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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The Midwest is realigning because of the decline of union influence. Midwestern states stayed majority Democratic because of union strength, and labor's clout and MW Democratic Members of Congress kept the Democratic platform somewhat protectionist.

As labor's clout has declined, white blue-collar workers in the MW started voting like white blue-collar workers elsewhere - more white than blue-collar, and Democrats started targeting middle-class suburbanites more and relied more on turning out women, young voters, and minorities to make up for losing white working class men. Generally, the MW has stayed heavily Democratic in urban areas but become more Republican everywhere else, like the rest of the country.

A lot of House Democrats from the MW lost their seats in 2010 including two major committee chairman - Oberstar (MN) was Chairman of Transportation & Infrastructure; Skelton was Chairman of Armed Services; 5 Dems lost in Ohio, 4 lost in Illinois, and one each in several other MW states. (Also 3 losses in central/western PA).

The Democratic caucus became overwhelmingly East Coast, West Coast, and minority Members from the major   cities in between. The MW lost a lot of influence in setting the Democratic agenda in Washington, and the states became more difficult for Governor and Presidential elections when there were no longer entrenched Democratic Congressional incumbents on the ballot and campaigning and organizing. [/quote]
OP here -- thank you for this summary.  Do you have any thoughts on what this may mean going forward?  I am hoping we find more palpable/effective candidates on both sides of the aisle, but my gut says we're going to see more than extreme candidates on both sides.  The GOP may go with someone less extreme than Trump in the next election, who will face an extreme liberal; then in the following election even more extremism.  And by extreme, I mean in the sense of how the opposition views the candidate.  Taken to the extreme, no one will hold the middle and we will become a much weaker nation.  Next thing you know, Canada will invade us.  (FWIW That's my attempt at levity.)[/quote]
Different PP, and I don't think that it's helpful to discuss this in terms of extremism...which I think has lost all meaning. Healthy support for labor laws is now generally viewed as an "extreme" position. The NLRA would never pass today; it would be considered socialist and dismissed out-of-hand. I used to work for a (non-MW) Congress member who was staunchly pro-union. There were a handful of MW members that you could reliably count on to share policy goals, and many of them have been replaced by Republicans who have made dismantling labor protections and crippling the NLRB a party plank.

The problem is that everyone who is generally disgusted with American politics calls themselves a centrist, but they all mean really different things. To pull a quote from the article you started this with:
[quote]"What the Democratic Party needs to do is speak to the needs of those communities... That includes health care disparities, mass incarceration, low education, actual ongoing crises in our communities, such as Flint. We need to see action, not just talk."[/quote]
Thinking the government should address literally every single thing on that list is considered an extreme liberal position. This is not about extremism across the political spectrum. Trump is governing in a mostly very extreme laissez-faire conservative way, dismantling the regulatory infrastructure of the country, but he's also advocating what amounts to industrial policy, something that is generally a tool of socialist states.

So, I guess, my question for you having posted this is what you think a candidate should look like and what they should speak to, absent any label. I honestly think the only real extremists in government right now are a handful of Ayn Rand reactionaries, generally found in the Freedom Caucus. To me, the bigger issue is whether people have an interest in solving problems vs. scoring political wins for their parties. I'm looking for an elected official with the courage of their convictions whose convictions are not completely anathema to my values. Those people are in short supply these days.[/quote]

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