◼ The decline of the Democratic party has arrived - Robert W. Merry/National Interest Magazine
(S)ometimes there are genuine signs in the election returns that something significant may be happening. And the returns of November 4 may reflect such a development. Two articles written since the Republican blowout explore these intriguing signs.
One was a New York Times commentary, published on November 11, by Thomas B. Edsall, who has few peers as a political analyst of the left. Entitled ◼ “The Demise of the White Democratic Voter,” the piece pulled together voting and polling statistics suggesting that the Democratic Party is in danger of losing the white vote almost entirely....
The next day the Wall Street Journal’s Dan Henninger weighed in with a piece entitled, ◼ “It Wasn’t Just Obama.” (image source) He covered much of the same territory as Edsall in assessing the significance of the election returns—the stunning GOP victory in Maryland, Scott Walker’s reelection in Wisconsin, Republican gubernatorial wins in Massachusetts and Illinois. And he goes further in exploring the Democratic tax-and-spend policies that seemed to stir voter ire at the polls. Particularly noteworthy was the tax spree of Maryland’s outgoing Democratic governor, Martin O’Malley, who in two terms raised some forty taxes and fees. These included the corporate income tax, sales tax, personal income tax and a “millionaire’s tax,” as well as a passel of fees on license plates, liquor, fishing, birth and death certificates, “even something called ‘stormwater management fees’ based on the size of people’s roofs, driveways, patios and such.”
The Henninger observation overlaps significantly with the Edsall analysis, but goes a step further in identifying the underlying problem for Democrats. They have constructed a governing coalition—government bureaucrats, public employee unions, recipients of transfer payments—that requires more financial resources than the party can generate without alienating the middle class. You can’t govern without the middle class. Henninger captures it with the best line since election night: “It was good being the party of Robin Hood. Until they morphed into the Sheriff of Nottingham.” KEEP READING...
