2. Banding together: progressive demographics and the politics of marginalization

This is my second post in an ongoing series on public perception of the democrats and the misconception that the US is generally a right-leaning country.

In my last post I showed that, historically, consistently more Americans have identified with democrats than with republicans, yet republican talking-points still so often portray us as isolated left-wing radicals. Taking a closer look at the demographic makeup of the progressive voter base goes a long way to explaining why it is so easy for republicans to make us feel like marginalized extremists, disconnected from Mainstreet, mainstream America.

The left wing draws heavily on minorities and, despite the fact that, when African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, and (some) Caucasian-Americans come together they form a strong coalition that almost always outnumbers the republicans, it’s very easy to make minorities feel like, well… minorities. Taking into account the underrepresentation of all minorities in politics and the history of political discrimination which they have faced, it is understandable that so many minorities translate the alienation they feel in their everyday lives into widespread disaffection with a political system that locks them out. Thus the transformative potential of a candidate like Barack Obama.

When you consider that the other group that regularly tends to vote democrat, women, has also faced intense discrimination and prejudices in their personal, professional, and civic lives, I think you begin to see why it is so easy for the right to make us feel isolated and marginalized: on some levels, it’s the truth! Even though women make up a slight majority of the general population, they are still severely marginalized and underrepresented politically. One of the more frightening aspects of the 2010 elections were that only 49% of women voted democrat and 48% voted republican. This probably has a lot to do with lack of voter enthusiasm on the left, but it's a dangerous trend nonetheless, especially given the republicans' new strategy of fielding fiery conservative women like Palin, O'Donnell, Haley, and Bachmann.

The last bastion of left-wing electoral power comes from the lower-income brackets, from all races, both men and women. Small wonder that they, too, feel shut out from a political system that does little to help them deal with the harsher realities of capitalism: unemployment, expensive health care, underfunded schools, abusive bureaucrats and police force… If you need concrete examples, I strongly suggest Barbara Ehrenreich’s recent article on the new face of poverty since 2008: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-ehrenreich/nickel-and-dimed-2011-ver_b_922330.html.

The constituent parts of the progressive electorate face discrimination in their personal, professional, and civic lives. What the right has done is exploit our sense of alienation to make us think that our ideas, our movement, and our leaders are just as marginalized as we feel in our day-to-day lives, which is very far from the truth: when we band together, we form a strong plurality/majority of the electorate.

The right is relying on our diversity as an electorate to keep us from turning the tables on them. This has been a problem for the left throughout North America and Europe as left-wing organizers have struggled to help workers unite with immigrants, minorities, women, and most recently the LGBT community to realize that they have the same interests and must work together. Considering the many prejudices that already exist, it’s very easy to understand why it’s so much harder to unite this electorate than to split it up. It’s also something to be very proud of: despite coming from extremely diverse backgrounds, communities, and paths of life, all of these groups regularly come together under the large tent of progressive politics. 

It’s also comforting to think that progressives are making inroads in the fastest growing demographic: Hispanic-Americans.

Finally, some of the democratic electorate is made up of people like me. I’m a white male who votes progressive; I’m from a primarily white region, and I have lamentably few African-American and Hispanic-American friends. If this is your situation, chances are you really are an outspoken progressive voice in your community: Caucasians, especially Caucasian males, are the core of the right’s electorate. In fact, this trend is only becoming more pronounced, with the biggest GOP gains since 2008 coming from this demographic. Take a look:  

http://www.pollwatchdaily.com/2011/07/22/republicans-post-big-party-identification-gains-among-white-voters/

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/roberts/101109 (analysis of a Tea Partier)

[And this is wonderful essay a blogger at the Nation, Jamelle Bouie, explaining how the Southern Strategy is playing out today and how the trends amongst minorities and whites mentioned above, particularly in the south, are becoming more pronounced.]

Most members of the democratic Congress belong to this demographic—white males–and thus really are isolated, outspoken progressive voices… amongst other white males that is! If only our representatives were as diverse as our electorate!

Despite knowing these demographic trends, since the Iraq War I have felt very alienated by my community, and that sentiment has only increased since 2008. I’m sure that many of you, my readers, feel the same way: we were as relieved to see a democratic president then as we are horrified at how strange American politics are now. 

What we see in Washington DC: a very vocal conservative minority (controlling only one chamber of Congress) painting the larger progressive majority (controlling one chamber of Congress and the White House) as extremists, is mirrored in the greater population: a vocal conservative minority made up primarily of white males branding a larger, more diverse, progressive majority extremist.

But, if you’re like me, it’s not enough to just know more Americans are progressive than conservative, we want to meet those people and commiserate with them. Well, the solution is easy to point out and much more difficult to put into practice: we need to build communities of support that bridge differences in race, class, nationality and immigration status, and sexual-preference. Another way to meet more progressives is just to increase the number of ladies in your circle of friends, which is easier sad than done for a nerdy guy like me... Chances are, if we get out of our demographic bubbles, we’ll find there are a lot more progressives out there than we’d thought!

Tomorrow, in my last installment in this series, I’ll talk about the New Left, the fading of the working class foundation of progressive politics, and how this contributed to the fragmentation of progressive politics into various smaller single-issue advocacy groups.

PS The blacklisted, union-funded film, The Salt of the Earth, does a great job of showing how difficult it can be to get minorities (in this case Hispanics miners) to band together with women to win a labor dispute. This clip from another great film about a real strike, Matewan, shows the same difficulties, but between white and black coal miners. It sends shivers up my spine every time I watch it, enjoy:

Special request: London riots

This post is in response to a reader's request that I say a few words about the London riots.

On the one hand, there are very legitimate reasons to protest and occasionally to riot. On the other hand, these days, so often, the people with the will to riot are not the people who know how, when, or why to riot.

One sad feature of left wing politics throughout Europe and North America is that the kernel of progressive movements: organizing and leading people who are frustrated, marginalized, and angry to constructive political action, has been mostly lost as the working-class manufacturing base of progressive parties faded demographically and progressives struggled in the 80s and 90s to appeal to middle-class voters. I want to quote a passage from the NYT that I just keep coming back to over and over:

“There’s an illusion that grass-roots activity just begins spontaneously, that people get mad and suddenly say, ‘I’m not going to take it anymore!’ ” says Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown University. “But that’s not how it happens.”

Intellectuals used to play a big role in organizing labor. In the 1930s, Communists and socialists were a major force. Later, labor unions stepped in.

But today’s unions are not set up to serve the unemployed; they generally organize around workplaces, after all.

I think what we've seen with the London riots and with riots in the suburbs of Paris and elsewhere are that, without solid organization and leadership from left-wing activists, they often amount to little more than looting and a bad PR stunt for rough urban areas with a lot of minorities.

This is actually a very dangerous situation for everyone, because as the economy worsens (and it looks like it will), there will be more frustration, more widespread chronic unemployment, and perhaps more rioting and protesting. A lot of people have nowhere to turn and nothing to lose. With no major political organization containing and directing this energy, it will just end up legitimating right wing politics and prejudices about the unemployed, poor, urban youth, and immigrants.

Just to make it absolutely clear though, I don't blame the rioters. I think many of them have very real frustrations. I think it is the left's collective responsibility to take a much more proactive stance in leading these people to more constructive political action. On a broader scale than just this riot, a lot of us on the left have this idea that a more progressive society will rise out of the ashes of capitalism. This is very far from the truth. If people are not mentally prepared and organized into an effective political force, it could just as easily lead to an end of law-and-order or a strong, authoritarian right-wing counteraction (witness the calls for a military response and Cameron's response...)

With this goal in mind, one thing we can all do is be a lot more honest with ourselves and with the people around us about what we believe. Today's left needs desperately to reevaluate its values and reestablish its core principles so that it can make a strong, constructive response to the right wing's vandalizing of government's most basic functions.

Here's the NYT article I keep mentioning in full. Right wing bloggers have picked up on it to try and shame the NYT for saying the unemployed ought to turn to communism. It's really worth a read: The Unemployed Somehow Became Invisible

***Update: Prime Minister David Cameron, also known for having said that multiculturalism has been a failure, called the riots "criminality, pure and simple," but is criminal behavior ever simple? Isn't crime, in all its forms, always tied to broader sociological, economic and cultural issues? Although it saddens me to see peaceful protests degenerate into looting, Cameron denying that this has anything to do with larger issues in the UK and Europe insures that the government will do little to address the underlying issues.

Also, this is a hilarious interview on the topic:

1. We’re not alone: A plurality of Americans are democrats

This is my first post in an ongoing series on public perception of the democrats and the misconception that the US is generally a right-leaning country.

Other developed nations have been racing ahead of us when it comes to enacting progressive policies; left-wing politicians in the US regularly face charges that they are not patriotic, that they are socialists–New England, Ivy League elites out of touch with mainstream, mainstreet Americans. And if you spoke out against the Iraq War, like I did, chances are you felt like an isolated heretic in a sea of conservatives. Heck, that’s how I still feel most of the time when I turn on the news and hear about what’s going on with the Tea Party!

But believe it or not, polls tracking partisan trends sends 2004 show that a consistent plurality of Americans identify with democrats. When these polls are expanded to include sympathizers (people who generally vote republican/democrat but aren’t necessarily members of either party), we find the same trend: with very few exceptions, more Americans sympathized with the democrats than with republicans from 2004-2010. When sympathizers are included, we also find that for most of the 2004-2010 period either a majority of Americans or a very significant plurality (almost a majority) supported the democrats.

Here are two well-regarded polls tracking partisan trends. Rasmussen shows a more consistent democratic trend in the US, unbroken until November 2010; Gallup includes the sympathizers and shows a strong democratic trend despite a little bit of variation.

The Gallup poll: http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx

The Rasmussen poll: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/archive/mood_of_america_archive/partisan_trends/summary_of_party_affiliation

Of course, both polls show that since 2010, there has been a lot more back and forth between republicans and democrats. For now though, let’s content ourselves with the knowledge that from 2004-2010, more Americans identified with democrats than with republicans. I’m going to have to write an entire post later on why things started getting mixed up: what’s happened since 2008 on the right is unprecedented in American history and deserves a much closer look.

Now, what about before 2004, you ask? The Pew Research Center has shown that more people supported democrats from the 1930s all the way up until 9/11, when republican affiliation jumped to about 30% and democratic membership fell to 31%. They point out that, actually, it wasn’t until 9/11 that republicans had even close to the membership of the Democratic Party. Since then, as shown above, more Americans support democrats than republicans, but the margin is much smaller.

As the study points out, since Republicans have higher voter turnout rates, the smaller advantage of the democrats puts them at risk in elections. I'm sure we all remember Bush/Gore, when the country consistently polled democrat, even voted democrat, and yet still lost the election by a hair's width.

Granted, for a good deal of the period in the Pew Research Center study (1930s and on), the democrats and republicans did not represent what they do today. Many people switched sides during the Civil Rights movement, thanks in part to the Southern Strategy–republican pandering to the rise of the white middle class in the south and their racial prejudices. Still, since that realignment and up until 9/11, the democrats solidly trounced republicans when it came to the raw number of people identifying themselves with either party.

The Pew Research Center study: http://people-press.org/2003/11/05/part-1-party-affiliation/

Historically then, America is not a conservative nation, and certainly not a republican nation. If you’re a progressive out there feeling lonely, you’re definitely not alone. You shouldn’t be afraid to speak out for what you believe–much of the alienation is self-enforcing: conservatives tell us we are marginalized extremists out-of-touch with mainstreet so we don’t speak our minds when we’re around “normal” people, and we probably often mistake solid democrats for republicans.

The fact that so many of us live in the closet politically also means that a large swath of the population, folks who aren’t particularly keen on politics and aren’t sure who believes what and who they agree with, don’t know what progressives stand for. As it turns out, many progressive policies, such as raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, are very popular, even amongst conservatives. Undoubtedly, if we spoke out more in our everyday lives, more people will know what we stand for, and consequently, more people will realize they already support some of the fundamental tenets of the American left.

In my next post, I’ll talk about the democrats’ voter base, which draws heavily on minorities and women, and how this might feed into the perception that we are so isolated.