Will the parties switch economically?

[Vosem]

No and I'll echo RINO Tom said, they don't have to to appeal to non college whites. What is not popular to these voters is far right economic policy like abolishing SS, as evidenced by Rojos underpwrformance and Blake Masters getting demolished.

RoJo has had three consecutive performances that extrapolate out to clear national victories! (Though, to be fair, three times in pretty good Republican environments.) Masters lost to a popular incumbent by 4 points, which given the general lean of the year was pretty bad but also wasn't exactly getting *demolished* or anything.

The day the GOP nominates someone *exactly like* RoJo at the national level is the day they win a comfortable national majority, absent an excellent environment for Democrats. (Someone *exactly like* Masters would much-more-likely-than-not lose, but I don't even think that would be hopeless given a sufficiently strong environment and weak Democrat.)

The Republicans are still the party of the energy companies and more established businesses, the Democrats still back unions and working class policies.

These are not the same. I'm not even sure they're the same inside the Democratic coalition, which is where you see this sort of assumption, but they're quite different outside of it.

[Person Man]

GOP winning the middle 50% of the income distribution while Dems win the bottom and top 25% in a populiberal vs liberaltarian alignment doesn’t really involve this.

Would be trippy to see Dems win small business owners on top of big corporate interests in a full economic realignment though.

I think this old forum Republican, JJ, once argued to me when I tried to categorize class structure in America that there really isn't "class" any more and that most decisions are now being made on a decentralized basis by an educated middle and upper-middle class. What this could mean is that we could face a future where there is still probably a class system, but with it being less of a ladder and more of a monkey bars type of deal with various groups enjoying various different types of privileges and responsibilities and the political discourse revolving around balancing their responsibilities in privileges in a way that keeps society stable and advancing.

[支持核绿派 (Greens4Nuclear)]

GOP winning the middle 50% of the income distribution while Dems win the bottom and top 25% in a populiberal vs liberaltarian alignment doesn’t really involve this.

Would be trippy to see Dems win small business owners on top of big corporate interests in a full economic realignment though.

I think this old forum Republican, JJ, once argued to me when I tried to categorize class structure in America that there really isn't "class" any more and that most decisions are now being made on a decentralized basis by an educated middle and upper-middle class. What this could mean is that we could face a future where there is still probably a class system, but with it being less of a ladder and more of a monkey bars type of deal with various groups enjoying various different types of privileges and responsibilities and the political discourse revolving around balancing their responsibilities in privileges in a way that keeps society stable and advancing.

What do you and JJ think this would look like in terms of how the parties would differ from each other?

[Person Man]

GOP winning the middle 50% of the income distribution while Dems win the bottom and top 25% in a populiberal vs liberaltarian alignment doesn’t really involve this.

Would be trippy to see Dems win small business owners on top of big corporate interests in a full economic realignment though.

I think this old forum Republican, JJ, once argued to me when I tried to categorize class structure in America that there really isn't "class" any more and that most decisions are now being made on a decentralized basis by an educated middle and upper-middle class. What this could mean is that we could face a future where there is still probably a class system, but with it being less of a ladder and more of a monkey bars type of deal with various groups enjoying various different types of privileges and responsibilities and the political discourse revolving around balancing their responsibilities in privileges in a way that keeps society stable and advancing.

What do you and JJ think this would look like in terms of how the parties would differ from each other?

The only thing I really remember about his is that he was a middle aged white guy in Philly who went to a black church, was slightly pro-choice, and otherwise was a pretty Republican hack that kept on ranting about the coming of the "deluge". It's all part of this thread called "Two Guesses" from around the time of the foreclosures and Obama's subsequent landslide win. If you have time, its long but relatively easy to read the first few posts or pages. A lot of questions will be answered.

In JJ's mind 2010 was probably this prelude to the deluge and we have been living in the deluge since the combination of the failed initial administration of the ACA, the backlash against protests against police brutality, and the libertarians and socialists in congress allowing Russian occupation of Crimea and Syria culminated in Republicans winning bigly in 2014 and Trump winning in 2016. Now that we had a major event and our nation's laws were totally rewritten by judicial fiat, it could be argued that we are still spiraling towards something more extreme this decade or next or simply coming out of a "deluge".

My view on class is that it is still dominated by something that vaguely resembles more classical sociological interpretations that pull ideas from liberalism, socialism, and the ancien regime.

I believe that society is comprised of two or three levels of people in the upper class (regional, theater, and global level oligarchs) and they are compartmentalized by whether they wield social (celebrities and athletes), economic(billionaires), or political power(members of Congress, the President and members of the SES, SCOTUS et al).

These oligarchs delegate strategic social, economic, and legal power to some sort of class of PhD-level(though many just have elite bachelor and professional degrees) workers and executives. There's a lot of crisscrossing of wires here, but they make all of the strategic decisions. Members of this class are people like Social Media influencers (including prolific sex workers), elite lawyers, doctors, researchers, and programmers, State Legislators, some GS 14s and many GS15s in the federal service, more typically senior managers of publicly traded company.

This executive class is basically pulled from an upper-middle professional class that make up the top quintile of society that is mostly made up of people like lawyers, doctors, merchants/shop owners, psychologists, commissioned military men and women, managers, and programmers. Typical salaries from "absorbed" elites range from the project manager of a prestigious federal benefits or weapons program that makes 150,000 a year, to a lead or principal IC at a profitable law firm or technology publishing company that makes like 800,000 a year. Typical salaries of "non-absorbed" professionals range from about 100k to about 250k or 300k. Non-absorbed professionals make a lot of society's tactical decisions as the strategies are delegated from the absorbed ones.

Immediately below them is the 4th quintile of society and they make up the typical "college educated", "unionized", or higher-skilled trade population. These are people like nurses, teachers, accountants, plumbers and electricians that provide goods and services that someone can't be readily trained to do and fulfill a distinct social purpose. Typical pay here is between like 57000 a year and 95000 a year. This is the "Middle Class". They aren't the "average" people, but rather the "slightly above average" people.

Below them is the "Working Class" or the people who have truly average intelligence, skill, earning ability, and social and cultural achievements.

Below them are those who you would consider poor, but not completely destitute or reliant on transfer payments and at the very bottom, you have people who are homeless, institutionalized, or who cannot completely care for themselves.

So I guess, I subscribe to even balance of "Classical Structuralism" and who I call the "Social Neorealists" that you are talking about.

[MarkD]

Don't ask, "Will they?" Ask, "Why would they?" Why on Earth would America's two major parties switch their respective positions on economics?!?!?

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

No and I'll echo RINO Tom said, they don't have to to appeal to non college whites. What is not popular to these voters is far right economic policy like abolishing SS, as evidenced by Rojos underpwrformance and Blake Masters getting demolished.

RoJo has had three consecutive performances that extrapolate out to clear national victories! (Though, to be fair, three times in pretty good Republican environments.) Masters lost to a popular incumbent by 4 points, which given the general lean of the year was pretty bad but also wasn't exactly getting *demolished* or anything.

The day the GOP nominates someone *exactly like* RoJo at the national level is the day they win a comfortable national majority, absent an excellent environment for Democrats. (Someone *exactly like* Masters would much-more-likely-than-not lose, but I don't even think that would be hopeless given a sufficiently strong environment and weak Democrat.)

The Republicans are still the party of the energy companies and more established businesses, the Democrats still back unions and working class policies.

These are not the same. I'm not even sure they're the same inside the Democratic coalition, which is where you see this sort of assumption, but they're quite different outside of it.

If I were a republican strategist trying to design the easiest possible opponent to beat, the result would look very close to Mandela Barnes. Supports very progressive and unpopular criminal justice policies, has tax/corruption scandals, was viewed as having incited the Kenosha riots and has a history of making very inflammatory remarks(like the scalise shooting). In even a neutral environment, someone like that should have been steamrolled by Generic R. Johnson clearly was not that

[Vosem]

No and I'll echo RINO Tom said, they don't have to to appeal to non college whites. What is not popular to these voters is far right economic policy like abolishing SS, as evidenced by Rojos underpwrformance and Blake Masters getting demolished.

RoJo has had three consecutive performances that extrapolate out to clear national victories! (Though, to be fair, three times in pretty good Republican environments.) Masters lost to a popular incumbent by 4 points, which given the general lean of the year was pretty bad but also wasn't exactly getting *demolished* or anything.

The day the GOP nominates someone *exactly like* RoJo at the national level is the day they win a comfortable national majority, absent an excellent environment for Democrats. (Someone *exactly like* Masters would much-more-likely-than-not lose, but I don't even think that would be hopeless given a sufficiently strong environment and weak Democrat.)

The Republicans are still the party of the energy companies and more established businesses, the Democrats still back unions and working class policies.

These are not the same. I'm not even sure they're the same inside the Democratic coalition, which is where you see this sort of assumption, but they're quite different outside of it.

If I were a republican strategist trying to design the easiest possible opponent to beat, the result would look very close to Mandela Barnes. Supports very progressive and unpopular criminal justice policies, has tax/corruption scandals, was viewed as having incited the Kenosha riots and has a history of making very inflammatory remarks(like the scalise shooting). In even a neutral environment, someone like that should have been steamrolled by Generic R. Johnson clearly was not that

I would've chosen someone who struggled to unite the Democratic coalition and with a focus on unpopular economic ideas. I think Barnes didn't really struggle to win Democratic votes and was decently charismatic; he was probably below-median, I guess, but I don't think he was especially bad or anything. (I continue to think that Fetterman was a really bad candidate, actually, and it just ended up not mattering because Oz was so much worse.)

[MATTROSE94]

It's possible, but I wouldn't say it's likely.  To get on this path would probably require Trump winning next year, and with the vote not being close enough to be controversial.  If it's a Dem win or a non-Trump R win, we probably revert to the status quo.

Trump did not win a majority of working-class or union voters in either of his bids for the presidency.

I think he gets a majority next time.

[WalterWhite]

I am GENUINELY WEIRDED OUT that Republican Senators are criticizing Biden for strikebreaking. While I applaud that members of both parties are paying attention to workers' rights, it seems unusual that high-ranking Republicans would be more pro-union than the highest-ranking Democrat in the country.

[pbrower2a]

The coalitions of victory shift over time. Big Tents break down in American political tradition because they eventually encompass incompatible people. Democrats won Southern blacks but ended up offending Southern whites who until recently had been reliable D voters because Northern white liberals could not maintain the old Northern labor-Southern (racist) agrarian coalition of the New Deal.

 

[The Economy is Getting Worse]

I am GENUINELY WEIRDED OUT that Republican Senators are criticizing Biden for strikebreaking. While I applaud that members of both parties are paying attention to workers' rights, it seems unusual that high-ranking Republicans would be more pro-union than the highest-ranking Democrat in the country.

What do you think about the UAW situation?

[WalterWhite]

I am GENUINELY WEIRDED OUT that Republican Senators are criticizing Biden for strikebreaking. While I applaud that members of both parties are paying attention to workers' rights, it seems unusual that high-ranking Republicans would be more pro-union than the highest-ranking Democrat in the country.

What do you think about the UAW situation?

I support the auto workers striking. I also think it is a return to normalcy regarding political alignments with union voters. Working-class voters are going to remain solidly Democratic for the foreseeable future.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

I am GENUINELY WEIRDED OUT that Republican Senators are criticizing Biden for strikebreaking. While I applaud that members of both parties are paying attention to workers' rights, it seems unusual that high-ranking Republicans would be more pro-union than the highest-ranking Democrat in the country.

What do you think about the UAW situation?

I support the auto workers striking. I also think it is a return to normalcy regarding political alignments with union voters. Working-class voters are going to remain solidly Democratic for the foreseeable future.

I certainly hope so. The notion of a realignment that would make Democrats the fiscally conservative and socially liberal party and Republicans as the socially conservative pseudo-populist "workers" party is depressing as hell and would make me politically homeless as I'd have trouble voting for either of those two options, even as a lesser evil choice.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

GOP winning the middle 50% of the income distribution while Dems win the bottom and top 25% in a populiberal vs liberaltarian alignment doesn’t really involve this.

Would be trippy to see Dems win small business owners on top of big corporate interests in a full economic realignment though.

yeah, the very fact that Democrats do win the bottom 25% IMO is an argument that there's only so far Democrats can go in terms of being liberaltarian.

[支持核绿派 (Greens4Nuclear)]

GOP winning the middle 50% of the income distribution while Dems win the bottom and top 25% in a populiberal vs liberaltarian alignment doesn’t really involve this.

Would be trippy to see Dems win small business owners on top of big corporate interests in a full economic realignment though.

yeah, the very fact that Democrats do win the bottom 25% IMO is an argument that there's only so far Democrats can go in terms of being liberaltarian.

Liberaltarianism basically means an economic platform that appeals to both the top 25% and the bottom 25%, at the expense of the middle 50%. This already kind of exists with the blue state-red state divide; Solidly D states generally have more severe intra-state income inequality that reinforces left-of-center economic talking points.

[WalterWhite]

GOP winning the middle 50% of the income distribution while Dems win the bottom and top 25% in a populiberal vs liberaltarian alignment doesn’t really involve this.

Would be trippy to see Dems win small business owners on top of big corporate interests in a full economic realignment though.

yeah, the very fact that Democrats do win the bottom 25% IMO is an argument that there's only so far Democrats can go in terms of being liberaltarian.

Liberaltarianism basically means an economic platform that appeals to both the top 25% and the bottom 25%, at the expense of the middle 50%. This already kind of exists with the blue state-red state divide; Solidly D states generally have more severe intra-state income inequality that reinforces left-of-center economic talking points.

But the wealthy people in states with high economic inequality are still more Republican than average for those states

[支持核绿派 (Greens4Nuclear)]

GOP winning the middle 50% of the income distribution while Dems win the bottom and top 25% in a populiberal vs liberaltarian alignment doesn’t really involve this.

Would be trippy to see Dems win small business owners on top of big corporate interests in a full economic realignment though.

yeah, the very fact that Democrats do win the bottom 25% IMO is an argument that there's only so far Democrats can go in terms of being liberaltarian.

Liberaltarianism basically means an economic platform that appeals to both the top 25% and the bottom 25%, at the expense of the middle 50%. This already kind of exists with the blue state-red state divide; Solidly D states generally have more severe intra-state income inequality that reinforces left-of-center economic talking points.

But the wealthy people in states with high economic inequality are still more Republican than average for those states

Probably true but it depends on how you define "wealthy". Easier to make the case for $500k annual household income than $100k or $200k.

[The Economy is Getting Worse]

Yes

[Bush did 311]

An economic switch won't happen this cycle but i could see it in 30 years maybe.

[支持核绿派 (Greens4Nuclear)]

I think the Democratic establishment subconsciously wants the Democratic coalition to be led by and designed for affluent, college-educated whites, with black voters in a passive auxiliary role, with Hispanics, Asians, and younger and less affluent whites basically ignored. Such a coalition would allow them to cement their role as the small-c conservative, institutionalist role in American politics.

Maybe if this prediction (which would subvert the Democratic party’s brand of standing up for the less fortunate and standing up against nativism) comes to pass. Educational and occupational/industrial realignment alone don’t necessarily predict this.