Increased focus on racial and sexual minorities to the exclusion of working-class interests (which has been going on for decades), spilling over into outright contempt of lower- and middle- class whites (which has mostly become prominent in the past 10-15 years).
Not being from the US I don't know how Democrats view this, but in general, yes, it seems to me they are somewhat in conflict. Diversity activism tends to pit working class members against each other. Meanwhile, the rich don't have to care either way, except to occasionally be seen as backing the more popular view.
There's only so much time, attention, and energy. If your focus is on, say, trans rights, you're not spending that time focusing on working-class economics.
And even if you can do it all, there's only so much attention the voters have. If all they hear about you is on trans rights, they don't perceive you doing anything about their economic problems.
The Democrats' central message used to be "we care about the working people". Now their central message is "we care about illegal immigrants, minorities, and trans people". If your biggest problem is that you have no money because you have no job, that doesn't resonate.
More: As the Democrats become dominated by the coastal elites, the party has too many people leading it who don't even know about the working-class problems in the middle of the country.
> If your focus is on, say, trans rights, you're not spending that time focusing on working-class economics.
This is a bizarre statement since most trans people I know are either working class, precariat, or working poor. The trans rights they want beyond extremely basic anti-discrimination protection are things like easier access to university and universal health care. These are things that benefit all workers, not just trans people. (Three of the Google employees fired for union organizing were trans! Don't try to feed me some line that there's some conflict between trans rights and workers' rights. The claim is just some shit-stirring by capital for its own ends.)
It is also a bizarre statement given the indifference or even slight hostility to trans rights by DNC frontrunners (Biden, and previously Clinton). The DNC doesn't care about trans people, and trans people know it. To the extent they support the party, they do so uneasily, outside the DNC, and for largely economic reasons.
Time spent on anti-descrimination policies is inherently time not spent on economic issues. There will always be policy focus opportunity cost. I can totally understand why working class people in the heartland who have never met any LGBT person, let alone someone trans or someone non-binary, would think that focusing on equality efforts for them is not a high priority issue and that legislators should focus on economic issues affecting many more people. People mostly care about what is affecting them and people they know.
> Time spent on anti-descrimination policies is inherently time not spent on economic issues.
Can you give anything close to a concrete example of this?
Even ignoring the indivisibility of the economic and social spheres (ask a black person if the CRA was an "economic issue" - ask a trans person if whether they can safely pee at work is an "economic issue"), and that it's not a zero-sum game (for example, the heightened scrutiny required by transphobia tends to cost more resources), I can't imagine there's enough meaningful work to "saturate" 100% of some candidate's time with economic issues. And as mentioned, the people who are furthest left and most vocal on economic issues are often the people furthest left and most vocal on civil rights. Conversely, people who spend a lot of time talking about how social issues should not be such a big deal (Peter Thiel, for instance - Paul Graham also, albeit with a much smaller platform) are the same who lean right economically.
How many examples do you need to see this is a false dichotomy? How many examples did you see to convince yourself it was a dichotomy at all?
> I can totally understand why working class people in the heartland who have never met any LGBT person, let alone someone trans or someone non-binary
I am not sure you know what those words mean ("any ... T person, let alone someone trans" is nonsense), but also, we're talking about people who live in Nebraska or Ohio, not hermits. We are long past any plausibly deniability to not even know a gay person - if you don't know any, it's because you're actively trying to avoid them.
> Can you give anything close to a concrete example of this?
Sure, although I feel like your response is largely due to an uncharitable reading of my post. Whether someone can use a specific bathroom has an impact on a tiny percentage of the US population; pretty much only trans or non-binary people. Sure it's still economic in some contexts and it was incorrect for me to insinuate that it was totally social, but it is not economic or social policy that affects the vast majority of the population. Tax policy, immigration, trade policy, regulation, worker education, general schooling, government grants and investment, etc matter to far more people. Time spent on niche issues is going to appeal to fewer people by definition, and I could see people getting angry that legislative time is being spent in this manner while broader economic issues appealing to more people remain unsolved. Personally I feel that supporting those communities is morally important, but I understand why other people believe it takes a lower priority relative to economic issues affecting them personally.
> I can't imagine there's enough meaningful work to "saturate" 100% of some candidate's time with economic issue
People are clearly signaling through their voting that grossly insufficient time is being spent on economic issues. Key problems remain unsolved.
> I am not sure you know what those words mean ("any ... T person, let alone someone trans" is nonsense)
That statement implies I am referring to lesbian, gay, or bi people. I don't see what is unclear about that based on my wording. The concept of being trans is more of a logical leap for a straight person than the concept of being bi, gay, or lesbian for pretty obvious reasons. I don't think this requires further explanation.
> We are long past any plausibly deniability to not even know a gay person
You have very clearly not been to large swaths of the United States. Many, many, many people have never met an openly LGBT person. Even more are not friends with one in a close enough manner to have the types of honest, informative discussions to cut through popular misconceptions.
> if you don't know any, it's because you're actively trying to avoid them.
Yes, a large number of people intentionally self segregate into communities where other people are like them. They still get to vote.
> > Can you give anything close to a concrete example of this?
> Sure, [a bunch of broad non-specific examples]
OK.
> You have very clearly not been to large swaths of the United States.
Grew up in WI, close family / friends in MI, MN, NE, IA, and IL, dated a boy from TN and a girl from WV, but sure, tell me how there's no gays in the midwest.
Bathroom example is a specific example; there was a huge uproar about bathroom rights in North Carolina I want to say about 5 years ago, and it resulted in national media attention and subsequent legislative attention in many states. Further you didn't contradict anything else I said or any of the other basic claims I've been making. Sorry political reality and the concept of self-interest make you unhappy.
> Grew up in WI, close family / friends in MI, MN, NE, IA, and IL, dated a boy from TN and a girl from WV, but sure, tell me how there's no gays in the midwest.
Last I checked there were more than 8 states in the United States. Further, your response doesn't invalidate what I said in any way. You are an n of 1 and we are talking about tens of millions of people in there states. Just because you met a LGBT from a state doesn't mean that everyone else from that state met them or any other LGBT. Please point out where I said there were no gays in the Midwest.
> there was a huge uproar about bathroom rights in North Carolina
So because the republicans passed a law positively discriminating against trans people (and doing a bunch of other weird shit - this was not a well-planned bill), and people are sick of the social issues, they... voted republican?
Not to mention the economic fallout of HB2 was brutal - despite its short life it cost the state thousands of jobs and millions of dollars.
Again we see things aren't really in tension - the democratic position was less political work, greater economic benefit, and justice. The "political reality" is that republicans started a fight by stripping rights, then got to play a fake victim.
> it resulted in national media attention and subsequent legislative attention in many states.
That attention was primarily passing more transphobic legislation. What were we supposed to do? "Well, I guess you can keep taking our rights away one by one, because the economic issues are more important!"
There's no more productive conversation to be had concerning your views on sexuality in some mysterious, isolationist states. They're simply unmoored from reality.
R said that they will bring back working class jobs and give them something to be proud of. R also said that they will limit low skill immigration which will help reduce competition for working class jobs. R said that they will reduce taxes for working class people (and they even increased taxes for better paid workers, so it is not like they just reduced it overall).
All of these are typical leftist talking points, Democrats just left those votes on the table and R just swooped in and took them.
> Are you saying that as the Democrats became distanced from working-class issues, the republicans got closer to working-class issues?
I don't know that the Republican actually got closer to working-class issues. In the last election, though, they at least got to the point of talking about such issues, in the same election that the Democrats didn't bother to do so.
So if I were a working-class minority person, whose major pain point was economics, in the last election I still might vote Republican, because they at least were talking about the thing I cared most about, even if the Democrats were talking about my secondary issue.
The population of the United States is dominated by the coasts. The GDP of the United States is dominated by the coasts. The tax base of the United States is dominated by the coasts.
Democrat [poltiicians] represent the ruling class just as much as Republican [politicians] do (evidenced by the fact that except for a few exceptions such as Bernie Sanders they go about fundraising in the same way: primarily from large donors). Given that, taking a more moderate stance regarding minorities is one of the few ways to differentiate themselves in a way that looks good to their base. In their ideal world 5 CEOs still own 95% of the country's wealth, but 3 of them are black, and maybe one's a lesbian.
You've got that all wrong. The former didn't happen and didn't spill over into the latter, the Democratic Party abandoned working class interests (not just “white working class”) pretty sharply after Clinton's election. It didn't really accelerate on the other fronts, it just didn't back off of them as hard because racial/sexual/etc. equality is compatible with the center-right neoliberal capitalist economics that became the focus of the new dominant faction of the Party.
OTOH, there's evidence that that faction of the party is losing dominance to one focussed on working class interests again.
