There is some pretty sensible advice for Democrats — and for Republicans — in a long essay by the Third Way organization. Three months after the November 2016 election, Third Way comes to an obvious conclusion: Demographic change does not mean that Democrats will automatically win every election. This is similar to my own analyses going back to November and accessible here, here, here, here, here and here.
The Third Way authors, Lanae Erickson Hatalsky and Jim Kessler, whose political pedigrees seem to be mostly Democratic, reach three basic conclusions which will strike most sentient readers of the 2016 electoral vote map: demographic change is not evenly distributed across the nation (i.e., there aren’t many Hispanic voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, to take five states not at random); voting behavior is not static (the novel policies of Donald Trump and the particular weaknesses of Hillary Clinton meant that projecting results in these five states with a straight line extrapolation from 2000-12 results produced a misleading picture); and most voters, even in the “Ascendant America” groups, don’t consider themselves liberal.
“Politics is a process of push and pull,” Hatalsky and Kessler write in conclusion. “Both the terrain for fighting and who lines up where can shift.” Well, yeah. But is there any indication that Democrats are in the mood to take their generally good advice? Not much that I can see. Yes, it’s hard to get over the shock of losing an election that you had good reason to win when that loss has important policy consequences. But if you want to win again in the future, it’s probably a good idea to do so.
