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Jesse Ferguson, in an extraordinarily timely piece, writes:
Romney-Clinton voters are, generally speaking, college-educated suburban professionals: lawyers, doctors and businesspeople. They voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, but switched to Hillary Clinton in 2016.They abhor xenophobia, the alt-right and racists, but they also mostly socialize within their own race and they’re mostly white. They’re socially liberal but not obsessed with a political agenda. They value fiscal responsibility but also believe in investing in the future, especially education. They remain deeply worried about Trump’s qualifications, scared about his temperament and alienated by his misogyny and ties to extremists. For the first time in a long time, they’re willing to hear about and vote for Democrats.
Oh boy, are they.
Who are these people, and what do they want? Some used to call them Country Club Republicans or Main Street Republicans. After 2001, female voters in this group were the “soccer moms.” They desire ordered liberty, a dependable and rule-based system that allows them to thrive. The party that they’ve called home once upon a time featured smart Republicans (William F. Buckley Jr., Irving Kristol, etc.), responsible legislators (e.g. Sen. Bob Dole, Sen. Howard Baker) and constructive reforms (e.g. welfare reform, charter schools). It was the party that finally helped bury the Soviet Union. Now the party asks them to buy into “alternative facts” and take Sean Hannity seriously. It advances stunning falsehoods about economics, cities, crime, immigration, science, budgets and most every public policy topic.
The GOP asks them to denounce elites — Hey, that’s voters like them!— and requires them not to believe in climate change. To be a “real Republican” now means to be economically illiterate on trade and immigration. These voters know immigrants aren’t stealing their jobs and that crime is substantially down in most American cities. (After all they work in increasingly diverse workplaces and live in diversifying suburbs — or have returned to gentrified cities.)
