I went and gathered the certified numbers from the Pennsylvania Secretary of State’s site for the past two presidential and senatorial elections here. I picked four counties to show you. These results demonstrate how Clinton did in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, the Philly suburbs, and in the Pennsyltucky ‘T’ part of the Keystone State.
Notice that Clinton got more votes than Obama out of Pittsburgh and out of the Philly suburbs. Notice that she nearly matched Obama’s vote total out of Philly.
Also, notice how much better Toomey did than Trump in the burbs (Montgomery County) and how much worse he did than Trump in the ‘T’ (Cambria County).
Montgomery County (Philly Suburbs)
Obama 233,356 57%
Romney 174,381 42%
Clinton 256,082 59%
Trump 162,731 37%
Casey 235,197 58%
Smith 163,882 41%
McGinty 237,353 55%
Toomey 189,574 45%Cambria County (Central-West)
Obama 24,249 40%
Romney 35,163 58%
Clinton 18,867 29.9%
Trump 42,258 67%
Casey 28,779 48%
Smith 30,202 50%
McGinty 21,894 35%
Toomey 36,948 59%Allegheny County (Pittsburgh)
Obama 352,687 57%
Romney 262,039 42%
Clinton 367,617 57%
Trump 259,480 40%
Casey 362,459 59%
Smith 236,546 39%
McGinty 357,450 55%
Toomey 261,316 40%Philadelphia County (Philadelphia)
Obama 588,806 85%
Romney 96,467 14%
Clinton 584,025 83%
Trump 108,748 15%
Casey 564,886 86%
Smith 84,461 13%
McGinty 560,421 82%
Toomey 116,714 17%
When compared to Bob Casey results or Obama’s results, McGinty did poorly in Pennsyltucky, but she still did respectably when compared to Clinton. Her total was only 2,500 lower than what Obama received there four years earlier, while Clinton’s numbers were down by 5,500.
What killed her campaign was running so far behind Clinton in the much more populous suburbs.
This is what I’m warning about. Trump really was weaker than a standard Republican in the suburbs all over this country, but that doesn’t mean that this will transfer to other candidates in the future. Clinton does seem to have been uniquely weak in these white working class counties, and maybe she dragged McGinty down some in those places. But this erosion has more potential to be persistent than the Republicans’ problems in the suburbs. This is particularly true if the Democrats’ solution to winning back support in more rural areas is to adopt a kind of economic populism that will alienate suburban voters.
It’s like a balloon that can expand in the other direction when you compress one side. And there are many more votes in the suburbs, so making a straight-up trade is very risky.
Still, because the Democrats need to concern themselves with expanding the geographic breadth of their support, it’s a risk that has to be made to some degree.
But, I suspect that the Democrats can’t have it both ways and be successful with a unified message. To have it both ways, they’ll actually have to have two, distinct messages than don’t overlap in important respects. And if the plan fails in the suburbs, the failure will be more pronounced than if the opposite happens.
The answer is to have two messages — Jim Crow and social democracy.
Worked for FDR, didn’t it?
I specifically rejected that formulation in the last post.
What else you got?
The only way to elect Democrats is to have them not be.
A distinct point. Look how fast the welfare states of Europe are unraveling once their populations are not homogenous.
I mean hell, LePen is a better choice than Fillon in France because they are equally xenophobic but at least LePen won’t rip up the safety net. Though maybe they’ll pull off a miracle and Macron will win.
I don’t think there is a correlation with homogeneous population. Look at Finland for example, hardly any immigration and a big far right party. In the absence of actual immigrants they blame the Swedish speaking minority. Now, Finland has not been more homogeneous earlier, it’s just that they lacked a party exploiting that rift and as long as full employment ruled and wages increased there was no grounds for the politics of finding a minority to blame.
The unraveling seems to correlate more with the centre-left first giving up full employment and then doubling down on austerity.
Hollande for example was elected with hopes of standing up to Germany and ending austerity. Instead he has attacked unions and the welfare state and destroyed his party’s chances.
So it’s not that you can’t have a welfare state with diverse population, it’s that you can’t have it if your centre-left party doesn’t make it a priority.
One of the features of the oligarchs becoming much more wealthy as everyone else stagnates or loses ground, is that people mistrust everyone who doesn’t look/sound/live just like themselves.
A feature, because it allows the oligarchs to grab even more as the rabble fight amongst themselves for the scraps.
Capitalism -> Fascism -> Feudalism
I think recent events have made political analysis of this sort moot. We know that Trump will abuse the power of his office but not yet by how much. We know that the Republicans in Congress will look the other way but not yet for how long. It seems certain to me that Putin will encourage (use scare quotes there if you like) Trump to press early to expand his own power before Congress understands the nature of the threat, by which time it’ll be too late to stop him.
Once that happens, power will cease to be transferred peacefully according to the popular will. (One could make a case that popular will has already been removed from the formula and not be too far from correct.)
I realize this sounds like Alex Jones foolishess, but honestly: What about Donald Trump suggests that he won’t push to expand his power as much and as quickly as he can? Who or what stands ready to stop him who can?
Jesus, and I was in a good mood.
Adding to what you said….. that the media is worthless in getting democratic messages out, and Trump has shown an idiot savant ability to manipulate them whenever he wants.
Then add that the FBI prefers republicans, with authoritarianism a feature to them, not a bug.
No message will get out without addressing those two things.
.
Curious, in your ring suburbs, what has been the trend–upscale or down?
I have been reading that gentrification in some Pa cities has been on steroids and rentals are pricing more modest citizens out into the suburbs. Was that the case in the counties you chose?
I can speak to one county, MontCo, from ’95 on. Increasingly white collar workers, employed in the ring, decent to excellent salaries, and substantial increase in large houses. The trend politically was left.
Gentrification of the cities is going to keep happening because it’s much more convenient to live within the city where the services are. Not to mention, it cuts costs of travel, and travel time itself. It wouldn’t surprise me to see more and more public transit in medium to small cities that are growing, as the people gentrifying the cities will now consider it worthwhile as they now live there and can use it.
The suburbs were essentially subsidized by the cities, until the cities’ tax base fell apart as everyone moved to the suburbs. Now that prices inside the city have fallen, people are moving back in. And when prices go up, people have to move to the suburbs and farther, where the services aren’t, and where it costs even more just to make it into the city for work.
Capitalist bubbles. Everywhere. It’s why capitalism is only really useful for frivolous goods like makeup, designer shoes, and leather furniture.
More and more aspects of the “economy” should be classified as utilities, such as housing, but to do so would be to reduce the profits of the rentier class. Which, of course, isn’t going to happen as long as most people are unwilling to even think about how a society should actually function for the benefit of the majority, if not everyone.
This is particularly true if the Democrats’ solution to winning back support in more rural areas is to adopt a kind of economic populism that will alienate suburban voters.
And this means what exactly? That the Democratic Party has to move farther right economically? Do you think suburban people want to worry about college tuition or medical bills?
I don’t think “economic populism” is a frame that gets us very far. We’re talking about a class-based (though not necessarily Marxist) politics, in a society with three broad classes. Poor, Rich, and Middle. A class conflict in this three-legged stool will be one of the following:
A) Rich and Middle vs. Poor – this is the frame the Republicans seek, and the Democrats are sometimes foolish enough to give it to them by focusing too solely on the poor or otherwise oppressed. In a society where the middle-class are still the majority, this is an alignment the poor will always lose in the long run.
B) Poor and Middle vs. Rich – this is the sweet spot for progressives. The rich are powerful, but they are not numerous. This is why SS and Medicare are so powerful when the rest of the welfare state is continuously under threat and a political liability. Even the upper-middle class that would probably do better with private accounts than social security generally support SS because of the certainty it provides.
C) Poor and Rich vs. Middle – this is, I think, an unusual alignment in national politics, though it is the primary alignment behind globalization – which has benefitted the global rich and poor at the expense of the global middle -class, which includes most of the first world poor. There is a lot to say about this, but I’ll go into it another time.
Sanders was hitting squarely on B – living wage spoke to the needs of the poor, but free college was aimed squarely at the middle-class. Occupy laid the foundation for the rhetoric by making the target the 1%. Sanders may not have used that phrase, but he kept the target the same.
Because of that I think “economic populism” of the Sanders sort can play in the suburbs – you’ve just got to make sure the middle-class is getting their needs addressed too, rather than being told they have it too good, and need to suffer to help the poor.
rational. But the promised further explication of C) is needed and will be welcome. Since it’s not intuitively obvious that
That globalization has benefited the rich at the expense of the middle class seems utterly uncontroversial. The global poor, not so much. (Lumping “first world poor” into “global middle class” seems arguably problematic, certainly questionable, too.)
There’s an argument to be made (and it is made, regularly) that globalization has increased incomes, hence “standard of living” (including becoming “better” consumers) of the poorest in 3rd-world/”developing” countries. If defining “benefit” with such a narrowly constricted, tunnel-vision meaning, this is probably largely true. This is the “trickle-down”/”rising-tide-lifts-all-boats” model (and nevermind if it lifts most a nanometer, while also punching leaks in their hulls; and lifts a minuscule number to the summit of Everest)
But of course, a real cost/benefit analysis requires inclusion of all (not just economic) actual costs as well as all (not just economic) actual benefits. Critically including an accounting of what is lost/given up in the transition under that sort of globalization-driven “development”.
An example* just off the top of my head: a sharp spike in suicides of Indian farmers as Monsanto, with the enthusiastic support of and close cooperation from the Indian government converted India’s traditional agricultural system to Monsanto’s Roundup-Ready GMO model of Totalitarian Industrial Agriculture.
*These details are as I recall them from the excellent documentary The Corporation (I think!) [Wow, you can watch it on youtube! You should! Everybody should! I intend to do so again first chance I get]. Been several years since I saw it, so can’t vouch for the perfect accuracy of every minute detail, but pretty confident I have overall gist substantively correct. If not, correct me if/after you’ve seen it!