What was voter turnout like in the gilded age

Despite a corporate propaganda campaign against it — unfortunately abetted by the California NAACP — Proposition 15 proved popular in working-class Los Angeles, winning large margins from black and Latino voters in Compton, Inglewood, and Bell Gardens. But once again, the newest wing of the Biden coalition stepped up and batted down an attempt to tax the rich. In the very wealthy, ex-Republican LA beach suburbs of Rancho Palos Verdes and Manhattan Beach — where Biden ran 25 or more points better than Obama — the business property tax failed by over 20 points.

Orange County as a whole, which turned blue for the first time in , swung hard against Proposition Summoning the democratic will for economic redistribution is difficult in the best of circumstances. But it is harder than ever under conditions of accelerating class dealignment — when the political party that claims to support progressive taxes depends, more and more, on voters who strenuously oppose them.

If the future of the Democratic Party is in the rich suburbs, the future of American politics is another long Gilded Age. The most understandable liberal response to class dealignment is a kind of resignation and acceptance. And as Piketty also notes, the class-centered politics of the early twentieth century emerged from economic forces and social movements — in particular, industrial development and mass labor organization — that do not exist in the same form today.

So why should we expect electoral politics to look the same? But too often, for liberal pundits, the mere recognition of class dealignment doubles as a meek surrender to its power, as if the rich suburban conquest of the Democratic Party were a law of physics. In the eyes of such tough-minded progressives, leftists who pine for the New Deal coalition — or any electoral politics grounded in class — might as well be howling at the phases of the moon.

Yes, some form of class dealignment has emerged all over the developed world, and no, its US iteration cannot be reduced to particular national conditions — either unique Democratic Party malfeasance or the deep history of American racism.

But all this only underlines something we already know well: that center-left parties in postindustrial countries , facing similar social and economic currents, have followed similar paths, prioritizing global markets, cosmopolitan values, and professional-class voters rather than unions, wages, and blue-collar workers. Our world contains many Chuck Schumers. The death of class politics is not an outcome these party leaders feared; it is a goal they have zealously pursued.

Just as laissez-faire was planned , class dealignment was chosen. Even the march of education polarization, perhaps the strongest electoral meta-trend of the twenty-first century, was halted and reversed in Since , however, dealignment has soared like the Matterhorn.

Viewed from the pivotal swing state of Michigan, the class differences between the Obama and Biden coalitions are both stark and enlightening. In , Obama swept across white working-class Michigan like the second coming of Franklin Delano Roosevelt — in fact, he won the state by a larger margin than FDR did in In deindustrializing Bay County, formerly a base for General Motors, he won by 15 points; in rural Menominee County on the Upper Peninsula, he won by 10, the best Democratic showing there since Lyndon B.

And in black working-class Detroit, Obama walloped McCain by , votes. The election was a different story.

And yet, even in the context of a much tighter Michigan race — with a winning margin that shrank from 16 to 3 points — Biden nevertheless managed to make gains in the richest parts of the state. These are differences that a single decade has made. They cannot be responsible for such a dramatic shift in such a short period of time. Nor can it be chalked up to the unique political talent of Barack Obama.

After all, that talent did not seem so impressive to wealthy voters in Bloomfield Hills — nor in the country clubs of Houston and on the private beaches of Southern California, where he received many fewer votes than both John McCain and Joe Biden. Homeowners suffered foreclosure while Washington bailed out Wall Street; health insurance remained ruinously expensive and very far from universal; inequality rose as fast as ever. The rhetoric of class politics gave way to the reality of cautious, stakeholder-centered government, both materially and stylistically allergic to bold economic redistribution.

Meanwhile, the corporate lawyers and realtors who spurned Obama twice, and only came around to the Democrats after they nominated the safest possible symbol of restoration — a white, six-term senator from Delaware — represent the progressive future of the party. Such is the logic of Gilded Age politics, where partisan identity transcends class, interest, and ideology. The difference between the Obama and Biden coalitions, of course, owes much to the emergence of Donald Trump.

But the shape of two-party electoral contests is determined by the political decisions of both parties. For the Democratic elites who always opposed class politics, Trump has been nothing less than a godsend.

It was always going to be a tough sell, given that Park Avenue voted for the son of Scranton at an 80 percent clip.

Amid an outbreak that has killed more than , Americans, public health was bound to take center stage in the election. Second, in the general election, Biden lambasted Trump for his incompetence, irresponsibility, and refusal to consult scientific experts.

All these criticisms were richly deserved; judged by the death toll alone, the United States has one of the worst virus-response records in the world.

As the campaign unfolded under the shadow of the pandemic, Trump helpfully played his part, doubling down on the buffoonish antics that culminated in his infection with COVID The deadly outbreak — an actual extension of class war , in which thousands of manual workers have died while bosses and professionals complain about Zoom calls — was thus dressed up as another episode in the never-ending struggle between Team Red and Team Blue. Both major party establishments joined the effort to convince a plague-stricken, protest-riddled country to bring its righteous anger to the ballot box.

The corporate media, whose own business models now expect Gilded Age levels of partisanship — 91 percent of Americans who depend on the New York Times for news are Democrats — eagerly played along.

And potential frustration at the for-profit health care system, or mass unemployment, or the literally murderous shape of our economy, was rerouted into familiar sectarian sniping about experts, masks, and individual misbehavior. But who needs material politics in an era of feverish culture war? Ultimately, it was much easier to make Anthony Fauci a sex symbol than to campaign on anything that bore the slightest whiff of resentment against the rich and powerful.

In so many senses, both the pandemic and the politics that emerged from it took place deep within our second Gilded Age. Where does this all leave the Left? Class dealignment may be a choice, but if Democratic leaders keep choosing it, what hope is there to break the cycle? The two Sanders presidential campaigns represented one effort, but they ended in a defeat that only confirmed the supremacy of the Biden coalition. The current order leaves the post-Sanders electoral left in a painful bind.

They argued that tariffs made most goods more expensive for the consumer and subsidized the trusts monopolies. They also denounced imperialism and overseas expansion. In contrast, Republicans insisted that national prosperity depended on industry that paid high wages, and warned that lowering the tariff would be a disaster because goods made by low-wage European factory workers would flood American markets.

Presidential elections were so closely contested between the two major parties that a slight nudge could tip the election, and Congress was marked by political stalemate.

With support from Union Army veterans, businessmen, professionals, and craftsmen and larger farmers, the GOP the Republicans consistently carried the North in presidential elections. The Democrats, often led by Irish Catholics, had their base among Catholics, poorer farmers, and traditional party members.

Overall, Republican and Democratic political platforms remained remarkably constant during the years before As the parties developed distinctive positions on issues such as the modernization of the economy and westward expansion, voters found themselves attracted to one side or the other. The Whigs and Republicans aggressively favored modernizing the economy, and supporting banks, railroads, factories, and tariffs, and promised a rich home market in the cities for farm products. The Whigs always opposed expansion, as did the Republicans until The Democrats, meanwhile, talked of the agrarian virtues of the yeoman farmer and westward expansion, and emphasized how well rural life comported with Jeffersonian values.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans were willing to take strong stands on issues important to the voters. Both parties set up campaign clubs, such as the Wide Awakes, in which young men paraded in torchlight processions wearing special uniforms and holding colorful banners. By the late nineteenth century, the parties in the Midwest combined to turn out more than 90 percent of the eligible electorate in entire states, reaching more than 95 percent in in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio.

Some counties passed the percent mark not because of fraud but because the parties tracked people down whom the census missed. The new immigrants who arrived after seldom voted at this time. Throughout the nineteenth century, third parties such as the Prohibition Party, Greenback Party, and the Populist Party, evolved from widespread antiparty sentiment and a belief that governance should attend to the public good rather than to partisan agendas.

Because this position was based more on social experiences than any political ideology, nonpartisan activity was generally most effective on the local level. As third-party candidates tried to assert themselves in mainstream politics, however, they were forced to betray the antiparty foundations of the movement by allying with major partisan leaders.

These alliances, and the factionalism they engendered, discouraged nonpartisan supporters and undermined the third-party movement by the end of the nineteenth century. The massive influx eventually provoked a rising nativist sentiment that culminated in efforts to limit immigration. During the mid-nineteenth century, for instance, thousands of Chinese began streaming into the United States, most of them settling in California.

Although initially encouraged to migrate to the United States, they soon found themselves the victims of violent harassment. A new California constitution drafted in included numerous anti-Chinese provisions, prohibiting them from owning land or engaging in particular professions.

Courts also refused to accept testimony from Chinese. Anti-Chinese riots killed dozens of the newcomers. By there were over , Chinese on the West Coast, and the rising numbers prompted efforts to prohibit further immigration.

This culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of , the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. Although President Chester Arthur vetoed the bill, Congress passed it to protect "American" jobs and to maintain white "racial purity. Perhaps the most salient political issue during the last quarter of the nineteenth century was a tension between city and country, industry and agriculture.

Millions of distressed American farmers during the late nineteenth century felt ignored or betrayed by the political process. While the industrial economy and urban culture witnessed unprecedented expansion, farmers confronted a chronic boom-bust cycle characterized by falling prices, growing indebtedness and dependence on local merchants and middlemen, and the high cost of credit. In the rural South and in the Midwest, discontented farmers first formed grassroots Granges or Alliances that provided opportunities for both social recreation and political action.

By the s these regional efforts had combined to form a third national political party, the Populists. The new party promoted a variety of reforms and policies, but it soon fastened upon a seeming panacea: the free and unlimited coinage of silver.