In light of all the terrific comments to my original post, here is the original unedited version of my column.
Two years ago almost to the day, I sat at a coffee shop in Washington, D.C. talking about the upcoming U.S. election with a good friend who was an editor at a major political monthly. Having never been a fan of George W. Bush, I said nonetheless that the president might be a transitional figure, his administration essentially holding back a tectonic populist, rightward shift in American politics. I told my friend I was fearful of what could come next. He looked me squarely in the eye and said simply: “That’s not what frightens me. What has me terrified is the right-wing backlash that will come when a more liberal, left-leaning administration takes office in January 2009.”
I’ve since come round to his way of thinking. Barring some unusual unforeseen event, Barack Obama can count on victory in next week’s election. He is running a considerable lead in the national polls and even in the electoral college, and he appears to have mobilized huge numbers of younger and African American voters who will push him to victory in the key swing states he needs to win the Electoral College. He has the money – more than $150 million dollars raised just in September – to counter virtually any negative advertising. But his job once in office will be harder than he could have anticipated.
When people like Colin Powell say Obama is a “transformational figure,” they’re suggesting that an Obama administration can somehow heal the deep divisions within the American electorate and move the country forward, the way Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression. And certainly projected Democratic majorities in Congress make that kind of transformation appear plausible.
I wish that would happen. But I doubt it will, and the reason is simple: the divisions run too deep. The realignment that propelled and kept FDR in office is not happening today. American politics is distinguished today by shifting electoral coalitions, candidate-centered elections, and what some political scientists call de-alignment. America isn’t just suffering from political polarization but a burgeoning economic divide and class war.
Since 1980, the year Ronald Reagan was first elected, the U.S. economy has been undergoing a shift more thorough and massive than the rise of industrial economy a century and a half ago. Since then, 20 million jobs in the creative sector have been created, and the ranks of what I call the creative class has grown to 40 million - nearly a third of the workforce. That group has become a powerful force in American politics, and they are squarely behind Obama. New York Times columnist David Brooks recently reported that Republicans have all but lost creative professionals working in law, medicine, and high-tech. Obama leads McCain among those with a post graduate education 59 to 36 percent; and among those with a college education 50 to 44 percent. And the Democratic candidate leads younger 18-29 year old votes, 65 to 31 percent.
Up to this point, Republican party strategists have exploited this shift to their party’s advantage, beginning with the ever prescient Kevin Phillips’s identification of the “silent majority” of white working-class voters in 1968. The rise of the creative economy generated not just a new class, but a shift in social values. Tolerance, diversity, and self-expression became prized, and not just because of the hippies, student movement, or even what Christopher Lasch called the culture of narcissism. Diversity and self-expression are necessary for the creative economy to flourish and function. It’s little wonder than that Silicon Valley, ground zero of the high-tech revolution, grew up in the shadow of San Francisco.
As the creative economy grew and became more concentrated in locations like San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Boston, and Washington D.C. - what we now know as blue America - the working class fell further and further behind. Globalization was shipping jobs overseas and the main institutional supports that led to higher working-class incomes during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s - powerful U.S. companies and powerful unions - were simultaneously being undercut. The great genius of Karl Rove was to seize upon the church as the one remaining constant in the lives of working Americans, and use it to his political organizational advantage.
The rise of ”hockey moms,” of “Joe Six-Pack,” and “Joe the Plumber” in this election cycle testify to this growing sense of unease. This is the kind of economic split that Obama tried to capture with his now infamous “bitter-gate” statement, which he now says he regrets. But what can we expect from people who know that the economic system is leaving them behind?
This class divide is overlaid on America’s economic and political geography. The rise of the creative class and its geographic centers which form the innovative engines of the U.S. economy, are also reshaping its politics. This goes beyond traditional Democratic bastions like big city New York, Chicago, and L.A. and, high-tech centers like San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, and Washington D.C.; or university districts like Austin, Boulder, and Raleigh-Durham.
My team and I looked at the state-by-state polls and compared them to our measures of the creative economy – a broad index of technology, talent, and tolerance. Blue states had a median creativity index score of more then red states (.68 versus .38), with purple swing states in the middle. Virginia and Colorado, two former staunchly red states that Obama is currently winning by six or seven percent, have seen significant increases in their college-educated populations in recent years.
As these states have become more highly educated, more urbanized, more high-tech, and more diverse, notes Financial Times columnist Edward Luce, they have moved from Republican red to Democratic blue. As Republican congressman Tom Davis recently opined, U.S. politics, including his own district of Northern Virginia, is being reshaped as high-tech economies lean more Democratic. As he put it simply: “Economic development works.” He decided not to seek reelection.
Political scientist Andrew Gelman show that economic geography now outweighs personal income as the key faultline in American politics. Richer Americans continue to vote Republican and poorer ones are overwhelmingly Democratic, but upper-middle class, richer states like California, Massachusetts, and New York vote and perhaps now Virgina and Colorado vote blue, because richer more creative class voters there are more open-minded and no longer simply vote for their immediate pocketbooks.
And both states are microcosms of the deeper class divide across America. Outside of high-tech, highly educated, ultra-professional and diverse Northern Virginia and away from the creative class Denver-Boulder corridor, both are hot-beds of socially conservative populism – where anti-gay, anti-immigrant, and anti-urban sentiments run high. Colorado after all is home to the ultra-conservative Focus on the Family, while Virginia Beach is the headquarters to the Christian Coalition originally founded by Pat Robertson.
These class divides will only deepen as the economy worsens, and America’s economic geography becomes ever more polarized and unequal. And a strange kind of reactive populism, much worse than anything we’ve seen before, is likely to rise. McCain’s defeat in 2008 at the hands of Obama will shift the balance of power toward the conservative wing of the Republican party – toward figures like Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin who combine social populism with uncanny media skills and the ability to project themselves onto America’s popular culture. Unless Obama can fashion a broad inclusive appeal that extends the benefits of the creative economy to working and service economies, the bitterness he himself acknowledged, in a moment of uncanny candor, will only grow deeper and America will grow more divided and ever more polarized.
If you think the stock market has been volatile, we are in uncharted political waters. Get ready for an extended period of volatility and conflict in American politics. You heard it here first.
November 2nd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
There’s more than a passing resemblance between the prescriptions of the creative class economy and Reagan’s “trickle down economics”. Both of them suggest that the government should shape public policy to the benefit of the elites, in the former case the educated creatives who are already prospering in the new economy. In both cases, however, what’s missing is any intuitive link between how these policies benefit the less privileged in our society.
While I’ve read elsewhere where you sound anguished over the fate of the non-creatives, where is anything in the current article to encourage them not to indulge in a populist backlash? What hope does a creative class economy offer to people stuck in dying Midwest communities? We’ve got to give people a reason to want to eat the dog food.
While the values and behavior of many of these communities might seem pathological, I’ve often speculated that there might be game theoretical reasons why they are rational. For example, why not try stringing GM and Ford along for a couple more years until your pension vests? How does the sacrifice of a 48 year old worker for the future of those companies and America benefit him? Why should anyone in these non-creative cities, towns, and rural areas vote for policies that will only redirect investment into already prosperous urban areas populated by people who have contempt for their values? And the vaunted “Tolerance” disappears quickly when city creative voters start expressing their opinion on red state values. There may indeed be a big cultural gulf in America, but it takes two to tango.
Bridging the gulf requires those who have to make clear that they see themselves as part of the same commonwealth with those who don’t. And setting forth policies that don’t just benefit the bulk of Americans, but can be easily seen to be doing so.
When you are the big dog, when you are rich and powerful, then it is up to you to move first and demonstrate your good intentions. The creative class is coming into its own and like everyone who gets that first taste of success, there is excitement and a little smugness. But there’s no time for that. A heckuva lot of people are suffering out there and we think we can just tell them to eat cake don’t be surprised when the revolution hits.
Where does it start? One is that the observed trends of cities disconnecting from the hinterlands needs to be reversed. Yes, cities need to integrate into the global economic network, but other than a handful of the world’s elite places, it is simply not sustainable to do this at the price of a sickened and enfeebled hinterland. Our creative core cities need to make it their business to do what they can to make sure the wealth is shared. I can’t say I’ve got the answers, but I’ve been thinking a lot about it:
http://theurbanophile.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-approach-to-regional-economic.html
http://theurbanophile.blogspot.com/2008/08/deepening-linkages-between-indianapolis.html
Another is to clearly separate values that matter (tolerance for gays, for example) versus those that don’t (say, a preference for driving pickups or mini-vans). There’s a heckuva a lot of pure cultural bigotry out there. The creative class needs to make sure they walk the talk when it comes to Tolerance, and not just “tolerate” people they like anyway.
I’m sure there’s more. But solving this problem is a clear imperative.
November 2nd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I don’t get it. Why are educated, affluent people drawn to a party that is run for the benefit of government workers, teachers, and trial lawyers?
Why are they drawn to a party that is all about taking the profits of risk taking and “spreading” them to those that take no risk.
Why are they drawn to a party that is so anti-entrepreneur?
It can’t be a logical process.
What draws the creative class to Democrats is the same force that drives a student council election: it’s just a superficial popularity contest.
Barack Obama is “cool”, so “cool” people are voting for him.
And maybe economics doesn’t matter. Silicon Valley has survived despite California being such a bad place to do business. Maybe we’re in a post-economic society. I can’t explain it.
That would bode well for the Obama presidency, because taxes are going up, and wealth is going to be spread.
November 2nd, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Buzzcut,
Some fair questions.
I will not consider voting for Republicans until they are no longer the party of torture, Guantanamo, warrantless wiretapping, surveillance, lying to Congress, illegal foreign wars of aggression, social reaction (i.e. homophobia, denial of evolution, global warming, etc.), and runaway economic inequality.
I vote for Obama for specific reasons. And against Republicans for specific reasons.
November 2nd, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Seconded. The libertarian everyone-for-themself economic social darwinism is tiresome.
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:53 pm
In the face of political divide, it is important for people on both sides to recognize and work on the things that they have in common. This probably plays out best at a local level, where important issues do not always configure themselves on the Democrat/Republican line. Also, at a local level you can be personally acquainted with folks on the other side of the divide, and thus care about them.
I’ll give some examples. My neighborhood was about 50/50 Gore vs Bush in 2000. But it was 100% for the preservation of our (then-threatened) neighborhood school. My next door neighbor always votes for the other guy. And on Friday he came by with a bag of candy, asking me to hand out his trick-or-treat because he had to be away. Recently our town has drawn together around the issue of affordable housing. Democrats are working with Republicans to find housing and transit solutions for the people who cannot afford to live near their work. We’re not just talking about nurses, teachers and police officers. A large number of restaurants lost all their dishwashers when the nearby trailer park was closed to make way for another strip mall.
At least in my town, the Red/Blue culture war is ameliorated by our awareness of our interdependence. At the local level, it’s much easier to see.
November 3rd, 2008 at 7:59 am
Zoe, great point!
The weight of the world challenges and newfound sense of global community in an increasingly interconnected world will bring down the 2 party system in the near term. Party affiliation cannot be irrelevant at the local levels and remain dominant on the national one. Especially now that candidates can raise money and get their message out over the web without having to breakthrough the party barriers. We may live in a binary world but we don’t need to be limited to two parties.
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:42 am
Buzzcut,
I’m perplexed as well. For my part, I don’t know anyone or have any friends who vote for democrats, and that includes doctors,techies and so forth. It gets frustrating to see creative people I know lumped into some sort of left-wing supermajority, even though it’s not true, even if they happen to live in a spiky city.
This total disconnect between self-interest and voting the other way, proves to me that we have a cult of personality in effect for 2008. All the armchair quarterbacking by the left over the past 8 years will come back to haunt them as soon as our junior senator takes office and his “gaffe-machine” number two start blundering on a global scale.
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:06 am
I’ve always fashioned myself as a libertarian Republican, meaning that I’m liberal on social issues but base my vote more on how well a candidate adheres to free market and low-tax economic policies. In the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan, those economic issues always took precedence over the socially conservative underpinnings of the party’s base. However, I’ve become increasingly disenchanted with what Richard has pointed out, which is the movement of the GOP toward becoming almost solely a socially conservative populist party.
I fear that the Republican Party will have the wrong takeaway in the more-likely-than-not event that John McCain loses tomorrow, where the socially conservative base will claim that the party lost because he didn’t adhere to their supposed “values” strongly enough. The Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters of the world will invariably trumpet this argument and you can see it already in the conservative blogosphere. Any rational observer can see that this is the exact opposite, though, where McCain is actually polling better than the Republican Party overall. (One can only imagine how this race would have looked if Mike Huckabee was the nominee.) Thus, the Republican Party is at the proverbial crossroads where they can either choose to become a more inclusive party that is open the increasingly libertarian streak of Americans or it can be an ideologically pure party. I’ll be voting for McCain tomorrow for various reasons (and I’m looked at as an alien for doing so here in my hometown of Chicago), but if the GOP chooses the latter course in the long run, this year might the last year that I’ll be placing a vote in the Republican column at the national level for a very long time. My in-depth thoughts on this subject are here:
http://frankthetank.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/the-gops-two-options-build-an-inclusive-majority-or-become-the-permanent-minority/
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:50 am
So here I am in Buffalo - poor, democratic, racially divided, blue collar Buffalo.
Albright Knox, Frank Lloyd Wright, Burchfield Penney Museum, HH Richardson, New Era Cap, Litelab, affordable, 90 minutes from Toronto, Buffalo.
It seems to me that there is a whole portion of the creative class that is not wealthy and that led the way in exhibiting the values of tolerance and support for diversity: artists.
Perhaps part of the solution to the economic divide you see stemming from the growth of the creative class is to refocus on support for those members of the creative class for whom struggle is part of what is important. Perhaps part of how an Obama administration might seek to mend the divide is to look at places like Buffalo (Detroit, etc) and look for ways to support creative class activities in ways that could help unskilled poor people. Artisan training programs, crafts, building restoration, etc. Many more expert than me know the way. Just saying that there are blue, poor, creative places to try to find the answers.
We’re ready.
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:49 pm
I’m puzzled by the obsession with marginal tax rates as an indicator of business friendliness. I’m not an economist but my understanding is that tax rates up to 30-40% have very little impact on business formation or success. Much bigger impacts are high inflation, uncertainty on policies, interest rates, research funding, infrastructure, an educated and available workforce.
I think the creative class is much more concerned with these factors, and openness to new ideas, than with taxes or with political parties per se. It’s a reason the creative class, and new economy, are centered in “high tax” cities in “high tax” states. The research centers, predictable government, social openness are much more important than taxes.
Right now the Democrats look better on these issues. If they can deliver, which will require more truly new thinking and policies than we see in the campaigns, they will be the party of the future. It’s difficult to see the Republicans moving in this direction in the next few years. If they both fail, the country will be in political free fall and Richard’s fears may come true.
November 3rd, 2008 at 5:10 pm
“The rise of ‘hockey moms,’ of ‘Joe Six-Pack,’ and ‘Joe the Plumber’ in this election cycle testify to this growing sense of unease. This is the kind of economic split that Obama tried to capture with his now infamous ‘bitter-gate’ statement, which he now says he regrets. But what can we expect from people who know that the economic system is leaving them behind?”
The rise testifies to another manufactured attempt by politicians to exploit unease - unease that has been around for decades due to the lack of good (post-)industrial policies, the lack of meaningful education and retraining, and the lack of real concern for those on or near the bottom rung of the ladder.
Obama regrets something that is true in spirit if not literally true. Yes, it’s tough medicine to swallow for people whose lifestyle choices do not position them well in the 21st century (and in some cases, since the Enlightenment).
People have sensed for a long time that something is wrong but not necessarily that they are being left behind. It was easier and politically expedient to blame other weaker groups (women and minorities entering the workforce, “welfare queens,” undocumented workers, etc.). Remember Gephardt detailing a Japanese care with a sledgehammer? There is no monopoly in stupidity and ignorance.
November 3rd, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Frank the Tank, I’m with you, though I personally have decided to support Obama even though I like McCain a whole lot as well. He’s the only candidate with an urban policy agenda and I think he’s a once-in-a-generation candidate. He could easily go down as one of the best ever because as bleak as things seem now, they’re much better than they look and he’ll get all the credit while restoring America’s image in the world.
All that said, Michael, you should truly reconsider your views on corporate taxes– they have enormous impacts! Look at what the European countries have done and how their economies have responded to cutting corporate tax rates. American has one of the HIGHEST CORPORATE TAX STRUCTURES IN THE WORLD. Why would a company headquarter themselves here and pay more taxes? Why stay here? Corporate taxes have enormous impacts on budgeting issues and the ability to keep cash moving without having it halved by the taxman. We should close loopholes and lower rates and provide a lot more targeted tax incentives. Our rail infrastructure has been re-built via tax credit programs implemented during the early years of this decade and America’s exports have soared as a result, frankly one of the only bright spots in our current economy. Historic properties have been rehabilitated throughout our country via the historic tax credit program. In any event, you’re a smart guy, you can do your own research; but approach it from a non-partisan perspective.
If the Dems govern from the center, they’ll be in power for a long time to come. If not, who knows what happens. I agree with Frank, the right-wing of the GOP will takeover the party, sadly.
November 4th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Hayden,
I was actually talking about individual taxes, which is what most of the campaign rhetoric has been about. I haven’t read as much about corporate taxes, but I suspect your idea of closing loopholes and targeted incentives are at least as important as rates. I also suspect that nations and individual states aren’t able to effectively tax corporations any more, although I don’t know what the solution is. Corporations and capital are global today, beyond the reach of local authorities.
Maybe in your part of the world the rail infrastructure has been re-built, out here it’s still a mess, subject to landslides and long delays. One of the many issues for the new administration.
I think the Center, like the Left and Right, is an outdated way to look at the needed politics. The Democrats long for the early 1930’s and 1960’s. The Republicans long for the early 1920’s and 1980’s. But bringing back last millennium’s policies will be inadequate in today’s world. What Obama and the new Democratic (or hopefully bi-partisan) Congress will need is entirely new paradigms. Bill Clinton for all his abilities was a transitional figure, holding back the barbarians. Bush was an incompetent attempt to turn back the clock. Obama must be a transformational leader taking us forward. People thought Colin Powell was talking race, but I think he meant something much bigger. Obama’s community organizing model campaign and internet fundraising have hopefully been indications that he can find new ways of leading and governing.
November 4th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Michael,
I do think that Obama will govern under a new paradigm and be transformational in a way that transcends race. It’s hard to say what that will be. I’ve been telling people for more than 2 years that we’re in the beginning of a historic new era. It’s exciting and yielding of trepidation all at the same time. But the world has never been more interconnected and Obama will inspire people at home and abroad in ways that no other US President ever has, in part because he’s uniquely gifted to do so and also because he’s lucky to be at the right place at the right time in history. The next 8 years should be exciting!
I’ll find some articles for you on the tax and rail issues…
Hayden
November 4th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Hayden,
The problem with tax credits is that they require someone with a tax burden. For the past few decades low income housing in America has been financed with tax credits, bought by banks. Money for new affordable housing projects has just dried up, at a time it’s desperately needed. I expect historic properties are in the same boat although I don’t work with them much.
It may be one reason your rails are improved while the Northwest’s have deteriorated is that there’s not the financial incentives to improve them here. Our exports are largely commodities (wheat, lumber) which come to the port by barge or aren’t as time sensitive, along with microchips which tend to be shipped by air or truck. But a side effect is that Portland-Seattle-Vancouver Amtrak, one of the obvious high speed rail routes is a joke.
Tax credits have their place, don’t get me wrong. But they’re not a complete substitute for direct government investment where its needed.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I don’t know if anyone is monitoring this thread anymore, but…
Thanks for the honest, thoughtful replies. Michael Wells, especially, I think your reply was the most helpful.
Why would social “openess” trump marginal tax rates?