When discussing the polarization of American politics, pundits often act as if the categories Democrat and Republican reflect deep ideological divides, and that the truth lies somewhere in the center.
To examine this premise, let us briefly consider the distribution of public opinion in the United States. Because this column is short, please allow me to somewhat sloppily divide politics into social and economic issues. The demographic distribution of opinions on social issues — including abortion, gay rights, racial equality and gun control — largely fall along rural versus urban and northern versus southern divides. These disagreements have their roots in cultural differences between the rural, religious south and the urban, secular north, and the important but different role slavery played in both their economies. These geographical distributions are largely the historical basis for modern party affiliation.
Opinion on economic issues clusters less neatly, but tends to fall along class lines. Certain issues such as support for recent trade agreements, revisions to corporate tax policy and disregard for American manufacturing are supported by the business-oriented, moderate sections of each party and opposed by each party’s working class segments. Consider, for example, the North and Central American Free Trade agreements and the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership, each of these bills received both bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition. Each was quickly shoved through Congress by each party’s establishment while being opposed by the working class members of the party.
Examination of these trends reveals a phenomena so successful and clever that it is difficult to avoid calling it a business class strategy. Due to the fact that party divisions are drawn along disagreements over social issues — boundaries which have their roots in Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” — the working class segments of each party cannot coordinate with each other. Furthermore, and most nefariously, persistent calls for compromise, moderation and bipartisanship have the consistent result of disempowering each party’s anti-corporate wings to meet in the middle at the business-controlled center.
But, party realignments happen periodically in American politics and this particular moment looks ripe. The anti-establishment wings of each party have grown powerful. Increasingly large swaths of each party are angry with their party’s power brokers. Each party’s center, and closely related party-agnostic centrists like former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, would call this the degradation of the American political system and seek to re-exert control over their respective bases.
However, this sentiment will not simply burn out. A Donald Trump supporter will not easily support a Bush the next election, just as a Sanders supporter will not easily support another Clinton. Sure, they may vote for their party’s candidate in the general election, but there will still be a ripple effect of contested primaries across the country. Now that these constituencies exist and are self-aware, they expect candidates on both sides to cater to them.
The productive resolution of our current political predicament, therefore, cannot be the center reclaiming control of the edges — which would be equivalent to kicking the populist can down the road — but must be a party realignment based on a broad coalition of working class and young citizens across geographical and social boundaries. Such a coalition would need to be organized by a presidential candidate with a laser-like focus on economic inequality and political corruption.
It may not surprise you that I believe Sanders is this candidate. When asked if I think Sanders can win a general election or accomplish any of the things he’d like to as president, I give the following response. If we can assemble this coalition — and we must — it will contain more than seventy percent of the population; an unstoppable political force. This coalition is also the only way to stop the current rise of the far right.
Sanders knows this and views it as an essential component of his general election strategy. There are three pieces of evidence in particular that suggest this: First, his call for a competitive Democratic campaign in all 50 states; second, a speech he gave at the notoriously conservative Liberty University, demonstrating an ability to reach across culture lines; and third, the way he addresses the Trump phenomena. He often speaks directly to his supporters, expressing sympathy for their economic position while emphasizing that the demagogue style response is a common outcome of a declining middle class.
Obviously I don’t support Trump, who is continues to fit more and more of the fascist archetype. However, his supporters are real people who have been heavily propagandized, and we should to talk to them and address their concerns so that this does not become a permanent feature of American politics. More than that, they have real problems and deserve to be viewed as a constituency.
