jimnyc
10-26-2016, 01:48 AM
A lot of talk has been made about the GOP, and how it's headed for a split after this election. Thing is, so are the Democrats, only they will likely have the presidency in the mean time. But Hillary has made no friends, and as a result, some thing will be in disarray.
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Are Democrats Headed For A Split Even If Clinton Wins?
micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): The WikiLeaks dumps of hacked Hillary Clinton campaign emails have mostly been 💤. “Clinton Campaign Found To Be Doing Things Campaigns Do” does not a good headline make. But one interesting theme in the emails is the bad-mouthing by Clinton staffers of Bernie Sanders specifically and the left generally. As POLITICO reported:
Some of the left’s most influential voices and groups are taking offense at the way they and their causes were discussed behind their backs by Clinton and some of her closest advisers in the emails, which swipe liberal heroes and causes as “puritanical,” “pompous”, “naive”, “radical” and “dumb,” calling some “freaks,” who need to “get a life.”
So although Clinton is a favorite to win this election, our question for today’s chat is more structural: Are Democrats heading for a foundational split, similar to what the GOP is undergoing, between liberal and centrist Democrats or between outsiders and the more establishment wing of the party?
Let’s start with this, though: Is there evidence of a meaningful split beyond these emails?
julia (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): There’s some. Part of this is change over time. The Democratic Party 20-plus years ago, when Clinton was first lady, was much more moderate. And the more liberal Democratic Party is kind of a recent and partial development. Until 40 years ago, it had a strong conservative wing. (It even had more of a moderate wing until several years ago.) The Democratic Party wasn’t formed to address economic inequality, and I think that’s an issue — perhaps a constellation of issues — that some Democratic voters would like to see it address in a more programmatic, ideological way.
natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): The split seems to have been patched up in the short term, as Clinton is now getting a fairly typical share of the vote among Democrats — partly because Trump is so unappealing to Democrats of all stripes. But I agree with Julia that it’s becoming a different sort of party in the long term.
micah: So you’re saying the party’s voters have moved further left, at least on some issues, than the party itself (elected officials/the Democratic National Committee/operatives/etc.)?
natesilver: Maybe we can say “activists,” as opposed to voters?
julia: I think it’s not just further left but a qualitative difference in purpose.
harry (Harry Enten, senior political writer): Technocratic vs. activist.
natesilver: I remember in 2006, you had lots of support for explicitly moderate, blue dog-type Democrats from Daily Kos and other progressive blogs. Because the important thing was that they had a “D” in their name. Now, that’s much less true. You had Heidi Heitkamp and Joe Donnelly a couple of years ago, but otherwise, not very many moderate Democrats winning seats in Congress.
julia: I’d call it a lurching coalition vs. ideological.
micah: Wait — explain that, Julia.
julia: GEEK OUT WARNING!
The Democratic Party has historically been a coalition party — a bunch of different groups in society patched together. The New Deal coalition is a classic example of this — you had Northern African-Americans, various ethnic and religious minorities and Southern farmers. You can come up with policy ideas to appeal to all these groups, but there’s not necessarily a core idea that brings them all together.
Rest here - http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-democrats-headed-for-a-split-even-if-clinton-wins/
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Are Democrats Headed For A Split Even If Clinton Wins?
micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): The WikiLeaks dumps of hacked Hillary Clinton campaign emails have mostly been 💤. “Clinton Campaign Found To Be Doing Things Campaigns Do” does not a good headline make. But one interesting theme in the emails is the bad-mouthing by Clinton staffers of Bernie Sanders specifically and the left generally. As POLITICO reported:
Some of the left’s most influential voices and groups are taking offense at the way they and their causes were discussed behind their backs by Clinton and some of her closest advisers in the emails, which swipe liberal heroes and causes as “puritanical,” “pompous”, “naive”, “radical” and “dumb,” calling some “freaks,” who need to “get a life.”
So although Clinton is a favorite to win this election, our question for today’s chat is more structural: Are Democrats heading for a foundational split, similar to what the GOP is undergoing, between liberal and centrist Democrats or between outsiders and the more establishment wing of the party?
Let’s start with this, though: Is there evidence of a meaningful split beyond these emails?
julia (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): There’s some. Part of this is change over time. The Democratic Party 20-plus years ago, when Clinton was first lady, was much more moderate. And the more liberal Democratic Party is kind of a recent and partial development. Until 40 years ago, it had a strong conservative wing. (It even had more of a moderate wing until several years ago.) The Democratic Party wasn’t formed to address economic inequality, and I think that’s an issue — perhaps a constellation of issues — that some Democratic voters would like to see it address in a more programmatic, ideological way.
natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): The split seems to have been patched up in the short term, as Clinton is now getting a fairly typical share of the vote among Democrats — partly because Trump is so unappealing to Democrats of all stripes. But I agree with Julia that it’s becoming a different sort of party in the long term.
micah: So you’re saying the party’s voters have moved further left, at least on some issues, than the party itself (elected officials/the Democratic National Committee/operatives/etc.)?
natesilver: Maybe we can say “activists,” as opposed to voters?
julia: I think it’s not just further left but a qualitative difference in purpose.
harry (Harry Enten, senior political writer): Technocratic vs. activist.
natesilver: I remember in 2006, you had lots of support for explicitly moderate, blue dog-type Democrats from Daily Kos and other progressive blogs. Because the important thing was that they had a “D” in their name. Now, that’s much less true. You had Heidi Heitkamp and Joe Donnelly a couple of years ago, but otherwise, not very many moderate Democrats winning seats in Congress.
julia: I’d call it a lurching coalition vs. ideological.
micah: Wait — explain that, Julia.
julia: GEEK OUT WARNING!
The Democratic Party has historically been a coalition party — a bunch of different groups in society patched together. The New Deal coalition is a classic example of this — you had Northern African-Americans, various ethnic and religious minorities and Southern farmers. You can come up with policy ideas to appeal to all these groups, but there’s not necessarily a core idea that brings them all together.
Rest here - http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-democrats-headed-for-a-split-even-if-clinton-wins/