When a stable voting bloc disintegrates in an instant
by digby
In the latest installment of Rick Perlstein's series questioning the "demographic inevitability" of a long term Democratic reign, he discusses what really does make for long term political change:
Seemingly stable blocs can shatter in something like an instant. Even, for example, urban blacks, which Democrats can reliably count on to vote their way at numbers upwards of 90 percent in every election. Little more than a generation ago, though, urban blacks in industrial states were considered a swing vote. Teddy White energy to the point in Making of the President 1960: Yes, a majority would vote Democrat, but the Party of Lincoln still retained the loyalty of a significant number of "Negroes" that just how many voted Republican in states like Illinois would determine—did determine, in fact—whether John F. Kennedy or Richard Nixon became president. Within four short years, of course, that once-solid conventional wisdom had melted into air. It changed in a flash: A Democratic president signed a historic Civil Rights Act and the Republican presidential nominee voted against it. Lyndon Johnson told Bill Moyers "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come." There was a corollary: just as indubitably they'd delivered themselves the loyalty of blacks.
There's a moral to this story: it is what a party and its leaders do that determines the loyalty of its voters.
As much so, what determines the loyalty of voters is how well a party and its leaders tell clear, effective stories about what they do.
Imagine that. He then talks about the confusion surrounding Obamacare and how people think it lacks features it wants when it actually has them and vice versa. And he compares it to another major program that had a similarly slow roll-out:
While the Social Security system did not kick in right away either, people were confident about what it would do—because it was communicated so effectively. After he signed the law in 1935 he had signs hung in every post office reading, "A Monthly Check to You for the Rest of Your Life." That was the year before Roosevelt won the biggest reelection landslide in history. Then, the program really started delivering. It was one of the ways Roosevelt ensured new Democratic politicians were minted for another seventy-five years and counting.
Rick concludes by saying that he sometimes thinks every generation of Democrats should create a program that will mind followers for the next 75 years and wonders if Obamacare will do that. I think it's possible, if over time they are able to make the case for making it universal in a seamless way. They have to figure out how to hide this Rube Goldberg system they have crated so that people only see the result, which is affordable, universal health care that can't be taken away. Other countries manage to do this.
But I couldn't help but wonder if we'll have 75 years of newly minted Democrats if, in the same breath, the Party sells off those signature New Deal programs for a "new deal" for the sake of some temporary deficit reduction that no one will remember after the day it was signed. I don't know if it will cause a stable voting bloc to "disintegrate in an instant," but I'm going to guess that the lasting effects of that agreement would put a damper on any 75 year project.
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