On Feb 23, 2009, at 11:34 AM, Doug Henwood quoted Bartels:
• Has the white working class abandoned the Democratic Party?
No. White voters in the
bottom third of the income distribution have actually become more
reliably Democratic in
presidential elections over the past half-century, while middle-
and upper-income white voters have trended Republican. Low-income
whites have become less Democratic in their partisan
identifications, but at a slower rate than more affluent whites –
and that trend is entirely confined to the South, where Democratic
identification was artificially inflated by the one-party system of
the Jim Crow era.
I have not read WtMwK, but I am told that the basic point of the title
is this: why do poor working class Americans vote against their
[economic] interests? Assuming that is the case...
Bartels critique, as highlighted by the above, mostly bypasses this
question, instead taking refuge in data. At least the analysis above
(I don't recall the entirety of Bartels's paper, though I did read it)
fails to address the real substance of such a question:
====
Rich people are going to vote for Republicans. So are meritocrats. The
promise to them is that they will be spared any impediment arising
from concern for general welfare, leaving them free to maximise the
return on their received advantages. The base of the Democrats is the
poor and working class people. In this group, a surprising/significant
number of people vote Republican. That requires an explanation.
====
Talking about "more reliably Democratic" etc does not answer this
fundamental question, any more than pointing to similar numbers
explains the recent switch by majority among the 150k-250k crowd to
Democratic affiliation.
--ravi
--
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