Democrats searching for the path

I read an interesting article today on the split forming in the Democrats. Because the Democrats only win national elections recently with coalition votes, they have to keep the coalitions together to capture enough votes to win in states that are widely varied in composition. Politically, that is not an easy thing to do. What plays well in very liberal states like California and Vermont may not play well in rust belt states and especially not well in the south. By the same token, more moderate or conservative policy trade-offs for moderate states, may not play well in the most liberal states. To keep the coalition together means walking a fine line between various splintered groups with their own agendas. As an aside, Angela Merkel is currently having exactly the same problem in Germany.

Before the 1930s, the black vote in the US was almost exclusively Republican because the Republicans had been against slavery, for civil rights, etc. and the Democrats opposed all of those ideas. The Democrats were the party of segregation and Jim Crow Laws. With the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, that changed. Black voters embraced the New Deal and have been fairly monolithic in support of Democrats since then. The record turnout for candidate Barrack Obama in 2008 and particularly in 2012 was expected, given his mixed-race lineage. The black turnout for the 2012 election was 66.6%, which is great. However, in 2016, the turnout was 59.6%, a seven point drop. It is not surprising that those voters were not as excited about Hillary Clinton. In fact, that type of drop should have been expected, given President Obama's unique position in history.

One of the biggest problems that the Democrats have now is the immigration debate. A poll by the Harvard-Harris survey, done recently, found that African-Americans are the racial group most opposed to unlimited immigration. Whereas 79 percent of whites want to prioritize legal immigrants based on what they can contribute to society, 85 percent of African-Americans hold that view. This is a potentially huge problem for Democrats as many Democrats, both in, and running for, office are openly advocating for open borders and less enforcement of immigration law. With the economy improving so much and unemployment being so low, the Democrats have to find something to run on, other than "We don't like the President". Democrats have to be able to count on that large percentage of the black vote to be able to win a national election, and many state-wide elections. If the Democrats put forth policies that 85% of that group do not like, and they have no other issue that will overwhelm that concern, they are likely to have those voters vote for a Republican, or just not vote at all, which amounts to the same thing in the end.

It is a hard path to walk in between the WAY left and the middle of the country. Rep. Joe Crowley would have been on the short list to become the next Speaker of the House of Representatives if he had held his seat in the primary in New York. Instead, he was beaten in the primary by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a declared socialist. It is going to be very hard to win in the middle of the country with an agenda like hers. Therefore, the Democrats are forced to spin that her winning was a good thing (in fact, they are all astounded and scared by that election), while trying, at the same time, not to have the middle of the country think that the party, as a whole, is not endorsing her views. That is a tough path to walk.