as something that describes behavior preference? Is there anyone who doesn’t avoid wasting money?
The political question is what do various kinds of people choose to invest in or maybe for some, not invest at all and hope instead for the best.
Pete,
My experience was very similar to yours.
Terry, your list of liberal/progressive values is the most complete and concise that I’ve seen. Can I paraphrase it for a Facebook post?
Strange that Sheila’s topic for the day is the same one my (retired federal worker) daughter and I discussed just yesterday after telling her that I was humiliated that Indiana was the first of fifty states called for Trump in the recent election. We discussed the brain drain and other such problems associated with a stagnant society, and especially one whose economy and politics has been captured by the moneyed class via a Fox diet of racism, religion and threats of socialism designed to keep the masses in line.
We discussed moving to Marietta, Georgia, to Newt’s old district (which is now blue) at the outer northern reaches of Atlanta, a city on the move, and only a day’s drive from here in Bloomington, itself a blue dot in a sea of red. We were also thinking the Atlanta area because one of my grand daughters (from Franklin, Indiana) is set to begin her PhD in Physics there at Emory University soon (speaking of brain drain). She is smart, liberal, and likely to spend her adult life in academia. Purdue or Rose Poly? Not likely in such a otherwise stifling environment.
So are we witnessing a reprise of The Grapes of Wrath with Hoosiers in the role of the “Oakies” fleeing a social, political and economic “Dust Bowl? Could be.
Carol concluded, “Four decades of Republicans mastering the art (grassroots organizing and bottom up policy making) while Democrats keep offering wonky policies and lamenting that ordinary people don’t get it, and we still can’t figure it out?!”
When the Democratic party is content to grow itself ONLY by adding minority interest groups and the Republican party is content to grow itself only by adding policy positions (that allay fear), the thought of adding a policy position of any sort to Democratic makeup is presumed to be politically traitorous, because policy–any policy–is thought to belong to the Republican party. Democrats have willingly allowed themselves to be boxed in by their own juvenile sentimentalities. Democrats seem to have innoculated themselves against getting any of the “policy diseases”.
We Democrats can call the Republicans ignorant and badly informed, or worse, but it is the Republicans who seem to be informed enough to deal in policies–right or wrong, but policies nevertheless.
I’m inclined to think it is us Democrats who are ignorant and badly informed. How else do you explain the Democratic party being preoccupied with interest groups and immobilized by unreasonable fear of policy?
Larry, it seems to me if both parties were actually as you describe Democrats would do nothing but advertise on social/entertainment media for new customers while Republicans would achieve the only thing government can which are policy prescriptions.
Considering the next and last three administrations it seems the opposite is generally true.,
What am I missing?
Pete,
Please put it on Facebook in any version you like.
I’m tempted to put it in list form, carry it around with me, and when engaging with conservatives, pull it out and ask, “Which of these do you not agree with?”
Even Mississippi legalized medical marijuana for veterans with PTSD. Personally, I’ve had it, I’m relocating out of Indiana.
Pete, what is really happening is predominately what you suggest is not happening. Democrats do little else but advertise how nice they will be and how nice they will force everyone else to be to minority customers, while Republicans advertise churlish policy prescriptions.
I’m imagining Democrat leaders conducting mandatory meetings in which they sit around trying to invent an acronym that creates a new minority, while Republican leaders try to invent new policy that will appeal to another fear of the middle class–the great majority.
I can’t name one single policy that the Democrats have proposed that will benefit the middle class/blue collar class, certainly not one for which they have invested much enthusiasm. Hubert Humphrey and Robert Kennedy would be outraged.
Oh ffs Indiana stays reliably red. Apparently we will always be the middle finger of the south.
Dirk_Gently – If you’re not a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart. If you’re not conservative when you’re older, you have no brain – remember, this was created by a person trying to justify his abandonment of his youthful idealism.
Otherwise, you may be correct about that tendency, but if you start as a heartless youth, where do you end up then?
I started as a liberal and at 70, I am still a liberal. I have seen the downturn, from the murder of MLK and RFK (heroes of my youth – too young for JFK), to Nixon, Reagan, “waterboard W”, and Trump.
I didn’t give up. I remembered the adage – “You are not required to finish your work, yet neither are you permitted to desist from it.”, or if you like, Joe Hill’s “Don’t mourn, organize!”
This give me hope, but only in context. There will be a slow change and if this map looks cobalt blue, the eventual result might just be sky blue, but that suggests progress.
Larry, I am probably more of a “liberal” that you, but I consider myself an RFK Democrat and have railed the the party has to remember its FDR roots, pro-worker, pro-farmer — and still taking us from Frances Perkins to marriage equality. The Democrats have been handicapped by the electoral map and their ‘big tent’, but slowly we are moving from DLC-big business Democrats, to the old school FDR/Humphrey Democrats. No proposals? Minimum wage? ACA (not perfect, but a first step)? If it wasn’t for the Democrats, all of the Covid money would have gone to Wall Street and big land developers with immunity for any employer forcing their workers into unsafe conditions. If you and I both pick on the Party leaders, perhaps they will remember when we were the party of Humphrey and RFK.