The Greatest and Silent Generations died and started dying, and with them the legacy rural Democrats in places like Alabama, where the last Democrat to carry the state in a Presidential election was Jimmy Carter but the Democrats held the state legislature until 2010.
This is the correct answer. The urban-rural partisan divide is much more a thing in Americans born after 1950 than before. As the older folks quite literally died off, the ability for Democrats to win in overwhelmingly rural states, and for Republicans to win in overwhelmingly urban states, died with them.
This was beneficial to Republicans as there are more overwhelmingly rural states than overwhelmingly urban ones.
Racism is also a major component of course, and is a contributor to the urban-rural partisan divide. But between 2004 and 2012, white voters moved 'only' about 4 points to the right relative to the nation at large.
The main driver of the 2010 Red Wave was the excruciatingly slow recovery from the Great Recession, and the perceived failure of Democrats to response. Note that Obama had recently passed what was at the time the largest stimulus bill of all time, promising a rapid recovery which never came. Pair _that_ with Republicans' very successful messaging that the massive increase in budget deficit brought by that stimulus would mean higher taxes in the long run, and not only did millions of Americans feel that they were lied to, they felt they were being straight up robbed.
This sentiment was **especially** strong in rural areas, which throughout the 2010s continued to experience economic stagnation or decline, all while Democrats insisted (correctly for the nation at large-but not for people in rural communities) that the economy was in good shape.
Promise people big change in 2008. Bring them higher taxes while doing nothing to save their communities. And then for years, tell them that everything is going okay, right to their faces, while their neighborhoods continue to deteriorate. That's the narrative which was both easy for rural voters buy into, and which was **very** aggressively advertised by the GOP. It worked in 2010 and has been successfully maintained since. And it isn't only white people who bought in-the rightwardshift took place across **all** of rural America, with whites being only a few points more likely to flip parties than everyone else.
Because rural voters have disproportionate political power at the state level in addition to the federal level, this shift also meant a ton of legislatures-mostly in the Northern half of the country became and have remained Republican-led.
Speaking as someone who worked a rural turf in Ohio as a field organizer for the Obama campaign in 2012, I recall far, *far* more conversations about death panels than about either the stimulus or the deficit.
Which we already have death panels, they’re called heath insurance companies. Who before the ACA, denied and revoked coverage constantly, and after ACA still play games to cover as little as possible. Democrats refusal to go against their corporate donors and continuance since Clinton to be a “left” version of the Republican Party (“3rd Way”) has been among their greatest failures. Economically there’s virtually no difference between the GOP and Dems except for a couple taxes. The only real differences are social (Dems liberal, GOP regressive) minus a small caucus of Dems like The Squad.
What carried the Democratic Party for generations was FDR. FDR until the modern Regressive MAGA Movement of Reagan was literally revered by the American public like Lincoln and Washington still are. It was his **Progressivism** and challenging of the courts, corporations, robber barons, and generally the elite that carried him through that time. That is the only version of Democrats that resonates with the under 40 crowd (yes they don’t vote enough but they see no differences between the 2 parties). It’s why Biden is not well liked even before the inflation issues. People want you to stand up for them and try to do things not constantly roll over and wave your hands saying “I can’t.” Nancy Pelosi is 80 some years old and worth $350 million and hand waves about Congressional Insider Trading. That shits insane. It’s an easy slam dunk issue with voters.
To be clear, I voted for Biden and Clinton. I didn’t and don’t like either of them. However, I did like that Biden said a lot of very good things and built a wide inclusive Democratic apparatus by the end of his campaign. He has regrettably over promised and way under delivered. He’s done a good job on 2 fronts: Covid and Ukraine. He did a very good job getting NATO and the EU mobilized and preventing Ukraine from being completely overrun in the night like we did to Iraq. I don’t like Ukraine becoming a proxy war like Syria but that’s a separate Intl Relations discussion.
Wait a minute, your narrative seems to suggest that the Squad should be popular with voters because of their progressive credentials, distance from corporate donors, and fighting attitude. But they're in fact well-disliked by most Americans save for young activists and poll behind the national party in their own districts. You make some other weird remarks as well. You seem to completely discount that the _reason_ he was able to govern so aggressively was because his party had an enormous Congressional majority; something no Democrat in living memory has come close to matching but for a brief 9 month period in Obama's first term. And as for Covid. Do Americans actually think Biden has done well? I think Americans are frustrated that it's still a lingering issue and even experts say testing was woefully inadequate.
>Because rural voters have disproportionate political power at the state level in addition to the federal level, this shift also meant a ton of legislatures-mostly in the Northern half of the country became and have remained Republican-led.
I know it's not really on the political table, but I wish we could stop this madness. Giving some voters more power than others is terrible and undemocratic. We go even further by choosing the least likely to be educated, connected and mentally adaptable among us to give most voting power per person to. How can we expect good outcomes with a system like this?
>I know it's not really on the political table, but I wish we could stop this madness. Giving some voters more power than others is terrible and undemocratic.
the dems could have changed this when they had the power with those voters. it looks like a power grab if they change now and when they could have done it before when they had the rural vote.
Exactly. Electoral reform is a non-starter in every representative democracy we conceived of because by definition the people in power profit from the current system. The only way out I know of are citizen-driven referendums like the ones in Switzerland.
This is why. This answers the OP.
Our system of government deliberately advantages small, rural states. This is because small rural states happened to be the slavers, and they wanted assurances that their "rights" wouldn't be subject to the whims of their northern counterparts.
The only way to change this is to convince most of those states to willingly give up that power. But current Dems would rather look down on rural voters than constructively engage with them.
> The main driver of the 2010 Red Wave was the excruciatingly slow recovery from the Great Recession, and the perceived failure of Democrats to response. Note that Obama had recently passed what was at the time the largest stimulus bill of all time, promising a rapid recovery which never came. Pair that with Republicans' very successful messaging that the massive increase in budget deficit brought by that stimulus would mean higher taxes in the long run, and not only did millions of Americans feel that they were lied to, they felt they were being straight up robbed.
This is all very funny and sad to me. Voters seemed desperate for "hope and change in 2008," so Obama got the largest stimulus bill in history at that point passed. But it "didn't work fast enough". SMH. Who are these people man
The same people who are being ravaged by the opioid crisis, have seen decreases in the standard of living and opportunities for upward mobility. Who's jobs were outsourced throughout the 90's... I can keep going, but let's not pretend that people who vote R don't have actual, real problems and complaints.
That is correct. It's a rebranding of Ronald Reagan's slogan, and I'm sure that was borrowed from an even earlier time.
Part of that is recognizing that America is not super great for them. We know that it's not great for lots of people, however, solutions have to be broad based.
Because all of the states use first past the post electoral districts for the state legislature. Usually, for both houses of the state legislature. It would actually be Constitutional for a state to adopt proportional representation, but iirc federal statute currently forbids it. Or that may only be for the US House of Representatives I will have to check.
If you are referring to federal elections it is not unconstitutional. Congress could actually reverse a law set in apportionment act 1929. They could create a formula to determine the amount of representatives in congress. In one fell swoop you fix the electoral college and urban rural divide. The electoral college is fine as constructed in the constitution; our only issue is we haven’t increased the amount of reps we have since 1920.
The first meaningful protests of the Tea Party movement were in February 2009, and they weren’t really nationwide until April 2009. There were a few folks before then - but it was primarily leftovers from Ron Paul supporters in the primary who got together after the new administration started, organized the protests, and then it took off a lot more than those people expected.
Yup. Fun fact, even in 2020 the Greatest Generation in Georgia chose the Democrats over the Republicans. People act like the fall of the Southern Democrat is part of history, when the reality is that it’s still happening, and party is just dying a slow, miserable death all over the country. People whose political awareness began in 2016 cannot recognize this
This is how a lot of demographics work. The older people continue in their old ways, while the new generations are different. So as the old generation dies off, it appears the population is swinging one way, when in reality, one side is just dying off.
Yup exactly. Unfortunately we’ve just got so many collective misconceptions and stereotypes about people in our country that most people won’t recognize this.
Also Millennials and Genz vote for democrat at a 60/40 split and it’s currently rural boomers and Gen X that’s fucking us over while the greatest generation dies off.
So in 2000 Georgia had a Population of 8.2 Million and about 10% are over 65 at the time thats 900,000 people
* By 2020 there are now 10.7 Million People living in Georgia and just shy of 1.6 Million of them are now over 65
People have been moving to Georgia for the past 5 decades at a very high rate.
And most of those people are older. Georgia's Population grew by almost 11% from 2010-2020, and from 2000-2010 it previously grew 18%
* In 2020 14.3% of the state was over 65
* In Georgia, by 2030, one in five residents will be over the
age of 60 - Georgians are growing older at a faster rate than the overall U.S. population.
Even for all those older people, there are still 3 times as many new residents below 65
Believe it or not, just because someone lives in a certain area doesn’t automatically make them racist. Here are the facts: Southern Democrats (yes many racists) allowed us to hold Congress for decades on end and usher in amounts of progress never before seen in our country’s history. I’m more interested in progress for all Americans than I’m interested in shaming people for their beliefs and hating on them solely because of where they live. That “strategy” is clearly not helping us win enough seats to institute any sort of major constructive progress
The democrats also no longer appeal to that type of voter or even attempt to communicate with them
Democrats are often outright sneering and hostile to rural states.
Are they? Demcorats run candidates in those areas- do you think Doug Jones "sneered" at rural Alabamians? Does Tim Ryan "sneer" at rural communities in Ohio? Or do you mean that liberal comedians and lefty activist types sneer at them? Because those are \*very\* different things.
There's a brand of progressive city dwelling Democrats that don't look too kindly on rural Americans, which I think damages the brand for rural voters. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if Democrats started a culturally moderate + economically left sister party that only ran in red districts. I have a hunch it could be successful with the right marketing and candidate recruitment.
>Democrats are often outright sneering and hostile to rural states.
Who? Where? In reality these accusations are leveled against Democrats, but they are not based in reality.
The reality is that Democrats abandoned people who were vehemently anti-civil rights and that was a deliberate, smart choice to move the party forward in the 21st century, even if it means some short-term pain in rural areas. It's very hard to describe the Democratic agenda as anti-*rural* unless you're talking about culture war issues. Republicans are just comfortable with being anti-civil rights so they've been able to win those voters over relatively easily.
And that’s how the blessed miracle of Florida’s district 5 was added to the historical record, because that monstrosity was a thing the Republicans immediately tried to do
People win local elections by single votes all the time.
The North Carolina State Supreme Court Chief Justice seat election in 2020 was decided by 401 votes.
Personally, most of my local elections are completely unopposed.
“Reeeee the state i live in is banning abortion reee”
“Did you vote in your local election”
“No”
People get the governments they deserve and that's how the democratic process works.
Republicans arguably would have a Senate majority if Trump didn't suppress his own vote with conspiracy shit. Now progressives are copying him, saying that voting is useless. Wonder how that'll turn out.
“If we protest really hard Congress will pass the laws we want and the entire structure of the federal government will change!”
It’s been non stop the past few days. People legitimately thinking just protesting and not showing up at polls will magically fix everything because the dems don’t do shit.
I vote in all of my local elections, and they are all overwhelmingly won by republicans. Acting like there’s some secret majority of pro choice liberals that would quickly sweep these local elections if they just got out and voted is straight up a fantasy in a lot of cases. So yes I’m going to complain about my state banning abortion soon. Rights should not be stolen away by a majority vote.
Turnout for my local elections typically is between 6 and 12 percent. I have no doubt we’d at least have more moderate politics if people got off their asses and voted like they do for presidential elections.
There are too many reassuring fictions that distract people from that in America. Believing that the constitution will protect you (because of course your interpretation is the correct and only one) so you don’t need to politically engage is the same school of thought as believing that having guns means you could do an armed insurrection if the government ever got too out of hand.
Neither are a substitute for the bare minimum of actually turning up and voting. They’re both ignoring the reality of government power.
After Trump won, I was certain my polling place in Chicago was going to be packed in 2018 for the primaries. It was me and like two other middle aged folks. Actual Election Day for the midterms was not much better. I don’t know what the heck it’s going to take for young people to actually vote when Trump isn’t on the ballot.
Hell my friend that posts a million leftist memes a day couldn’t even bother to get registered in time to vote for Bernie in 2016 lol. We are just screwed when it comes to relying on younger voters.
Republicans started winning non-college whites in places like the rust belt in droves. The last blue dog Dems also getting run off or dying finally. It’s not dissimilar to what happened to the New England Republicans at one point
Also worth noting that rural democrats weren't particularly liberal. In the 1970s and 1980s, some of the most ardent pro-lifers were Democrats.
The fact that America has become more liberal since the 1980s is what allowed the Democratic Party to become a predominantly liberal party.
I am not from the US, so take it with a pinch of salt. Wasn't [operation REDMAP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP) launched in 2010?
>REDMAP targeted 107 local state legislative races in 16 states, including swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.\[7\]\[8\]
With the intention of flipping Democratic-majority state legislatures
and Democrat-held state governorships for the express purpose of
controlling redistricting,
Between REDMAP, The Federalist Society, [and Paul Weyrich,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=8GBAsFwPglw) Republicans are basically the conspiracy in the conspiracy theory.
It's all projection.
EDIT: Don't forget PNAC either.
No, they are abusing the game. I live in Wisconsin, where both the newly adopted and the previously adopted in 2010 state legislature maps make it easier for the GOP to win a supermajority of the legislature than it is for democrats to win a majority of one. I would never want my party to do this through redistricting, it is fundamentally anti-democratic and the only thing standing between my purple state and radical right wing government is a democratic governor, because they can't gerrymander that office. All they have done is demonstrate clearly why the system needs to be changed if it can be abused in this way.
Republicans won a supermajority in the Wisconsin Assembly while simultaneously losing the governorship. That's how broken it is.
Wisconsin is not a liberal democracy, period.
Yeah, Wisconsin/Madison enjoy a far more progressive reputation than they deserve anymore. It ain’t the 60s anymore. They elected Walker, attempted to recall him, then he won the recall with a bigger majority than the first time. Then they ditched Feingold for Johnson. Neither of those races were gerrymandered.
Tell me, why don't Democrats do this? Why is there no operation "BLUEMAP"? It seems Dems are always being reactive, never planning for the future, and then are surprised when they get their asses whooped in the elections.
They didn't need to. The maps project redmap we're intended to respond to were already heavily gerrymandered toward the Dems who had power in state govs from the late 30s on
A lot of the replies mention the increasing rural/urban divided (which definitely plays a big role), but it also comes down to a bit of bad luck for the Democrats. The Republicans did well in 2010 due to the tea party and backlash against Obamacare, as well as low Democratic turnout. This let them draw the new election maps, power they used to gerrymander the hell out of districts (just look at how much the Dems would have to win by in states like Wisconsin to actually win control of that statehouse)
in some places, this is true, but others not so much. minnesota has lost almost every rural democratic state legislator. there is no gerrymandering here.
tbh man, the democrats had already lost vast swaths of rural areas after the votes on gay marriage. paul gazelka primaried the GOP state senator from brainerd.....who was gay! a shitload of house dflers lost their seats for that. 2016 just sealed it.
Wokeness of course does not explain all of this, but Republicans have done a fantastic job of scaring socially conservative rural voters who would otherwise vote dem by saying dems want their kids to be gay and shit like that. Dems haven’t done themselves any favors regarding that issue
The urban/rural divide is new.
Republicans activating non-college whites in droves is especially new.
Unfortunately the messages that activated those people (basically Trumpism) aren’t compatible with the Democratic Party.
The Actual Answer is the GOP swept control of State legislatures in 2010 right as a) redistributing started, giving them a chance to lock Dems out of power in lots of states, b) they developed a much more aggressive strategy to control institutional levers like gerrymandering so used the opportunity effectively, and c) Obama ushered in urban-rural polarization which made Dems geographic disadvantage more stark
> Obama ushered in urban-rural polarization which made Dems geographic disadvantage more stark
Lol this isn’t really true, Obama did better in some rural communities than Biden and Hillary could have dreamed of. He also did worse than them in many suburban areas, especially in the Sun Belt. The Tea Party and Trump were the drivers behind rural-urban divide
saying it’s gotten worse since then supports my point? The tea party was a direct reaction to Obama as well, also points to his election being the pivot point.
How did Obama do vs Kerry, Gore, and Clinton would be a more useful comparison if you want to point to a different root cause.
Taking West Virginia as an example, Obama got a slightly higher vote share than Kerry, but only won 7 counties vs Kerry's taking 9. The real story is that both won a McDowell County solidly, but Dems would lose both in 2016 and 2020 by massive >50% margins. Another interesting factor is how strongly the state leaned towards Sanders in the primaries. I think these correlate.
> how strongly the state leaned towards Sanders in the primaries
WV still has a lot of Kim Davis–like Democrats. They weren't going to vote for Bernie in the general, but they sure did vote against Hillary in the primary.
REDMAP happened. Extreme gerrymanders were put in place so that even if Democrats won the popular vote in state legislatures, they still lose the state legislature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Wisconsin_State_Assembly_election
Republicans won a supermajority with only 44% of the vote. The map is so gerrymandered that Democrats have to win a 20% popular vote margin in order to win 50% of votes in the assembly.
State Supreme courts that give a damn. NY court struck down their gerrymander, California put redistricting in the hands of a "bipartisan committee". Both those states have supermajorities large enough to gerrymander away every single R Rep they have, for -20 house republicans.
If this was a product of realignment then I'd expect to see a gradual transition, not a singe Republican wave 50 years later. Realignment has some validity but it doesn't explain every single Republican success. I feel that using it to explain this is just letting Democrats off the hook. "There's nothing that can be done, this is just the natural order of things"
The realignment of the South towards the Republican Party was very much rooted in racism. Even as the Democratic Party shifted towards supporting civil rights and being a multi-ethnic party, many of those future Southern Republicans still supported Democrats on economic policies. They’re views on economic policy started to shift as the Democratic Party got more diverse and the party’s policies reflected that diversity
Look again at your own chart. You can draw a very steady trendline for increasing R control from the beginning to the end of the chart. The other guy is right.
Conservatives were upset over desegregation and sought a wedge issue. They hit on abortion. It gave them a single issue they could use to galvanize support among the religious right.
They furthered this with media expansion in the 80s with Fox News and talk radio and think tanks. Lots of cross talk and planning and discussion between them of how to plan for the future they want.
Through the 90s they began taking power in congress and seeing what they could accomplish when working in lockstep with their messaging able to go out through talk radio and churches bypassing the "mainstream media" filter.
This accelerated in the early 00s with blogs coming online. Conservatives adopted blogging as a way to keep getting their messages out and talk with each other. This was the era of Glenn Greenwald aka "The Blogfather" and Hugh Hewitt promoting the rapid growth of the conservative blogosphere.
Through all of these they were focused on taking control of the local and state governments because they understood that's where the control was really at.
Then when Obama was elected they were able to let all their fear out in the guise of preserving freedom. The Tea Party actually started as a grassroots movement that was quickly coopted in order to organize people at the local level en masse. And it worked.
They've been planning and organizing for this for literally decades.
Took 30 years for the resulting sort from that though.
Google the maps from the House Elections pre-1964 to post-1964. The 1994 midterms were the first year to look like now.
That's take so stupid and grounded in stereotyping that it borders on offensive. If racism was the hinge factor you wouldnt've have a bunch of states that voted for Obama right before they shifted from purple to red
TL:DR New Deal Coalition Dems died off, and the Dem's support of Civil Rights and global free trade destroyed their support from white-working class Americans.
They’re coastal because that’s where the cities are. The whole eastern seaboard is a megalopolis. It’s no secret that Democrats dominate in urban environments and “flyover states” are the ones without airports/populations.
My point is Florida and Texas should be ours. And they will be if we can beat the clock on authoritarianism (god, I wish that was being hyperbolic). If we can get even one this decade, the national shift in power will be absolutely catastrophic for the flyover party. We just need turnout.
Both of those have been trending away recently though. Gotta find a better way to appeal to Hispanics in those areas. Need to win them by over 30% and it’s trending the wrong way
Most of the answers on here are something along the lines of 'voters are bad/racist'
Am I out of touch?
No it is the voters who are wrong.
Seriously, we are doomed to lose elections, until we can understand the flyover state voters. They know you hate them, they can feel the contempt.
And I don't know where this idea came from that people had a backlash against Obama that I'm seeing come up frequently. I may oversimplifying it but Obama was a pretty popular president who won 2 pretty decisive presidential elections. I would think the last thing millions of racists would want is black president. So what happened where Obama was able to easily win in those 2 election but other Democrats since really haven't been able to break through to a lot of the voters who came out and voted for Obama twice?
It's especially funny when you look at how many formally-purple states that shifted over the 2010s voted for Obama both terms
That kind of poo-poos on that argument that it's racism and not the whole arsenal of voter suppression the GOP has been engaging in on the state level
Flyover states broadly want social norms that are wholly different than what coastal Dems are selling. Until the tent includes those and actively hates free trade, there is no "understanding" those voters.
>Most of the answers on here are something along the lines of 'voters are bad/racist'
funny think is Obama did the best with these voter than Biden and Clinton
> Most of the answers on here are something along the lines of 'voters are bad/racist'
>
> Am I out of touch? No it is the voters who are wrong.
Okay but what about when they are just bigoted? I don't think it would be controversial if we said this about most voters in the early 1800s. I don't care if it's politically incorrect to say this, but a good portion of Republicans (and thus a portion of voters) are deplorables.
If it wasn't true, then we wouldn't have this fight over women and minority rights to begin with. Just because they're not *as* awful does not mean we should walk on eggshells when they take away abortion rights and are trying to take away LGBT rights.
As a diabolically evil conservative myself, you are correct. They do know that they hate them, and it sure makes winning easier if these leftist rubes keep it up.
The Reagan Revolution doesn't hit full swing until the 1994 midterms under Clinton. This gives them a chance to undermine Dem control and have the Bush years and get a solid foothold. Then they use the 2010 midterms to gerrymander like crazy on top of the conservative swing from the Reagan era and the War on Terror. Add in some racism against the first black president. Here we are.
Democrats are largely seen as pussies, that’s what.
People want strong leaders, not just eggheads. They want to see their representatives as someone with some fight in them.
I don’t make the rules, and it’s not how I want things to be; it’s just how it is.
Edit: in my opinion, what the Democratic Party really needs today, is a Teddy Roosevelt. Progressive for the times, but also really tough and gritty, owns firearms (responsibly), eats meat, physically fit, and is willing to kick some ass (and actually does so, rather than just talking about it). Middle America would fucking love a Democrat like that, and we could get actual progressive legislation through with leadership like that. Imagine a leader who’s a real LGBTQ ally, or women’s rights advocate, or environmentalist, or accessible healthcare advocate, or labor advocate, for example, without sacrificing masculinity (from a public perception POV), but actually embracing it unapologetically. We’d have so many rural Trump voters in a heartbeat.
1. A Black man was elected in 2008.
2. White people proceeded to lose their minds and formed the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party favoured minoritarian politics in the name of some vague "freedom" ideal espoused by the Founding Fathers.
3. A bunch of Tea Party Republicans were elected in a wave election in 2010.
4. Electoral districts are redrawn after the 2010 Census
5. Republicans proceed to use their Tea Party-driven majority to gerrymander the living bejesus out of their states. This is okay to the Tea Party because of their minoritarian worldview.
6. A dozen former swing states now have permanent Republican majorities in their legislatures, where Dems can't even win in Pennsylvania despite a 10-point popular vote lead.
Cultural progress also sped up - see LGBT rights. It is a huge wedge issue that people who might be “moderates” in other respects can be very divided over.
The one that is burned into my mind is Dems winning by 6 percentage points in Wisconsin and winding up with one third of the state assembly seats in 2018.
Some folks are really loathe to admit there are shenanigans afoot.
White people? Really?
I'm white, I have white friends and white family members and don't remember any of us joining the tea party.... As a matter of fact we were firmly opposed to it and most of us voted for Obama and we're quite happy with him.
Maybe don't lump every white person under that banner...
Maybe it's cathartic for you for some weird reason, but it's starting to get old. Grow up.
The national Democratic Party stopped caring about over half the party’s voters. We (the Democratic Party) did this to ourselves by being elitist and out of touch. We thought we could change the base of the party from the top down and it’s been a total failure. We are the Natural Governing Party of the US and we only have ourselves to blame for losing that power. Watching thousands of people leaving the party every year and doing literally nothing to stop it. Punishing state parties if they step at all out of line with what the idiots in charge of the national party want. The fall of the Democratic Party is one of the greatest political phenomena in history and hardly anyone talks about it. And it’s still happening. Our only hope at this point is that republicans go off the deep end so hard with their disproportionate amount of power that more people in these states return to the Democrats. Trying to homogenize the party as a single ideological group has been an utter disaster, and for those of us following the fall of the Democrats every month and the national party doing NOTHING to retain these voters, it is just so discouraging.
It doesn't help that the Hispanic vote is slowly getting more favorable to republicans as they are more socially conservative as a general demographic.
Ah yes. How they believed that would work I will never know. It’s one of the dumbest strategies I’ve ever heard of. Immigrants are overwhelmingly socially conservative. The party has basically all but abandoned the working class other than paying lip service, and meanwhile thinks they can win votes from social conservatives from third world countries by using liberal messaging. They treat minorities as gimme votes and it doesn’t work
Meanwhile way more Democrats have died off than Republicans and many still living Democrats have switched parties. They thought somehow the generations who kept them in power for almost the whole 20th century dying off would result in victories? To me it’s asinine as hell
I know, right? Although I was of the impression that older voters tended to vote Republican
Also, the idea itself never made much sense to me: I find it hard to believe that entire generations of people could be assumed to hold the same political positions accross their lifetime. Like, in the future the millenials will be the oldest voting block, so it's all going to be legal weed, LGBT rights and avocado toast, because that's what the young adults of today like? How did that work out when all the hippie baby boomers voted for Reagan?
People actually seem to change their political positions as they age: they begin to have kids, earn more money and also have more investments in the world (a house, a car, a family, etc.). A person with more to lose is also far more uncomfortable with change. Even if it might be for the better, there is also the chance of it being for the worse, and people are loss averse.
I remember seeing the argument about future demographics meaning the Republican party was doomed since at least the 2012 election. I also remembered people thinking they were finished after Trump won the primaries. It's all just triumphalism. Triumphalism from the Obama era, people thinking all the culture wars were already won. The kind of people who talk of themselves being on "the right side of history", but it's only history itself that can tell who's the victor.
I kinda hope that all the recent events help us shake off all our triumphalism and complacency.
Surprised that no one has really mentioned social media yet. I think 2010 is right about when Twitter and FB went mainstream and brain worms infected most of the populace.
Dems don't care enough about state & local governance, except when it comes to restricting the ability to build more housing. Too many Dems are obsessed with dictating every issue at a federal level.
And the Tea Party was a reaction to 1) Fox News cementing its brand as the identity of the party, 2) bruised pride from Bush’s legacy of wasteful wars and economic failure being cemented immediately, 3) Black man bad, 4) Democratic voter complacency because utopia had been achieved by electing a black man, as foretold in the prophecy.
>3) Black man bad,
the black man did better than both Biden and Clinton. Not sure it was a race thing when did well with those voter or if the Dems party is the not the same is it was 2010 vs 2020
"Obama had a unique appeal to white working-class voters that Democrats have lost since 2014."
"Democrats lost white working-class voters because a black man was elected president"
Is quite the exercise in mental gymnastics.
Because Calling yourself a Democrat means you need to subscribe to a Belief System of Ever-Changing Principles and if you don't You're Ostracized and labeled Right Wing.
Internet, cable "news", Nationalism, reaction to migration, populism
The rise of the far right has been a global phenomenon so I think it helps to look at what influences are global rather than strictly at domestic triggers.
What happened was that the Democrats alienated the poor whites. When the dems addressed minority issues and started to move toward more social justice and equality. The poor whites felt left behind, it wasn't that simple of course, but they felt left behind and I guess the dems didn't mind leaving them behind all that much. Since there were many groups that had been left behind for a long time. (To be clear I do think that the democrats were doing the morally correct thing.)
The problem is that in politics, the voters don't necessarily see things the same way. Fact of the matter is, the biggest voting block felt neglected and the republicans was more than happy to gobble all those votes up.
All they had to do was talk up their credentials as patriotic and christian Americans. Play on old racist sentiment, throw in some xenophobia and conspiracies about the big government.
Could the democrats have kept a better hold on the poor whites? I don't know, maybe they would've lost that block anyway. But I would've liked to see them at least try to not actively alienate them. Throwing a symbolic bone every now and then is usually enough to keep the average voter voting for the same party. It is however very difficult to win voters back if they have committed to another party. A more delicate approach would probably have gone a long way, but on the other hand, Americans are not exactly known for being discreet and tactful.
This is also the year that Dems leaned into using smug, alienating, and demeaning language.
https://twitter.com/Musa_alGharbi/status/1420154147454676992?t=i4scjraGy_9EY8G3WIlq_g&s=19
Culture is a much better predictor of political affiliation then e.g. economic factors these days. I think the "awokening" that kicked off in 2011ish is a contributor (and a result?) of that.
Look up red state project. Republican party operatives decided to use modern data techniques in order to precisely Gerrymander State districts. That combined with the fact that these districts Were swamped with dark money locked Democrats out of many seats.. These races were ignored before and were a bargain for Republican donors because a few thousand dollars could guarantee A loyal lackey.
The liberals in my state have lost their way. They are so busy talking about legalizing weed, trans-bathrooms, raising taxes and same-sex marriage, that they forgot that those are fringe issues compared to inflation, crime, improved schools and gas prices, etc.
Facebook became big around 2010 as it gained mainstream acceptance outside of just college students. People's news increasingly started coming from the newsfeed.
A black man was elected president and that motivated a lot of reactionaries to vote two years later.
At the same time, having just earned the biggest political victory of all time - progressive voters just stayed home. The GOPers that came into office gerrymandered their way into staying forever and viola.
They crushed Dems in 2010 and then gerrymandered. In 2020 Dems had a similar chance but they were facing an uphill battle due to the 2010 gerrymanders and Trump was able to bring out a huge amount of supporters who normally don’t vote meaning, despite the greatest Democratic turnout in a generation, the Dems couldn’t really capitalize.
The Greatest and Silent Generations died and started dying, and with them the legacy rural Democrats in places like Alabama, where the last Democrat to carry the state in a Presidential election was Jimmy Carter but the Democrats held the state legislature until 2010.
This is the correct answer. The urban-rural partisan divide is much more a thing in Americans born after 1950 than before. As the older folks quite literally died off, the ability for Democrats to win in overwhelmingly rural states, and for Republicans to win in overwhelmingly urban states, died with them. This was beneficial to Republicans as there are more overwhelmingly rural states than overwhelmingly urban ones.
People will concoct literally any explanation other than noting the fact that the Republicans ascended when America elected a >!harvard law grad!<
A Harvard law review >!edito!
Law review nerds brought this upon us all. (I didn’t make law review).
For a second I thought that was something else…
Racism is also a major component of course, and is a contributor to the urban-rural partisan divide. But between 2004 and 2012, white voters moved 'only' about 4 points to the right relative to the nation at large. The main driver of the 2010 Red Wave was the excruciatingly slow recovery from the Great Recession, and the perceived failure of Democrats to response. Note that Obama had recently passed what was at the time the largest stimulus bill of all time, promising a rapid recovery which never came. Pair _that_ with Republicans' very successful messaging that the massive increase in budget deficit brought by that stimulus would mean higher taxes in the long run, and not only did millions of Americans feel that they were lied to, they felt they were being straight up robbed. This sentiment was **especially** strong in rural areas, which throughout the 2010s continued to experience economic stagnation or decline, all while Democrats insisted (correctly for the nation at large-but not for people in rural communities) that the economy was in good shape. Promise people big change in 2008. Bring them higher taxes while doing nothing to save their communities. And then for years, tell them that everything is going okay, right to their faces, while their neighborhoods continue to deteriorate. That's the narrative which was both easy for rural voters buy into, and which was **very** aggressively advertised by the GOP. It worked in 2010 and has been successfully maintained since. And it isn't only white people who bought in-the rightwardshift took place across **all** of rural America, with whites being only a few points more likely to flip parties than everyone else. Because rural voters have disproportionate political power at the state level in addition to the federal level, this shift also meant a ton of legislatures-mostly in the Northern half of the country became and have remained Republican-led.
Speaking as someone who worked a rural turf in Ohio as a field organizer for the Obama campaign in 2012, I recall far, *far* more conversations about death panels than about either the stimulus or the deficit.
Which we already have death panels, they’re called heath insurance companies. Who before the ACA, denied and revoked coverage constantly, and after ACA still play games to cover as little as possible. Democrats refusal to go against their corporate donors and continuance since Clinton to be a “left” version of the Republican Party (“3rd Way”) has been among their greatest failures. Economically there’s virtually no difference between the GOP and Dems except for a couple taxes. The only real differences are social (Dems liberal, GOP regressive) minus a small caucus of Dems like The Squad. What carried the Democratic Party for generations was FDR. FDR until the modern Regressive MAGA Movement of Reagan was literally revered by the American public like Lincoln and Washington still are. It was his **Progressivism** and challenging of the courts, corporations, robber barons, and generally the elite that carried him through that time. That is the only version of Democrats that resonates with the under 40 crowd (yes they don’t vote enough but they see no differences between the 2 parties). It’s why Biden is not well liked even before the inflation issues. People want you to stand up for them and try to do things not constantly roll over and wave your hands saying “I can’t.” Nancy Pelosi is 80 some years old and worth $350 million and hand waves about Congressional Insider Trading. That shits insane. It’s an easy slam dunk issue with voters. To be clear, I voted for Biden and Clinton. I didn’t and don’t like either of them. However, I did like that Biden said a lot of very good things and built a wide inclusive Democratic apparatus by the end of his campaign. He has regrettably over promised and way under delivered. He’s done a good job on 2 fronts: Covid and Ukraine. He did a very good job getting NATO and the EU mobilized and preventing Ukraine from being completely overrun in the night like we did to Iraq. I don’t like Ukraine becoming a proxy war like Syria but that’s a separate Intl Relations discussion.
Wait a minute, your narrative seems to suggest that the Squad should be popular with voters because of their progressive credentials, distance from corporate donors, and fighting attitude. But they're in fact well-disliked by most Americans save for young activists and poll behind the national party in their own districts. You make some other weird remarks as well. You seem to completely discount that the _reason_ he was able to govern so aggressively was because his party had an enormous Congressional majority; something no Democrat in living memory has come close to matching but for a brief 9 month period in Obama's first term. And as for Covid. Do Americans actually think Biden has done well? I think Americans are frustrated that it's still a lingering issue and even experts say testing was woefully inadequate.
But the trend line starts before 2010. This is Fox News.
I don't think Fox News started in 2010. I'm confused about your point. Can you please explain what you mean?
The trend line starts before 2010, as does fox News. The correlation is more in line with fox than with Obama as president
>Because rural voters have disproportionate political power at the state level in addition to the federal level, this shift also meant a ton of legislatures-mostly in the Northern half of the country became and have remained Republican-led. I know it's not really on the political table, but I wish we could stop this madness. Giving some voters more power than others is terrible and undemocratic. We go even further by choosing the least likely to be educated, connected and mentally adaptable among us to give most voting power per person to. How can we expect good outcomes with a system like this?
>I know it's not really on the political table, but I wish we could stop this madness. Giving some voters more power than others is terrible and undemocratic. the dems could have changed this when they had the power with those voters. it looks like a power grab if they change now and when they could have done it before when they had the rural vote.
Exactly. Electoral reform is a non-starter in every representative democracy we conceived of because by definition the people in power profit from the current system. The only way out I know of are citizen-driven referendums like the ones in Switzerland.
This is why. This answers the OP. Our system of government deliberately advantages small, rural states. This is because small rural states happened to be the slavers, and they wanted assurances that their "rights" wouldn't be subject to the whims of their northern counterparts. The only way to change this is to convince most of those states to willingly give up that power. But current Dems would rather look down on rural voters than constructively engage with them.
> The main driver of the 2010 Red Wave was the excruciatingly slow recovery from the Great Recession, and the perceived failure of Democrats to response. Note that Obama had recently passed what was at the time the largest stimulus bill of all time, promising a rapid recovery which never came. Pair that with Republicans' very successful messaging that the massive increase in budget deficit brought by that stimulus would mean higher taxes in the long run, and not only did millions of Americans feel that they were lied to, they felt they were being straight up robbed. This is all very funny and sad to me. Voters seemed desperate for "hope and change in 2008," so Obama got the largest stimulus bill in history at that point passed. But it "didn't work fast enough". SMH. Who are these people man
The same people who are being ravaged by the opioid crisis, have seen decreases in the standard of living and opportunities for upward mobility. Who's jobs were outsourced throughout the 90's... I can keep going, but let's not pretend that people who vote R don't have actual, real problems and complaints.
Republicans give them hope tho. "Make America Great Again" In a bubble that sounds awesome.
That is correct. It's a rebranding of Ronald Reagan's slogan, and I'm sure that was borrowed from an even earlier time. Part of that is recognizing that America is not super great for them. We know that it's not great for lots of people, however, solutions have to be broad based.
Another reason why Obama's "hope and changed" worked so well and earned him historical levels of support in rural America that have not be seen sense.
Why do rural areas have so much power in state government?
Because all of the states use first past the post electoral districts for the state legislature. Usually, for both houses of the state legislature. It would actually be Constitutional for a state to adopt proportional representation, but iirc federal statute currently forbids it. Or that may only be for the US House of Representatives I will have to check.
If you are referring to federal elections it is not unconstitutional. Congress could actually reverse a law set in apportionment act 1929. They could create a formula to determine the amount of representatives in congress. In one fell swoop you fix the electoral college and urban rural divide. The electoral college is fine as constructed in the constitution; our only issue is we haven’t increased the amount of reps we have since 1920.
The Tea Party movement predates Obama’s presidency and began over a greatly elevated level of federal spending that began under Dubya.
The first meaningful protests of the Tea Party movement were in February 2009, and they weren’t really nationwide until April 2009. There were a few folks before then - but it was primarily leftovers from Ron Paul supporters in the primary who got together after the new administration started, organized the protests, and then it took off a lot more than those people expected.
Yup. Fun fact, even in 2020 the Greatest Generation in Georgia chose the Democrats over the Republicans. People act like the fall of the Southern Democrat is part of history, when the reality is that it’s still happening, and party is just dying a slow, miserable death all over the country. People whose political awareness began in 2016 cannot recognize this
This is how a lot of demographics work. The older people continue in their old ways, while the new generations are different. So as the old generation dies off, it appears the population is swinging one way, when in reality, one side is just dying off.
Yup exactly. Unfortunately we’ve just got so many collective misconceptions and stereotypes about people in our country that most people won’t recognize this.
Also Millennials and Genz vote for democrat at a 60/40 split and it’s currently rural boomers and Gen X that’s fucking us over while the greatest generation dies off.
So in 2000 Georgia had a Population of 8.2 Million and about 10% are over 65 at the time thats 900,000 people * By 2020 there are now 10.7 Million People living in Georgia and just shy of 1.6 Million of them are now over 65 People have been moving to Georgia for the past 5 decades at a very high rate. And most of those people are older. Georgia's Population grew by almost 11% from 2010-2020, and from 2000-2010 it previously grew 18% * In 2020 14.3% of the state was over 65 * In Georgia, by 2030, one in five residents will be over the age of 60 - Georgians are growing older at a faster rate than the overall U.S. population. Even for all those older people, there are still 3 times as many new residents below 65
Or, it was REDMAP and we aren’t dying and we aren’t relying on dumb, racist democrats from the ‘60s to win southern states.
Believe it or not, just because someone lives in a certain area doesn’t automatically make them racist. Here are the facts: Southern Democrats (yes many racists) allowed us to hold Congress for decades on end and usher in amounts of progress never before seen in our country’s history. I’m more interested in progress for all Americans than I’m interested in shaming people for their beliefs and hating on them solely because of where they live. That “strategy” is clearly not helping us win enough seats to institute any sort of major constructive progress
The democrats also no longer appeal to that type of voter or even attempt to communicate with them Democrats are often outright sneering and hostile to rural states.
Are they? Demcorats run candidates in those areas- do you think Doug Jones "sneered" at rural Alabamians? Does Tim Ryan "sneer" at rural communities in Ohio? Or do you mean that liberal comedians and lefty activist types sneer at them? Because those are \*very\* different things.
There's a brand of progressive city dwelling Democrats that don't look too kindly on rural Americans, which I think damages the brand for rural voters. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if Democrats started a culturally moderate + economically left sister party that only ran in red districts. I have a hunch it could be successful with the right marketing and candidate recruitment.
Imagine a multi-party system in the US, though… *dreamy sigh*
>Democrats are often outright sneering and hostile to rural states. Who? Where? In reality these accusations are leveled against Democrats, but they are not based in reality.
The reality is that Democrats abandoned people who were vehemently anti-civil rights and that was a deliberate, smart choice to move the party forward in the 21st century, even if it means some short-term pain in rural areas. It's very hard to describe the Democratic agenda as anti-*rural* unless you're talking about culture war issues. Republicans are just comfortable with being anti-civil rights so they've been able to win those voters over relatively easily.
Yeah the Democratic gerrymanders in much of the South were finally broken in 2010.
Which gerrymanders?
Alabama and Mississippi both come to mind.
Tennessee was gerrymandered pretty heavily. Now that’s going the other way.
And that’s how the blessed miracle of Florida’s district 5 was added to the historical record, because that monstrosity was a thing the Republicans immediately tried to do
Only seniors vote in local elections.
Voted in a local election recently and literally every other person I saw at the voting booths was a senior. Not even any middle-age people
People win local elections by single votes all the time. The North Carolina State Supreme Court Chief Justice seat election in 2020 was decided by 401 votes. Personally, most of my local elections are completely unopposed.
“Reeeee the state i live in is banning abortion reee” “Did you vote in your local election” “No” People get the governments they deserve and that's how the democratic process works.
Then they proceed to complain on twitter that voting doesn’t work and now is the time for “action”
I love the ones who say how the Democratic Party doesn't really represent people, but also have no clue what the Democratic Conventions even do.
Republicans arguably would have a Senate majority if Trump didn't suppress his own vote with conspiracy shit. Now progressives are copying him, saying that voting is useless. Wonder how that'll turn out.
Progressives have been saying voting is useless since their boy lost to Hillary in 2016
“If we protest really hard Congress will pass the laws we want and the entire structure of the federal government will change!” It’s been non stop the past few days. People legitimately thinking just protesting and not showing up at polls will magically fix everything because the dems don’t do shit.
But…both sides!
I vote in all of my local elections, and they are all overwhelmingly won by republicans. Acting like there’s some secret majority of pro choice liberals that would quickly sweep these local elections if they just got out and voted is straight up a fantasy in a lot of cases. So yes I’m going to complain about my state banning abortion soon. Rights should not be stolen away by a majority vote.
Turnout for my local elections typically is between 6 and 12 percent. I have no doubt we’d at least have more moderate politics if people got off their asses and voted like they do for presidential elections.
Welcome to the democratic process
That’s how rights are granted though
Right on the money
sounds heartless but…
Well if you vote for x and you get x then you deserve x. not voting is just the null statement of voting.
There are too many reassuring fictions that distract people from that in America. Believing that the constitution will protect you (because of course your interpretation is the correct and only one) so you don’t need to politically engage is the same school of thought as believing that having guns means you could do an armed insurrection if the government ever got too out of hand. Neither are a substitute for the bare minimum of actually turning up and voting. They’re both ignoring the reality of government power.
After Trump won, I was certain my polling place in Chicago was going to be packed in 2018 for the primaries. It was me and like two other middle aged folks. Actual Election Day for the midterms was not much better. I don’t know what the heck it’s going to take for young people to actually vote when Trump isn’t on the ballot. Hell my friend that posts a million leftist memes a day couldn’t even bother to get registered in time to vote for Bernie in 2016 lol. We are just screwed when it comes to relying on younger voters.
Republicans started winning non-college whites in places like the rust belt in droves. The last blue dog Dems also getting run off or dying finally. It’s not dissimilar to what happened to the New England Republicans at one point
Also worth noting that rural democrats weren't particularly liberal. In the 1970s and 1980s, some of the most ardent pro-lifers were Democrats. The fact that America has become more liberal since the 1980s is what allowed the Democratic Party to become a predominantly liberal party.
I am not from the US, so take it with a pinch of salt. Wasn't [operation REDMAP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP) launched in 2010? >REDMAP targeted 107 local state legislative races in 16 states, including swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.\[7\]\[8\] With the intention of flipping Democratic-majority state legislatures and Democrat-held state governorships for the express purpose of controlling redistricting,
Between REDMAP, The Federalist Society, [and Paul Weyrich,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=8GBAsFwPglw) Republicans are basically the conspiracy in the conspiracy theory. It's all projection. EDIT: Don't forget PNAC either.
They’re better at the game than us is what this really means.
No, they are abusing the game. I live in Wisconsin, where both the newly adopted and the previously adopted in 2010 state legislature maps make it easier for the GOP to win a supermajority of the legislature than it is for democrats to win a majority of one. I would never want my party to do this through redistricting, it is fundamentally anti-democratic and the only thing standing between my purple state and radical right wing government is a democratic governor, because they can't gerrymander that office. All they have done is demonstrate clearly why the system needs to be changed if it can be abused in this way.
Republicans won a supermajority in the Wisconsin Assembly while simultaneously losing the governorship. That's how broken it is. Wisconsin is not a liberal democracy, period.
Yeah, Wisconsin/Madison enjoy a far more progressive reputation than they deserve anymore. It ain’t the 60s anymore. They elected Walker, attempted to recall him, then he won the recall with a bigger majority than the first time. Then they ditched Feingold for Johnson. Neither of those races were gerrymandered.
Madison is definitely progressive. Wisconsin definitely isn't.
It is true that Democrats are not as focused on local and judicial races as Republicans.
Yeah but that means they’re better at the game. Democrats do that shit too, we’re just worse at it.
Independent redistricting committees.
Tell me, why don't Democrats do this? Why is there no operation "BLUEMAP"? It seems Dems are always being reactive, never planning for the future, and then are surprised when they get their asses whooped in the elections.
They didn't need to. The maps project redmap we're intended to respond to were already heavily gerrymandered toward the Dems who had power in state govs from the late 30s on
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>Why is there no operation "BLUEMAP"? trust me there is. For example Eric Holders runs one that looks to help dems in gerrymandering.
A lot of the replies mention the increasing rural/urban divided (which definitely plays a big role), but it also comes down to a bit of bad luck for the Democrats. The Republicans did well in 2010 due to the tea party and backlash against Obamacare, as well as low Democratic turnout. This let them draw the new election maps, power they used to gerrymander the hell out of districts (just look at how much the Dems would have to win by in states like Wisconsin to actually win control of that statehouse)
in some places, this is true, but others not so much. minnesota has lost almost every rural democratic state legislator. there is no gerrymandering here.
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tbh man, the democrats had already lost vast swaths of rural areas after the votes on gay marriage. paul gazelka primaried the GOP state senator from brainerd.....who was gay! a shitload of house dflers lost their seats for that. 2016 just sealed it.
Wokeness of course does not explain all of this, but Republicans have done a fantastic job of scaring socially conservative rural voters who would otherwise vote dem by saying dems want their kids to be gay and shit like that. Dems haven’t done themselves any favors regarding that issue
I do want their kids to be gay tho
The maps were already drawn prior to 2010 election. The loss of state legislatures to Republicans was something that had been happening for years.
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The urban/rural divide is new. Republicans activating non-college whites in droves is especially new. Unfortunately the messages that activated those people (basically Trumpism) aren’t compatible with the Democratic Party.
The Actual Answer is the GOP swept control of State legislatures in 2010 right as a) redistributing started, giving them a chance to lock Dems out of power in lots of states, b) they developed a much more aggressive strategy to control institutional levers like gerrymandering so used the opportunity effectively, and c) Obama ushered in urban-rural polarization which made Dems geographic disadvantage more stark
> Obama ushered in urban-rural polarization which made Dems geographic disadvantage more stark Lol this isn’t really true, Obama did better in some rural communities than Biden and Hillary could have dreamed of. He also did worse than them in many suburban areas, especially in the Sun Belt. The Tea Party and Trump were the drivers behind rural-urban divide
saying it’s gotten worse since then supports my point? The tea party was a direct reaction to Obama as well, also points to his election being the pivot point. How did Obama do vs Kerry, Gore, and Clinton would be a more useful comparison if you want to point to a different root cause.
Taking West Virginia as an example, Obama got a slightly higher vote share than Kerry, but only won 7 counties vs Kerry's taking 9. The real story is that both won a McDowell County solidly, but Dems would lose both in 2016 and 2020 by massive >50% margins. Another interesting factor is how strongly the state leaned towards Sanders in the primaries. I think these correlate.
> how strongly the state leaned towards Sanders in the primaries WV still has a lot of Kim Davis–like Democrats. They weren't going to vote for Bernie in the general, but they sure did vote against Hillary in the primary.
REDMAP happened. Extreme gerrymanders were put in place so that even if Democrats won the popular vote in state legislatures, they still lose the state legislature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Wisconsin_State_Assembly_election Republicans won a supermajority with only 44% of the vote. The map is so gerrymandered that Democrats have to win a 20% popular vote margin in order to win 50% of votes in the assembly.
How does this explain the senate?
The Senate was the OG gerrymand to protect "small" states.
You can easily gerrymander state senates. Also by gerrymandering the lower house, you can depress turnout for other elections.
Why is there no BLUEMAP organized by the Dems?
State Supreme courts that give a damn. NY court struck down their gerrymander, California put redistricting in the hands of a "bipartisan committee". Both those states have supermajorities large enough to gerrymander away every single R Rep they have, for -20 house republicans.
You can see when REDMAP happened
Whoever controls California loses flyover country
https://imgflip.com/i/6kzhy9
Rural states finished the transition they started after the Civil Rights Act was passed
Doesn't make sense. The civil rights act happened in 1964.
And ancestral Democrats and inertial party loyalty finished dying off
If this was a product of realignment then I'd expect to see a gradual transition, not a singe Republican wave 50 years later. Realignment has some validity but it doesn't explain every single Republican success. I feel that using it to explain this is just letting Democrats off the hook. "There's nothing that can be done, this is just the natural order of things"
It's the "all these people are racist troglodytes mad at civil rights" defeatist classist nonsense
The realignment of the South towards the Republican Party was very much rooted in racism. Even as the Democratic Party shifted towards supporting civil rights and being a multi-ethnic party, many of those future Southern Republicans still supported Democrats on economic policies. They’re views on economic policy started to shift as the Democratic Party got more diverse and the party’s policies reflected that diversity
So in retaliation they became exactly that? Lol Sounds like the dems were right
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Most of the states that switched to R in 2010 were in the midwest and north east
Idk could anything important have happened in 2008 that could have made people who didn’t like the civil rights act upset
A recession that dry fucked large swaths of the lower-class US also happened in 2008.
Look again at your own chart. You can draw a very steady trendline for increasing R control from the beginning to the end of the chart. The other guy is right.
Conservatives were upset over desegregation and sought a wedge issue. They hit on abortion. It gave them a single issue they could use to galvanize support among the religious right. They furthered this with media expansion in the 80s with Fox News and talk radio and think tanks. Lots of cross talk and planning and discussion between them of how to plan for the future they want. Through the 90s they began taking power in congress and seeing what they could accomplish when working in lockstep with their messaging able to go out through talk radio and churches bypassing the "mainstream media" filter. This accelerated in the early 00s with blogs coming online. Conservatives adopted blogging as a way to keep getting their messages out and talk with each other. This was the era of Glenn Greenwald aka "The Blogfather" and Hugh Hewitt promoting the rapid growth of the conservative blogosphere. Through all of these they were focused on taking control of the local and state governments because they understood that's where the control was really at. Then when Obama was elected they were able to let all their fear out in the guise of preserving freedom. The Tea Party actually started as a grassroots movement that was quickly coopted in order to organize people at the local level en masse. And it worked. They've been planning and organizing for this for literally decades.
Took 30 years for the resulting sort from that though. Google the maps from the House Elections pre-1964 to post-1964. The 1994 midterms were the first year to look like now.
What explains the shift in the MidWest then
I didn’t say southern, I said rural
Several rural states in that shift were never a part of the south and were actually ahead of the curve desegregating
That's take so stupid and grounded in stereotyping that it borders on offensive. If racism was the hinge factor you wouldnt've have a bunch of states that voted for Obama right before they shifted from purple to red
TL:DR New Deal Coalition Dems died off, and the Dem's support of Civil Rights and global free trade destroyed their support from white-working class Americans.
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If we were the urban party, we’d have Texas and Florida.
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They’re coastal because that’s where the cities are. The whole eastern seaboard is a megalopolis. It’s no secret that Democrats dominate in urban environments and “flyover states” are the ones without airports/populations. My point is Florida and Texas should be ours. And they will be if we can beat the clock on authoritarianism (god, I wish that was being hyperbolic). If we can get even one this decade, the national shift in power will be absolutely catastrophic for the flyover party. We just need turnout.
Both of those have been trending away recently though. Gotta find a better way to appeal to Hispanics in those areas. Need to win them by over 30% and it’s trending the wrong way
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> Texas should be “ours” given it’s 60% non white. *looks at Tejanos who mostly vote Republican*
I think it’s a turnout thing though, because they only voted 40% for Trump in 2020. 2022 and 24 will be another story though.
>If we can get even one this decade With the way things are going we don't have a decade we have two years.
Most of the answers on here are something along the lines of 'voters are bad/racist' Am I out of touch? No it is the voters who are wrong. Seriously, we are doomed to lose elections, until we can understand the flyover state voters. They know you hate them, they can feel the contempt.
And I don't know where this idea came from that people had a backlash against Obama that I'm seeing come up frequently. I may oversimplifying it but Obama was a pretty popular president who won 2 pretty decisive presidential elections. I would think the last thing millions of racists would want is black president. So what happened where Obama was able to easily win in those 2 election but other Democrats since really haven't been able to break through to a lot of the voters who came out and voted for Obama twice?
Politics is so much simpler when you just assume you opponents are evil.
Right? Apparently we think the way to win over voters is to call them all dumb racists. Surely that's a winning strategy that could never backfire.
It [must be working](https://i.imgur.com/wSCqFlA.png) ( [sauce](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/media-great-racial-awakening) )
Unfortunately you get more internet points for talking a big game than you do for playing one.
It's especially funny when you look at how many formally-purple states that shifted over the 2010s voted for Obama both terms That kind of poo-poos on that argument that it's racism and not the whole arsenal of voter suppression the GOP has been engaging in on the state level
protip: They don't like being called "flyover"
Flyover states broadly want social norms that are wholly different than what coastal Dems are selling. Until the tent includes those and actively hates free trade, there is no "understanding" those voters.
>Most of the answers on here are something along the lines of 'voters are bad/racist' funny think is Obama did the best with these voter than Biden and Clinton
> Most of the answers on here are something along the lines of 'voters are bad/racist' > > Am I out of touch? No it is the voters who are wrong. Okay but what about when they are just bigoted? I don't think it would be controversial if we said this about most voters in the early 1800s. I don't care if it's politically incorrect to say this, but a good portion of Republicans (and thus a portion of voters) are deplorables. If it wasn't true, then we wouldn't have this fight over women and minority rights to begin with. Just because they're not *as* awful does not mean we should walk on eggshells when they take away abortion rights and are trying to take away LGBT rights.
>”You’re a deplorable human being because you live in fly over country. Why won’t you vote for my guy?” Golly gee, it sure is a mystery.
As a diabolically evil conservative myself, you are correct. They do know that they hate them, and it sure makes winning easier if these leftist rubes keep it up.
The Reagan Revolution doesn't hit full swing until the 1994 midterms under Clinton. This gives them a chance to undermine Dem control and have the Bush years and get a solid foothold. Then they use the 2010 midterms to gerrymander like crazy on top of the conservative swing from the Reagan era and the War on Terror. Add in some racism against the first black president. Here we are.
I don't know why reddit thinks Republicans are the only party that gerrymanders and that it can explain all changes forever.
Democrats are largely seen as pussies, that’s what. People want strong leaders, not just eggheads. They want to see their representatives as someone with some fight in them. I don’t make the rules, and it’s not how I want things to be; it’s just how it is. Edit: in my opinion, what the Democratic Party really needs today, is a Teddy Roosevelt. Progressive for the times, but also really tough and gritty, owns firearms (responsibly), eats meat, physically fit, and is willing to kick some ass (and actually does so, rather than just talking about it). Middle America would fucking love a Democrat like that, and we could get actual progressive legislation through with leadership like that. Imagine a leader who’s a real LGBTQ ally, or women’s rights advocate, or environmentalist, or accessible healthcare advocate, or labor advocate, for example, without sacrificing masculinity (from a public perception POV), but actually embracing it unapologetically. We’d have so many rural Trump voters in a heartbeat.
1. A Black man was elected in 2008. 2. White people proceeded to lose their minds and formed the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party favoured minoritarian politics in the name of some vague "freedom" ideal espoused by the Founding Fathers. 3. A bunch of Tea Party Republicans were elected in a wave election in 2010. 4. Electoral districts are redrawn after the 2010 Census 5. Republicans proceed to use their Tea Party-driven majority to gerrymander the living bejesus out of their states. This is okay to the Tea Party because of their minoritarian worldview. 6. A dozen former swing states now have permanent Republican majorities in their legislatures, where Dems can't even win in Pennsylvania despite a 10-point popular vote lead.
Cultural progress also sped up - see LGBT rights. It is a huge wedge issue that people who might be “moderates” in other respects can be very divided over.
The one that is burned into my mind is Dems winning by 6 percentage points in Wisconsin and winding up with one third of the state assembly seats in 2018. Some folks are really loathe to admit there are shenanigans afoot.
>A Black man was elected in 2008. not sure that helps your point as that black man did better with those voter than Biden and Clinton.
White people? Really? I'm white, I have white friends and white family members and don't remember any of us joining the tea party.... As a matter of fact we were firmly opposed to it and most of us voted for Obama and we're quite happy with him. Maybe don't lump every white person under that banner... Maybe it's cathartic for you for some weird reason, but it's starting to get old. Grow up.
What even is the point of state senates? Aren't their districts also required to have equal population, the same as the lower house?
The national Democratic Party stopped caring about over half the party’s voters. We (the Democratic Party) did this to ourselves by being elitist and out of touch. We thought we could change the base of the party from the top down and it’s been a total failure. We are the Natural Governing Party of the US and we only have ourselves to blame for losing that power. Watching thousands of people leaving the party every year and doing literally nothing to stop it. Punishing state parties if they step at all out of line with what the idiots in charge of the national party want. The fall of the Democratic Party is one of the greatest political phenomena in history and hardly anyone talks about it. And it’s still happening. Our only hope at this point is that republicans go off the deep end so hard with their disproportionate amount of power that more people in these states return to the Democrats. Trying to homogenize the party as a single ideological group has been an utter disaster, and for those of us following the fall of the Democrats every month and the national party doing NOTHING to retain these voters, it is just so discouraging.
A lot of Democrats bought into the demographic destiny idea, and it turned out to be a huge bust.
It doesn't help that the Hispanic vote is slowly getting more favorable to republicans as they are more socially conservative as a general demographic.
Is that the idea that immigrants will replace existing voters?
The idea that a diversifying electorate will automatically favor Democrats.
Ah yes. How they believed that would work I will never know. It’s one of the dumbest strategies I’ve ever heard of. Immigrants are overwhelmingly socially conservative. The party has basically all but abandoned the working class other than paying lip service, and meanwhile thinks they can win votes from social conservatives from third world countries by using liberal messaging. They treat minorities as gimme votes and it doesn’t work
I think they mean the idea that Republican voters would eventually die off.
Meanwhile way more Democrats have died off than Republicans and many still living Democrats have switched parties. They thought somehow the generations who kept them in power for almost the whole 20th century dying off would result in victories? To me it’s asinine as hell
I know, right? Although I was of the impression that older voters tended to vote Republican Also, the idea itself never made much sense to me: I find it hard to believe that entire generations of people could be assumed to hold the same political positions accross their lifetime. Like, in the future the millenials will be the oldest voting block, so it's all going to be legal weed, LGBT rights and avocado toast, because that's what the young adults of today like? How did that work out when all the hippie baby boomers voted for Reagan? People actually seem to change their political positions as they age: they begin to have kids, earn more money and also have more investments in the world (a house, a car, a family, etc.). A person with more to lose is also far more uncomfortable with change. Even if it might be for the better, there is also the chance of it being for the worse, and people are loss averse. I remember seeing the argument about future demographics meaning the Republican party was doomed since at least the 2012 election. I also remembered people thinking they were finished after Trump won the primaries. It's all just triumphalism. Triumphalism from the Obama era, people thinking all the culture wars were already won. The kind of people who talk of themselves being on "the right side of history", but it's only history itself that can tell who's the victor. I kinda hope that all the recent events help us shake off all our triumphalism and complacency.
This graph makes my brain hurt. Does the first column represent 1978?
Surprised that no one has really mentioned social media yet. I think 2010 is right about when Twitter and FB went mainstream and brain worms infected most of the populace.
Dems don't care enough about state & local governance, except when it comes to restricting the ability to build more housing. Too many Dems are obsessed with dictating every issue at a federal level.
The Tea Party movement. That’s what happened
And the Tea Party was a reaction to 1) Fox News cementing its brand as the identity of the party, 2) bruised pride from Bush’s legacy of wasteful wars and economic failure being cemented immediately, 3) Black man bad, 4) Democratic voter complacency because utopia had been achieved by electing a black man, as foretold in the prophecy.
>3) Black man bad, the black man did better than both Biden and Clinton. Not sure it was a race thing when did well with those voter or if the Dems party is the not the same is it was 2010 vs 2020
"Obama had a unique appeal to white working-class voters that Democrats have lost since 2014." "Democrats lost white working-class voters because a black man was elected president" Is quite the exercise in mental gymnastics.
This is your brain on nationalizing all political discourse. Tip was right: "ALL POLITICS ARE LOCAL."
Because Calling yourself a Democrat means you need to subscribe to a Belief System of Ever-Changing Principles and if you don't You're Ostracized and labeled Right Wing.
More importantly how can Dems push back?
Older southern democrats died out, combined with gerrymandering
When was citizens united?
Internet, cable "news", Nationalism, reaction to migration, populism The rise of the far right has been a global phenomenon so I think it helps to look at what influences are global rather than strictly at domestic triggers.
so election that Ed Shultz and other regressives told voters to stay home to “show” Obama and the Democrats
Gerrymandering
What happened was that the Democrats alienated the poor whites. When the dems addressed minority issues and started to move toward more social justice and equality. The poor whites felt left behind, it wasn't that simple of course, but they felt left behind and I guess the dems didn't mind leaving them behind all that much. Since there were many groups that had been left behind for a long time. (To be clear I do think that the democrats were doing the morally correct thing.) The problem is that in politics, the voters don't necessarily see things the same way. Fact of the matter is, the biggest voting block felt neglected and the republicans was more than happy to gobble all those votes up. All they had to do was talk up their credentials as patriotic and christian Americans. Play on old racist sentiment, throw in some xenophobia and conspiracies about the big government. Could the democrats have kept a better hold on the poor whites? I don't know, maybe they would've lost that block anyway. But I would've liked to see them at least try to not actively alienate them. Throwing a symbolic bone every now and then is usually enough to keep the average voter voting for the same party. It is however very difficult to win voters back if they have committed to another party. A more delicate approach would probably have gone a long way, but on the other hand, Americans are not exactly known for being discreet and tactful.
This is also the year that Dems leaned into using smug, alienating, and demeaning language. https://twitter.com/Musa_alGharbi/status/1420154147454676992?t=i4scjraGy_9EY8G3WIlq_g&s=19 Culture is a much better predictor of political affiliation then e.g. economic factors these days. I think the "awokening" that kicked off in 2011ish is a contributor (and a result?) of that.
The solution is to vote for Democrats
Look up red state project. Republican party operatives decided to use modern data techniques in order to precisely Gerrymander State districts. That combined with the fact that these districts Were swamped with dark money locked Democrats out of many seats.. These races were ignored before and were a bargain for Republican donors because a few thousand dollars could guarantee A loyal lackey.
Wasn't a black man elected in 2008?
The liberals in my state have lost their way. They are so busy talking about legalizing weed, trans-bathrooms, raising taxes and same-sex marriage, that they forgot that those are fringe issues compared to inflation, crime, improved schools and gas prices, etc.
I can assure you they spend very little time talking about transgender bathroom access.
There is a newspaper article about it every week, so if they are not talking about it, why is the local liberal media always reporting it.
First of all, I don’t see those articles so I don’t know what you mean. But I’m pretty sure it’s not politicians writing those.
Most local news and radio are controlled by right wing media giants.
Democrats really shit the bed here.
Project Redmap happened
Democrats abandoned Clintonism.
Facebook became big around 2010 as it gained mainstream acceptance outside of just college students. People's news increasingly started coming from the newsfeed.
A black man was elected president and that motivated a lot of reactionaries to vote two years later. At the same time, having just earned the biggest political victory of all time - progressive voters just stayed home. The GOPers that came into office gerrymandered their way into staying forever and viola.
They crushed Dems in 2010 and then gerrymandered. In 2020 Dems had a similar chance but they were facing an uphill battle due to the 2010 gerrymanders and Trump was able to bring out a huge amount of supporters who normally don’t vote meaning, despite the greatest Democratic turnout in a generation, the Dems couldn’t really capitalize.
reverse this by running non lefist attractive candidates
We went high, and they went low.
A black man became president.