It's no secret that Democrats have been losing white working class voters for decades:
In the last three presidential elections, the Democratic candidate lost among white working-class (non-college-educated) voters by an average of 22 points. The worst performance came in 2012, when Obama lost this group— once the bulwark of the Democratic coalition—by a staggering 26 points (62 to 36 percent).
As the Center for American Progress's Teixeira and Halpin note, the white working class is a shrinking demographic but one that would make a world of difference if the Democrats could find a way to win those voters back. And now, they say, is the time to do it.
Democrats don’t need to win a majority of white working-class voters, just enough of them to deny Republicans the supermajorities they currently have that let them keep digging in their heels to resist the slightest move in a progressive direction.
But how to do such a thing?
Over time, we expect that generational change will make the white working class more liberal and open to progressive agendas. This will occur as white working-class Millennials gradually take the place of generally more conservative white working-class Baby Boomers and older Americans. Democrats generally receive greater support among Millennial white working-class voters than among older white working-class voters. This gap peaked in 2008 when Obama’s margin was 30 points better among eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-old white working-class Millennial voters than among their older counterparts....
White working-class Millennials are substantially more liberal on social issues. For example, in the 2012 National Election Study, 54 percent of white working-class Millennials thought that gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to legally marry, compared to just 34 percent of older white working-class voters. They are also more likely than older working-class Americans to be secular in orientation, another indicator of liberalism....
And perhaps most important, today’s young white working-class voters are notably more liberal on issues concerning the role of government, which have been an especially strong factor in moving the white working class to the right over time....
So what progressive policies can be tailored to appeal to white working class Millennials as well as to other demographics already within the Democratic base?
This new narrative is based on the idea that rising inequality actually undermines rather than fuels growth. This “equitable growth” or “middle-out economics” school of thought points to a growing body of evidence that reducing inequality is not merely compatible with growth but also can be a significant contributor to both the quantity and the quality of growth. The broad argument is that the economy grows from the “middle out,” and that the true heroes in our economic drama are not corporations and the wealthy but rather a robust and growing middle class. With such an approach, the economy can work for everyone, not just the wealthy few, as it does today.
"The economy should work for everyone, not just the wealthy few."
This, in turn, points to a policy agenda heavy on investment in the middle class—its living conditions and sense of security, its skills, its entrepreneurial capabilities—and in the conditions that allow the middle class to succeed—modern infrastructure, cutting-edge scientific research, and dynamic new industries that can provide middle-class jobs. And it leads away from a policy agenda focused on deficit reduction, which has been a loser for progressives and simply reinforces already-existing antigovernment tendencies.
As Teixeira and Halpin point out, this is not just an economic narrative but a moral one. People no longer believe hard work is rewarded because the super-wealthy have skewed and corrupted the system in their own favor.
It sounds like such an obvious message to win over not just the white working class but the entire 99 percent.
I'm sure Democrats will jump on such an appealing message. But if they start winning with it, will elected Dems be able to disentangle themselves from the clutches of the 1 percent enough to actually walk the walk? Only time will tell.