Economic Equity & Social Tolerance

The Democrats who defeated them can be expected to hold these seats indefinitely. Historically Republican districts going back to the founding of the GOP in the Civil War are turning into Democratic bastions. After the failure of Reconstruction, the South became wholly Democratic, the Solid South, and the basis of a Democratic Party that was mostly out of power, unless the Republicans split, until the rise of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal during the Great Depression. The pre-FDR Republicans, after Reconstruction, gave up on ever building a two-party system in the South. Instead, in reaction to the Solid South, the Republicans consolidated national power in the Solid North.

This post-Civil War/pre-New Deal pattern is now turned on its head. Voting patterns today almost exactly resemble voting patterns of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but with the parties in reverse positions.

The Democratic Party that has advanced from the 2006 elections reasserts the Solid North, with inroads in the metropolitan states of the West, and, like the GOP of the past, challenges in the states of the peripheral South such as Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia. This Democratic Party has never existed before. It is a center-left party with wings that can flap together. The party's opposition to the Republicans on economic equity and social tolerance are its defining characteristics.

[from Sidney Blumenthal, "The American revolution of 2006 and beyond", Comment is Free, 9 November 2006.]

Posted on November 9, 2006 at 19.09 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events

7 Responses

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  1. Written by S.W. Anderson
    on Friday, 10 November 2006 at 00.25
    Permalink

    A little too neatsy-tidy for my taste, although the general drift's OK.

    I'm quite familiar with the states of the West, but darned if I can be sure about the metropolitan ones. Maybe California.

    Down in the last paragraph, I take it Blumenthal is trying to say Howard Dean's sensible 50-states strategy is a good one without really giving credit where it's due. As for the peripheral states, Tennessee remains inroads free, best I can tell. Virginia joined in a blowout scenario, its way eased by Sen. George Allen's spectacular ineptitude. Had this been a more typical midterm election with a less self-destructve incumbent, I doubt the Old Dominion would've gone Democratic. As for Arkansas, I just don't know.

    Florida is kind of a peripheral state, considering how it's jam-packed with yankees from one end to the other. Its electoral trends should resemble those of Long Island and Sussex County, N.J. more than Dixie, yet often they don't. Go figure.

  2. Written by rightsaidfred
    on Friday, 10 November 2006 at 09.51
    Permalink

    Don't overrate Florida immigrants from the north. There are still alot of natives. The significant number of workers and business people who follow the immigrants have different political goals than those from Long Island and Sussex county.

    Blumenthal. Ugh. He gives political hacks a bad name.

    I think an alternative way to describe what Blumenthal discusses is that Democrats have been consolidating as the party of urban liberalism, while Republicans are more aligned with rural conservatism. As our country becomes more urbanized, both parties have moved to the left.

  3. Written by jns
    on Saturday, 11 November 2006 at 14.00
    Permalink

    Conservatives "conserve"; their ideas, such as they are, ultimately get left behind as society progresses and grows. It only seems to some that both parties have moved to the left because this is no longer the 19th century.

  4. Written by S.W. Anderson
    on Sunday, 12 November 2006 at 02.21
    Permalink

    Jeff, I salute your choice of centuries. Less
    astute commentators would've said 20th.

  5. Written by rightsaidfred
    on Sunday, 12 November 2006 at 08.57
    Permalink

    Is that what the book series "Left Behind" was about?

  6. Written by jns
    on Sunday, 12 November 2006 at 12.36
    Permalink

    I wouldn't be at all surprised, Fred, since I, as a lefty atheist, am certainly not on the invitation list for the Rapture. Of course, there could also be other meanings of "behind" that would apply, too!

  7. Written by rightsaidfred
    on Sunday, 12 November 2006 at 15.12
    Permalink

    That would be the "right behind".

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