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In 2016, the rush to find a narrative led to a huge misconception about why Trump won: the white working class and their economic anxieties. It took years of studying the problem before experts rejected that explanation.
There were so, so many factors. Among them, voter suppression, fake news (lol remember, before Trump coopted the phrase, it was coined used to describe disinformation that supported him?), misogyny, etc. But people had already seized on white working class swing voters being key.
And now some Dem leadership is rushing to credit these same voters for a Biden win, before the race is even called. White people have a lot to gain by perpetuating this explanation. If white moderates are winning these elections, it keeps the leverage in white hands.
But poll after poll shows progressive causes are popular. They can win, if people are actually allowed to vote for them. We shouldn't rush to any narrative, but I'm heartened people recognize how black activists' work on voting access might have flipped Georgia.
We know for a fact that voter suppression & the dismantling of the voting rights act contributed to losing Wisconsin in 2016. But the white working class explanation had already calcified in a lot of establishment dems' minds. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/voter-suppression-wisconsin-election-2016/
If everyone had equal voting access, Republicans would lose more and more elections every year. That's why they gerrymander, why they fight so hard for voter ID laws and felon disenfranchisement and mass incarceration.
Democrats should fight those efforts because they're racist and evil, #1. But also for our own sakes. When we prioritize *not losing* white swing voters who might vote against us down-ballot over SAFELY GETTING OUR BASE TO THE VOTING BOOTH, I feel we do so at our own peril
I don't study this shit for a living, I'm just a comedy person who keeps writing pants-shitting scenes that get cut out of TV episodes before they're filmed. But I'm a storyteller (lol) and I understand the impulse to narrativize shit to make sense of it.
But this year, can we... not do that until we know more? Can we be more thoughtful about it? Can we research and listen to organizers and critically examine our impulse to hand all the power back to white moderates? IDK just throwing it out there good work everyone!!!! :)
