From Jamelle Bouie's (Slate's chief political correspondent) analysis of the 2014 Midterms:
The Disunited States of America: Gridlock is only a symptom. Why our democracy may be hardwired to fail for a generation.
Here's Bouie's closing on Tuesday night's Democratic Debate:
How will you work your agenda through a gridlocked Washington? Democrats need an answer, because without one, their impressive plans are almost worthless.
Democrats keep saying "if more people voted", but what does that
really mean?
more below the disgruntled ballot box.
The 2014 midterm Republican smörgåsbord scored a landmark victory by winning safe bets, mildly competitive races, and knocking off incumbents. "And," Bouie writes, "to finish the hat trick, House Republicans are on track to win their largest majority since 1928."
WHY? Because certainly, and "[n]ationally, the Republican Party isn’t popular." This group of Republicans refuse to compromise—Inside the GOP: Report on focus groups with Evangelical, Tea Party, and moderate Republicans:
We expected that in this comfortable setting or in their private written notes, some would make a racial reference or racist slur when talking about the African American President. None did. They know that is deeply non-PC and are conscious about how they are perceived. But focusing on that misses how central is race to the worldview of Republican voters. They have an acute sense that they are white in a country that is becoming increasingly “minority,” and their party is getting whooped by a Democratic Party that uses big government programs that benefit mostly minorities, create dependency and a new electoral majority. Barack Obama and Obamacare is a racial flashpoint for many Evangelical and Tea Party voters.
The "generational divide in partisanship" Bouie describes, where one side of the seesaw is
older, whiter, wealthier, and much more conservative than the public at large vs. the other side
made up of young people and minorities.
To put it in a sound bite, Democrats don’t have enough white voters to consistently hold the Senate or win the House, and Republicans don’t have enough minorities to win the presidency.
The main point Bouie makes:
the No-Vote-GOP showed up for Obama, and they're here to stay.
Bouie does a good job explaining how a clusterf*ck of 21st century trends lurk behind Washington's gridlock, where Liberal voters are younger, browner, occasional voters electing presidents, while Conservative voters are older, whiter, consistently electing House majorities. The only toss-up is who gets a Senate majority.
The Generation Gap and the 2012 Election • Political Polarization in the American Public • The Whys and Hows of Generations Research • Young Voters Supported Obama Less, But May Have Mattered More