The Democrats had already willingly given up Southern conservatives. Now, given the culture wars, they were prepared to give up social conservatives everywhere. The problem though was that the social conservatives were to a large extent the non-college-educated workers that had once been the core of the New Deal coalition.

President Barack Obama sought, not entirely successfully, to keep this group in the coalition. Then, Hillary Clinton decided to use them to discredit Donald Trump. She painted Trump (and he painted himself) as the spokesman for those who were not college educated, white, socially conservative workers. Clinton understood that this group was not simply no longer favored by the Democratic Party—it was repulsive to the Democratic Party.

There is a constant argument that soon the United States will cease to be a predominantly white country, and that this group is increasingly irrelevant. A reasonable argument, it is posed in such a way as to create both a sense of desperate embattlement among white workers (particularly male) and a sense of loathing toward this group in the rest of the country.

There are two baskets. One is the “deplorables” who should have been expelled from the Democratic Party back in 1964 with the South. The second is the impoverished and hopeless. But the key here is that Clinton did not try to split Trump’s hold over this second group, as Lyndon Johnson or Harry Truman would have. Rather, she treated them as alien and unimportant.

The Democrats basically gave up this core constituency of the New Deal—the white, undereducated working class, committed to strict social values. Clinton’s calculation was that the price of retaining them was to accept strict social values. If she did that, she would lose heavily with the Democrats’ new base … the socially liberal in all classes.

Look at this another way. Since 1932, American politics were driven by economic issues. Now, they are driven by social issues. From the Democrats’ point of view, the working class was on the wrong side of these social issues, so Clinton gave up on them.

The Future Of The Parties

The Democrats created chaos in their base, but in an orderly fashion. The Republicans created it in a disorderly way. Trump drew the white working class to him and engaged in what proved to be the losing side of the social values debate. While he had support in other classes, he did not own them as he owned white, non-college-educated workers. The Republican Party lost the culture wars in 2016: They added the white working class (as Reagan had in part) but united them on social issues that simply didn’t have the votes.

The issue, at present, is this: What is the Democratic Party about now, if it has already won on gay rights, abortion, and prayer in schools? What is the reason to vote Democrat in 2020? If there is a recession and 2020 is a tough economic year, what is the coalition that will flock to the Democratic Party?

The major political battles on the cultural issues have been won. And while the battle may continue, a massive reversal on these issues would require a massive reversal in the political structure of the United States. The issue at this point is the fate of those earning below the median income. These are the people in the second basket of Trump supporters … and the former core of the Democratic Party. But because of the Democrats’ shift on cultural issues, they are now more aligned with the classes who earn above the median income. If they focus on those below, they must shift their cultural views. If they focus on those above, they alienate their old base.