![]() ![]() In 2016, Democrats took a gamble by focusing the campaign on Trump and his appalling attitudes and utterances. It would be better to fight with Trump and congressional leaders in Washington, D.C. Never pick a fight with the voters - only with politicians. But to turn that impact into a bridge, California’s progressives will have to keep an open mind about the Rust Belt voters, including those who went for Trump. The repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would affect both California and the Rust Belt. None of this is ultimately productive.īut there is another avenue that needs more attention. Conversely, some are willing to toss out decades of progressive policies to win favor. Some say Trump’s voters don’t know their own self-interest and, if so, they deserve to lose their health insurance. They vary from pop sociology, anger and contempt, to guilt and self-recrimination. I am hearing and seeing a lot of attempts to deal with the Rust Belt and with this shattering election. Hard as it is, some bridge building is called for. Conversely, voters in the Rust Belt may find their hopes dashed if key programs on which they depend are reduced or eliminated. California may guarantee popular vote majorities for Democratic presidential candidates for years to come and still be on the losing end in the Electoral College. California’s status as a blue stronghold, in a state where 1 in 8 Americans live, symbolizes the situation. The difference is that in the United States, the metropolitan coalition commands a popular but not effective majority in our state-dominated system. to France to Poland to Italy, cosmopolitan, modernized urban communities where economies are dynamic are being challenged politically by non-urban, traditional working-class voters. Throughout the Western world, from the U.K. Like exploding planets, they are spinning off in opposite directions.įor many Jewish voters, who are concentrated in urban counties in big states such as New York, California, Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania, there’s a feeling of being isolated in national politics. A multiethnic state that is overwhelmingly Democratic where the economy has done well contrasted with a white, working-class and middle-class region in more isolated states with slower economies turning to the right. Meanwhile, California went totally the other way, giving Hillary Clinton a 4 million-vote margin of victory that was bigger than even Barack Obama’s victory in 2012.Ĭalifornia meets the Rust Belt. He ran a brutal, hard-edged campaign on trade, jobs and resentment of immigrants. Donald Trump upset the apple cart, pulling off a victory in the Electoral College by sweeping the Rust Belt states. ![]()
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