Quote (thesnipa @ Oct 28 2020 03:55pm)
shifting suburban centrist voters and national polarization aren't the same thing. especially because centrist voters aren't subject to polarization as much as party line voters. its the party line voters that get out en masse to support trump and convert others, same for the bernie bros.
what im saying is pretty simple, if we are measuring the premise "polarization got way worse under Obama" then the lowest common denominator is racism. im willing to listen to the argument that polarization predates obama and the largest factor is outsourcing, thats my actual belief, but with obamas presidency in a bubble.....
edit: so are you saying Obama's "he could have been my son" comment is more effectual than Obama's blackness?
What fundamentally elected Trump is a shift of working class voters away from the Democratic party, voters who supported Obama's 2008 run.
Simultaneously, suburban voters who voted against Obama defected in an accelerated fashion towards the Democratic party.
The Republican additions were far more strategically placed, and had an outsized impact on the electoral map.
The working class vote has always been culturally aligned with Republicans. As the Democratic platform pivoted to coastal urbanites and minorities, they lost the hold that their economic policy had in shoring up working class support.
Edit: To summarize, the working class voters who helped elect Obama turned away from him, and the wealthy suburbanites who opposed his run now support his party. These trends predate Obama, but they accelerated during his administration.
This post was edited by bogie160 on Oct 28 2020 02:09pm