Kontextmaschine

26th August 2022

Post reblogged from Kontextmaschine with 29 notes

All those fancy-themselves-saucy young leftists on Twitter like “OMG who cares about inflation, I can think of buying a house now!” gonna be surprised when they find out how increased interest rates and a few million people having the same thought to put their tens of thousands in new wealth towards buying a house do to the mechanics of inflation a/o buying a house

Do wonder how the YIMBYs whose angle is largely “make housing affordable for 30somethings with even well-paying UMC-track urban jobs!” feel.

Or the economists (they hate it). Or even the selective-college graduates who already repaid any loans (that weren’t from their parents), whose concern about its effect on their relative standing probably isn’t alleviated by all the beneficiaries grave-dancing about how they’re more thrilled if their gain comes at these copartisans’ expense.

After all that’s probably the demographic that probably corresponds best to college graduates in, say, 1974, when Michael Dukakis was elected Governor of best-educated Massachusetts and started in on winning that traditionally Republican demographic to the Republicans.

Shifting industrial development from smokestacks to the State Route 128 “Silicon Highway”, proving Democrats could work with, not against, the market, fitting in with the way hippie-back-to-the-land sensibility had evolved to yuppie rurality (John Denver, Colorado, I guess around there Vermont and Maine).

But part of that wasn’t just offering goodies, it was giving assurance that the Democrats weren’t a threat to the middle class. That’s what Willie Horton was – the Republicans saying that however appealing the Democrat economy is, electing Dukakis carried the unacceptable threat that he’d be soft on crime.

(The New Deal coalition’s memory of the Democratic Party was that they ended the Depression and gave us the Golden Age of labor aristocracy, and then by the 50s they were like “let’s break up the almost nation-within-a-nation Dixie South’s formal structures of racialized government, not go McCarthyist wild, and culturally loosen up a bit!” and they were like “yeah fair”

Then that in by the early ‘60s the Dems were like “let’s smile on this northern Negro agitation, leftist and pleasure-seeking youth upsurge!” and the traditional base was like “I dunno, could see this going wrong.” Then by the late '60s “it’s gone wrong! UNDO it!” but into the 70s the Dems just did it more.

That’s the threat.)

Meanwhile, after the '70s, stagflation, the collapse of NYC finances, bringing the money guys on board (and without industrial unions to donate out of dues, the Democratic Party qua party needed money guys to fund it) requires their sense of threat to be assuaged.

After defusing black-crime threat – not sparing the bleeding-heart-sympathetic Ricky Ray Rector from execution! – and succeeding where Dukakis failed at beating George H.W. Bush on an “it’s the economy, stupid” basis, this is why Bill Clinton was so sensitive to the bond market, why he passed a balanced budget. He was assuring them! And since, money guys and business guys are increasingly part of the Democratic coalition.

Which is to say they were realigned in. And they can be realigned right back again.

Abortion’s a cleavage Dems can probably make something of (and if that makes for a back-to-90s-coalitions-cause-breeding-kink-is-hotter-without-breeding reaction, all to the good).

I’ve mentioned that this Oregon gubernatorial election has a centrist Democrat running third-party, basically as “the good 'ol” Democrats you remember before the 2010s, attentive to the nonurban economy and regional industries" against an over-nationalized Portland party (where it’s filling with not-even-Cascadian newcomers!)“

And they’re trying to use this against her but given her tag is "Pro Choice and Pro Jobs” it’s iffy – “She might preserve our access but she won’t join with Democratic governments in Washington and California to use the west coast to save the worrrrrld!” does not feel like it’ll be that compelling if you’re not already the type to be tied into party establishments that give you Twitter talking points

Tagged: realignment amhist