Did the Democrats Fuck It Up? | Sam Rosenfeld, Daniel Schlozman

A “why is Roe about to fall?” article that correctly traces things back to the 1970s collapse of the New Deal coalition and then intriguingly connects that back to the way Democrats became “the feminist party” to begin with, and more broadly an alignment around donor fundraising that necessarily favors the interests of those with disposable income.

To make the thing not so much a knifing of allies, the (preferable) alternative they consider wasn’t “male-oriented unions keep feminists out of the coalition” but “feminist groups focus more on gendered labor and poverty issues, and less on college-graduate issues of their day”. Roseanne feminism.

Well okay, but how do they, feminist groups, keep from following the money? Dems’ old funding base of dues-funded union support linked them to the working class, using their scale to compete for poverty, but through a thick and embedded intermediating structure.

I guess AARP is an example of an identity category activist group that keeps a pretty materialist focus. Like, “government support for individuals with no other source of income” is very much an AARP issue, but even though COVID is a threat to the elderly I don’t see them moving in that space. (Which is to say, would an AARPified NOW even have abortion in their issue portfolio?)

I guess a key there is both the unions and AARP provide valuable service to the member besides interaction with the political system. I know a big part of why the NRA got so big is because guys who aren’t particularly gung-ho will join for the valuable discounts (the hotel and car rental ones mean a life membership pays for itself in like a week of travel), while all the while the NRA gets chances to develop and activate them.