Reagan Democrats, meet Biden Republicans

[lpetrich]

The Rise of the Biden Republicans - POLITICO

There are unwritten rules that dictate how American politics works. Former presidents shouldn’t weigh in on quotidian partisan squabbles. An incumbent senator shouldn’t support a primary challenger running against a fellow incumbent. If you’re an elected official, avoid directly comparing yourself to Abraham Lincoln—show some humility and instruct surrogates to do that on your behalf. Never try to correct a middle-schooler spelling the word “potato.” And if you want to take the pulse of white middle America, go to its de facto national capital—Macomb County, Michigan.

Every four years, as if driven by mainspring, presidents, those aspiring to be presidents and the reporters who cover them, return to the blue-collar Detroit suburbs to try out their messages and make sense of what’s happening in middle America.

Including 1988 VP candidate Mike Dukakis making himself look totally silly driving a tank.

In 1960, the people of this Detroit suburb voted solidly Democratic, but in 1984, they supported Ronald Reagan by a landslide.

fter convening a series of focus groups, Greenberg coined a term for these voters—“Reagan Democrats”—and a theory of the case. In these voters’ eyes, “the leaders who were supposed to fight for them seemed to care more about the blacks in Detroit and the protesters on campus; they seemed to care more about equal rights and abortion than about mortgage payments and crime,” Greenberg later wrote. “The old politics has failed them. What they really want is a new political contract—and the freedom to dream the American dream again.” Macomb, he said, “is the site of an historic upheaval that has wrecked the old and promises a new volatile kind of politics.”

For over 30 years, Presidential candidates would pursue these Reagan Democrats.

Then something important happened: In leaning too hard into white identity politics—and perhaps being too focused on what he thought Reagan Democrats wanted—Trump accelerated the rise of a new voting bloc that is, in many ways, the mirror image of the Reagan Democrats.

Call them the Biden Republicans.

Like the Reagan Democrats, they’re heavily white and live in suburbs. But where the Reagan Dems are blue-collar and culturally conservative, Greenberg sees the Biden Republicans as more affluent, highly educated and supportive of diversity. Historically, they identified with the Republican Party as their political home. But the leaders who were supposed to fight for them seem to care more about white grievance and keeping out immigrants; seem to care more about social issues and “owning the libs” than about child-care payments and college tuition. They don’t consider themselves Democrats—at least not yet—but they are voting for them, delivering them majorities in the House and Senate, and making Joe Biden just the fourth candidate in the past century to defeat an incumbent president.

The Reagan Democrats objected to the Democratic Party not addressing their concerns, and the Biden Republicans do likewise with the Republican Party.

“Biden is very self-consciously campaigning for Macomb County-type, white working-class voters [for whom] race is not the only thing driving their vote, but who went to Trump [in 2016] because of globalization and their belief that Democrats are not fighting for American workers,” says Greenberg, now based in Washington, D.C., where he continues to work in political polling. “‘America First’ rhetoric was a part of Biden’s campaign. It’s still part of ‘build back better.’”

 

[lpetrich]

Ronald Reagan notably stated “I’m a former Democrat, and I have to say: I didn't leave my party; my party left me.”

How many ex-Republicans might say something similar?

In both 2016 and 2020, Trump brought in new voters—people animated by “white nationalism and racial resentment, and whose overwhelming motivation is a deep worry that Black people and immigrants will control the country,” and who are “voting straight-ticket [Republican] to ‘save the country,’” says Greenberg. But by courting those votes, Republicans risk pushing the Biden Republicans further into the Democratic side of the ledger.

...
Biden lacks the cosmopolitan appeal of Obama, but to Reagan Democrats, that’s a feature not a bug. “Obama was pro-globalization, and believed we benefited from it,” says Greenberg. “He would have been embarrassed to go see a company that was bringing jobs back from abroad to build in America. He would have been embarrassed to highlight that. But Biden will.” It’s Trump’s economic populism without Trump’s dog-sees-a-squirrel message discipline.

And also without Trump's assholishness and bigotry and white-supremacist sympathies and bragging and belligerence.

“Trump voters, a large portion of them, want a welfare state that is dependable for working people,” says Greenberg. And Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion Covid relief package could make a tangible difference in their lives. Do the Reagan Democrats stick with non-Trump Republicans if Biden’s Democrats deliver reopened schools, a strong economy, a huge investment in infrastructure and a $3,600-per-child benefit to families on top of a $1,400 stimulus check?

I suspect that the Senate Democrats will have to abolish the filibuster, or else use reconciliation very creatively.

Then an interview with pollster Stanley Greenberg.

The shift of college-educated voters toward Democrats has been going on from the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, up through Gore in 2000 and beyond. I had a fight with Rahm Emanuel when he was heading the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: James Carville and I were arguing that the congressional district lines had been drawn with the standard assumption that college-educated and wealthier voters were strong Republicans, but that in fact, that demographic had flipped, and if you went a little bit further than just the races with the most resources being spent, there were many more competitive seats than people realized. We won control of the House in 2006. And we gained seats in 2008 — which surprised people. But that was because of this trend.

He also suspects that the Republicans will have to lose some national elections before they will be willing to reform themselves.

Right now, everyone thinks that government needs to deliver in a big way. I think that scares Republicans. And it will be interesting to see. People are going to see real benefits, not just the $2,000 stimulus piece, but something more enduring. If you look at the proposed $3,600 per child; that’s delivered [in installments] monthly into people’s checking accounts. That not only reduces child poverty; it’s virtually every middle-class person that we are talking about.

That's part of the success of Social Security and Medicare. They are universal. We all laughed at "Keep your government hands off my Medicare", I'm sure, but that is a success of Medicare, that people think of it as no more part of the government than they think that the military and police are. Right-wingers seem to emotionally believe that soldiers and cops are all vigilantes.