Interests or Values?

Bill Schneider: “What happens to high-income voters who are well-educated? Sociologists call them ‘cross-pressured,’ meaning pulled in different directions. If they vote their interests, they vote Republican. If they vote their values, they vote Democratic.”

“Way back in 1896, Democrats nominated the whole populist package: William Jennings Bryan, an economic radical, religious fundamentalist and foreign policy isolationist. Bryan’s candidacy turned off cosmopolitan America. He did well in rural America and the South, but lost the fast-growing, urbanizing and industrializing states that were attracting immigrants. Democrats nominated Bryan three times (1896, 1900 and 1908). Each time he did worse. Democrats became the nation’s minority party for 36 years.”

“With Trump as their standard-bearer, Republicans may be inviting a similar fate. They are becoming the party of declining America. Democrats are becoming the educated cosmopolitan party.”