A WEEK ago, demography was destiny for the Democrats. Along with many Republicans, they assumed—perhaps complacently—that swelling minority populations and left-leaning younger voters would form a winning electoral block, soon even an indomitable one. Instead they lost not only the White House but several governorships, their gains in Congress only pifflingly compensating for the attrition they have suffered, from the Senate to state houses, during Barack Obama’s presidency. In Kentucky’s house of representatives they lost their last legislative chamber in the South, a region in which their demographic hopes were strongest, but which instead remains a Republican bulwark.
The autopsy will be as rancorous as the fallout among Republicans would have been had Hillary Clinton won. For her party’s populist faction, the result confirms that she was a centrist throwback, a milksop out of touch with the public mood. For its centrists, some of the blame belongs to the left-wingers and their grouching. After the recriminations, this internecine row will focus on three linked...Continue reading
Source: United States http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21710027-hillary-clintons-demoralised-party-faces-some-hard-choices-destiny-derailed?fsrc=rss
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