Via Allister Heath at The Telegraph:
“…It used to be so easy. When the economy did well, the incumbent party won; when it did badly, it was the opposition’s turn, with voters switching their allegiance with the ups and down of the cycle… Fast-forward 25 years, and the landscape has changed beyond recognition almost everywhere. The US economy is doing remarkably well and yet the Republicans lost the House of Representatives. True, the kicking that Donald Trump received was pretty normal for a mid-term election, and he won some senators. But there was a striking disconnect between the share of the public saying that the economy is doing well, and the large swing to the Democrats… Crucially, the better-off and highly educated moved even more markedly to the Left, and the poor to the Right… The people most likely to benefit from Trump’s tax cuts often voted against them, whereas those who may have gained from the Democrats’ predilection for redistribution backed Trump.
(i) First, the class-based, economically deterministic world of yore is being superseded by the rise of “identity politics” and the emergence of new, cultural and value cleavages. Ideology is back, but in a manner that cuts across the old Left and Right: millions vote in a certain way either because of their own personal characteristics, such as their gender, race, religion or occupation, or because they believe in particular non-economic values.
