Some of the more idealistic right-wing print commentators have looked deep into the soul of the Trump GOP and don’t like what they see. In their eyes, the system worked better when the angry white workers were Democrats, and their party supported limited, not swaggering, government.
This argument was, of course, at the core of the Sanders “revolution.” If Sanders had taken the idea to its logical conclusion, he would have campaigned hard in the Deep South, attended NASCAR races, courted the support of country music stars, and held firm to his position on guns. He didn’t do any of those things, because it became clear to him early on that their net effect would be to lose, not gain, Democratic primary voters.
Assuming, for purposes of argument, that this is a desirable outcome, how can the Democratic Party become more of a class-based party consistent with Bernie’s original vision? Or, to put it another way, how can the Democrats win over white working class voters without losing an equivalent number of minorities?
I think there are only two avenues:
1. The GOP reacts to a cataclysmic Trump defeat by firmly disavowing bigotry and by telling bigoted voters to go elsewhere. Good luck with that. Those voters are the core of the GOP; while they may present a problem in Presidential elections, they win a lot of local, state, and Congressional elections.
2. A Democrat with very special qualities succeeds in threading the needle. He would have to be male, charismatic, and a Southerner, with a clear understanding of, and sympathy for, rural people and rural culture. He would also need strong roots in the civil rights movement.
In short, he would have to be Bill Clinton (minus the foibles) for the 21st Century.