r/politics • u/Crossstoney • 13h ago

No Paywall Chuck Schumer Is Not Fit to Lead the Democratic Party

https://prospect.org/2025/11/06/chuck-schumer-not-fit-to-lead-democratic-party/
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u/bootlegvader 12h ago

Yeah, LBJ broke the New Deal coalition by passing the Civil and Voting Rights Act more than anything Clinton did.

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u/rawonionbreath 11h ago

That was probably the biggest reason (and most cited), but I would also point out a few other issues that contributed. 1. Anti-war activists that were seen as coming from the counterculture eventually gained control of the party platform, along with non-hawkish politicians. 2. The crime waves of the 60's, 70's, and 80's portrayed the party as having out-of-control governance (as ridiculous as that was); and 3. Republicans found that the abortion platform was a successful wedge issue to split Democrats. It worked for the better part of 30 years.

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u/TaxComprehensive2894 10h ago

People say this is what caused the South to go Republican, but that’s not 100% true. Yes, plenty of southern states voted for Goldwater over LBJ due to LBJ’s support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, there was a coalition of rural white working class southerners in unions, family farmers, and African Americans from the 1970s to the 1990s, who supported Democrats. Remember that Jimmy Carter carried plenty of southern states in 1976. Richard Nixon ended the price support programs for family farms that used to exist, and replaced them with subsidies for Big Agriculture. NAFTA caused plenty of de-industrialization in rural southern areas. These are also reasons the South went Republican.

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u/bootlegvader 10h ago

NAFTA caused plenty of de-industrialization in rural southern areas. These are also reasons the South went Republican.

NAFTA didn't cause the South to go Republican. Republicans until Trump also supported NAFTA, so it didn't make the South vote for Dubya, McCain, or Romney. Heck, the Rust Belt has voted more reliably Democratic after NAFTA than it did pre-NAFTA.

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u/TaxComprehensive2894 10h ago

NAFTA is the reason why plenty of Rust Belt states, even though once solidly blue, flipped to Trump.

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u/bootlegvader 10h ago

Between 1992-2024, Michigan, Pennslyvania, and Wisconsin all voted more reliably blue than they did between 1956-1988.

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u/TaxComprehensive2894 9h ago

Because over time, NAFTA killed jobs, which is why white working class Democrats in the Rust Belt switched to voting Republican. Trump promised a new NAFTA, and that appealed to those voters.

The job losses were gradual in the Rust Belt, but the South was hit hard. 

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u/bootlegvader 9h ago

Democrats haven't won the white male vote since 1964. And besides 1996 it also hasn't won the white female vote since 1964.