American Prospect
The Democrats: Exorcizing Ghosts and Looking Forward
The Democrats’ stunning success in the November 7, 2017, Virginia state elections, and more recently, Democrat Doug Jones’s election in Alabama, portends a great blue wave in 2018. Or does it? The good news is that dozens of new groups mobilized thousands of volunteers and candidates, many of whom were new to politics.
White Nationalism and Economic Nationalism
In August, when Stephen Bannon called me out of the blue, I came away from that bizarre conversation impressed with the coherence of his grand strategy, and relieved that Donald Trump has embraced only part of it. As Bannon explained with surprising candor driven by braggadocio, the idea is first to racialize politics—to remind white people, especially those who feel beleaguered, of their whiteness. If race becomes a prime identity for downwardly mobile white people, well, there still are a lot more whites than other colors in the rainbow. And if Democrats can get baited into defining their prime mission and identity as defending the rainbow, the right wins.