[continued from previous message]   
      
   Democrats have been hemorrhaging white working-class voters in waves for a   
   long time. But in 2016, they hemorrhage them so brutally in the Midwest,   
   where actually the white working-class vote was holding up relatively   
   well, to the point where they couldn't hold those states. Critically, the   
   way Democrats interpreted this defeat was this must be attributable to the   
   racism and xenophobia of the white working class and who needs them: We’re   
   gonna’ double down on the rising American electorate. Everybody hates   
   Trump. There's really no need to rethink our approach to those kinds of   
   issues that Trump raised. Who would want these voters who are so   
   reactionary?   
      
   That affects how the Democratic Party thinks about its political strategy   
   going forward because they don't think very hard or very long about why   
   they lost white working-class voters. They have spent 40 years talking   
   about the depredations of neoliberalism, the flaws of neoliberal economics   
   that was devastating communities leaving people behind, how the rich   
   control everything and they don't care about the working class. But these   
   voters were rising up and saying enough.   
      
   Judis: I've seen this from interviews and polling that a key issue was   
   this political correctness, which summed up the kind of cultural   
   differences that have arisen among small towns and mid-size towns—that had   
   been decimated by de-industrialization or depended upon resources,   
   extraction, mining, farming—versus the big metro centers with high tech,   
   finance, education, advanced healthcare, things like that where you have   
   two different kinds of ways of life and identities about what people think   
   are important.   
      
   People from small town, mid-size town America, who lived there for their   
   whole lives, who expect their children to have the same jobs, who see   
   their lives kind of being uprooted and fall back on ideas of family,   
   nation, religion, faith, guns as a protection of the home. So you really   
   have this kind of clash of identities.   
      
   Teixeira: The Democrats actually do quite well in 2018 because moderate   
   candidates do well, basically running against Trump and on an economic-   
   oriented and healthcare-oriented Democratic program. But that's   
   interpreted after 2018 as indicating the rising American electorate is   
   taking over the party because AOC wins. Staggeringly, very few people   
   point out these are [Democratic-leaning] districts. You could run your   
   pooch in these districts and they win.   
      
   People running for the 2020 presidential nomination for the Democrats all   
   tried to figure out how to run to the Left of each other so they could   
   allegedly appeal to this rising electorate and to the young people who   
   were leading the party forward. In the end, of course, Biden gets the   
   nomination because he's way more moderate and sensible than the rest. He   
   appeals particularly to Black voters, which just shows how the   
   interpretation of what the minority vote is about was in many ways quite   
   mistaken.   
      
   But another transition point then hits in 2020. And that had been building   
   for a while, which is the defection of non-white working class voters for   
   the Democratic Party. In a way, Democrats have been quite relaxed about   
   the defection of working-class voters because they figured they were all   
   white workers. They're not on the right side of history. Hispanic working-   
   class voters bail out to the tune of like an 18- or 20-margin points swing   
   against the Democrats in 2020. If non-white working-class voters bail out   
   in increasing numbers on the Democrats, that puts the whole demographics-   
   as-destiny strategy into serious question.   
      
   We can see in the polling data that's been collected in the last year or   
   two that the weaknesses of Democrats among non-white voters, particularly   
   Hispanic and Black working-class voters, is pretty significant. They're   
   sort of realizing this is a problem. On the other hand, they're so   
   invested in this whole vector of cultural issues. They're worried about   
   the blowback on social media and from the college-educated “liberalish”   
   voters who are increasingly a loyal base of the Democratic Party.   
      
   Trump understood that and he played upon it. He continues to play upon it.   
   He continues to get votes upon it. And the Democrats are oblivious to it.   
      
   TIME: Is Trump the smartest political strategist of this era?   
      
   Judis: He has an incredible intuition. He is ill-informed about a lot of   
   things. He's by no means an intellectual or a policy guy. But ‘Crooked   
   Hillary?’ ‘DeSanctimonious?’ That would just stab people.   
      
   TIME: I want to pick up what was almost a throwaway term: ‘liberalish.’   
   There's almost a performative aspect right now among liberals about what   
   you have to do if you're a liberal, and how you have to behave yourself   
   and demonstrate your credentials in the public arena. Has that perverted   
   what being a classical liberal means in this country?   
      
   Teixeira: I don't think there's any question about it. I mean, as the   
   Democratic Party has become increasingly dependent on college-educated   
   votes, and as college-educated ‘liberalish’ people have taken over the   
   infrastructure, the Democratic Party, and taken over the foundations and   
   the NGOs and the advocacy groups, and a good chunk of academia, these   
   kinds of people who are in and around the Democratic Party. What people   
   hear about from these sectors is exactly a certain kind of language. The   
   clear implication that you don't agree with them, you just don't get it.   
   You're behind the times, perhaps borderline racist and reactionary.   
      
   That's a very significant part of the alienation of the Democratic Party   
   from working-class people because working-class people of any race, they   
   are not ‘liberalish’ in that sense. They don't feel the need for   
   performative rights.   
      
   Judis: It's alienating to other people 'cause they don't understand what   
   they're talking about.   
      
   TIME: Have liberals lost the ability to read polling data? The numbers   
   tell a very different story than where the Democratic Party's leadership   
   is pointing.   
      
   Teixeira: What we have is selective reading of the poll data. They don't   
   start from wanting to understand where voters are really coming from and   
   what they really think. It's more like, Here's what we think as Democrats   
   is the correct thing to be for and to push. And let's see if there's   
   anything out there that might support what we already want to do. So it's,   
   it's kind of backwards from the way they should do it.   
      
   Judis: A lot of politicians do understand the polling data, but they're   
   intimidated by what we call the Shadow Party: the big foundations, major   
   news media, websites, advocacy groups. Their appeal to activist groups and   
   donors leads politicians saying some things that are really completely out   
   of left field and irresponsible, frankly.   
      
   TIME: What does the current discourse about the Middle East do to the   
   Democratic Party?   
      
   Judis: Unless we get into a war there ourselves, I would be surprised if   
   this is a big issue in a year. It shows a lot of fissures within the   
   Democratic Party now, but I think Ukraine is going to be a bigger issue.   
   There's been a growing difference within the party between what you could   
   call the AIPAC wing and another wing that you have to divide into two: J   
   Street and these groups on campus. I think that the campus groups are on   
   the fringe, but that's a serious division among those three groups.   
      
   Teixeira: My sense is that there's a lot of people in and around the   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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