NYT Steers Dems Away From the Obvious Formula for Defeating Trump
- FAIR, AUGUST 29, 2019
- JIM NAURECKAS
Thomas Edsalls demographic analysis is almost always misleading (FAIR.org, 2/10/15, 10/9/15, 6/5/16, 3/30/18, 7/24/19)and his latest column for the New York Times (8/28/19) is no exception.
We Arent Seeing White Support for Trump for What It Is, the headline complainswith the subhead explaining, A crucial part of his coalition is made up of better-off white people who did not graduate from college.
Why does this matter? Edsalls column is largely a write-up of a paper by two political scientists, Herbert Kitschelt and Philipp Rehm, who note that better-off whites without college degrees tend to endorse authoritarian noneconomic policies and tend to oppose progressive economic policies, and are therefore a constituency that is now decisively committed to the Republican Party. (By authoritarian policies, the researchers are mainly talking about racism and xenophobia.) Low-income, low-education whites, by contrast, tend to support progressive economic policies and tend to endorse authoritarian policies on the noneconomic dimension, and are therefore conflicted in their partisan allegiance.
Whats at stake in presenting one of these constituencies as crucial is how you approach the task of defeating Trump: If hes turning out his key supporters through race-baiting and immigrant-bashing, the argument goes, then Democrats need to take care not to be too outspoken on issues of race and immigration. And so Edsall confidently concludes:
The 2020 election will be fought over the current loss of certaintythe absolute lack of consensuson the issue of race.
Democrats are convinced of the justness of the liberal, humanistic, enlightenment tradition of expanding rights for racial and ethnic minorities. Republicans, less so
. If Democrats want to give themselves the best shot of getting Trump out of the White House
they must make concerted efforts at pragmatic diplomacy and persuasionand show a new level of empathy.
(This is an argument Edsall has made beforesee Whats a Non-Racist Way to Appeal to Working-Class Whites? NYTs Edsall Cant Think of Any, FAIR.org,
3/30/18.)
As Naureckas goes on to point out:
So the supposedly crucial better-off white noncollege grads are about half as plentiful as their poorer counterpartsand they have been voting Republican fairly consistently since 1972, through good years for Republicans and bad. What was actually crucial to Trumps 2016 success is that the larger group of poorer less-educated whites, which traditionally leans Democratic or splits its vote, went decisively Republican.
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