True Blues

This fine book traces the often-tumultuous arguments found within the Democratic party (at the time of this writing, this is clear in the fight between centrists and so-called progressives). The author's starting point is an obvious one: the call to reform the Democratic party when Senator George McGovern assumed leadership over it in 1972 and helped push a “New Politics” vision of reform (p. 13). Adam Hilton explains, “New Politics advocates saw organizational reform and partisan realignment as interconnected goals that went hand in hand: party reform aimed at realignment, and realignment required reform” (p. 67). Hilton shows how the call to push decision making out of smokey rooms and secret agreements created tensions with the blue-collar, working-class (and, back then, unionized) base of the party. Labor union leaders chafed at losing influence within the party, but the New Politics activists could not put up with the “undemocratic—almost autocratic—system of governance” of the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organization (Afl-Cio) (p. 95). Many labor leaders denounced, in return, the more highly educated New Politics activists—what some called “limousine liberals”—who dismissed the white working class as racist (p. 106). One Afl-Cio leader said, “You so-called responsible leaders of this party seem to think the kids and the kooks and the Bella Abzugs can win you some elections” (p. 107). Not just labor was bothered; so too were activists organizing the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, an organization that worried about losing the white working class to the Republican party. Then the Democratic Leadership Council also showed concern with losing the white working class, especially due to cultural politics (or culture wars, if you like

Autocracy · Democracy · New Deal · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · White (mutation · Canadian Identity and History · Law · Public Administration

• “Compensate the Losers?” Economic Policy and the Origins of U.S. Partisan Realignment

  Ilyana Kuziemko, Nicolas Longuet-Marx et al.•National Bureau of Economic…•2023

  Add to list

• Bridging the Blue Divide

  Open Access•Jacob S Hacker, Amelia Malpas et al.•Perspectives on Politics•2024

  Add to list