The cultural focus of progressive organizations “sends me running screaming from the left.” – Ruy Teixeira
A left-wing political scientist who predicted in the early 2000s that demographic changes would turn the country blue is now scolding Democrats for abandoning the middle class and failing to secure the Latino vote.
Ruy Teixeira, who co-wrote the influential 2002 book “The Emerging Democratic Majority” with John Judis recently walked back his predictions, left his job at a left-wing think tank, and has been warning Democrats they are losing the middle class in a series of interviews with mainstream news outlets.
Teixeira recently left his long-standing post at the left-wing think tank Center for American Progress and settled into a new a research role at its polar opposite: The American Enterprise Institute. Speaking to Politico about the relatively significant career change, Teixeira said that the cultural focus of progressive organizations “sends me running screaming from the left.”
“My perspective is, the single most important thing to focus on in the social system is the economic system,” Teixeira told Politico.
In an interview with NPR, Teixeira criticized Democrats for writing off the white working class, but also failing to secure working class Latino voters.
“What’s interesting and very concerning, I would think, to Democrats – they tended to write off losing white working-class voters as kind of like, what can you do?” Teixeira mused to NPR. “You know, they’re a declining population. They don’t like the multicultural, multiracial America. They’re all a bunch of racists and xenophobes. But I think what’s underscored the potential overall class problem for the Democrats is the movement of nonwhite working-class voters away from the Democrats in recent period of time, particularly Hispanic working-class voters.”
“What’s interesting and very concerning, I would think, to Democrats – they tended to write off losing white working-class voters as kind of like, what can you do?” – Ruy Teixeira
Teixeira also hammered the far-left for neglecting public safety, and said the San Francisco school board and district attorney recalls were especially telling because they put public safety front and center.
“People want to be safe from crime, and that includes a lot of nonwhite voters” Teixeira said. “It is not a matter for them of choosing between the two, but rather above all, you’ve got to keep our community safe. We saw that in San Francisco, where the Asian population in particular was hugely important in these events.”
Market Research Foundation has been tracking the white non college rejection of the modern Democratic party for years, as well as the shift of minority voters toward the right.
Our 2021 memo on white non college voters found that while whites without a college degree have declined as a share of eligible voters, their turnout rates are rising. Non-college whites in rust belt states turned out substantially higher in 2020 than they did in 2016.
For example, 53% of all votes cast in Ohio in the 2020 general election belonged to white non college voters compared to just 43% in 2016, a ten-point increase.
Pennsylvania follows a similar trajectory as Ohio. While the share of white-non college voters in Pennsylvania declined 5 points between 2016 and 2020, the white non-college turnout rate in Pennsylvania rose 9 points from 57% in 2016 to 65% in 2020.
Michigan and Wisconsin experienced similar drops in the share of white non-college voters, but both experienced a rise in the share of non-college whites turning out to vote. In Michigan, non-college whites still make up 53% of the eligible voter population, and their turnout rate rose 5 points from 59% in 2016 to 63% in 2020. In Wisconsin, non-college whites still make up 59% of the eligible voter population, and their turnout rate climbed 5 points from 68% in 2016 to 73% in 2020.
Our analysis of the 2021 Virginia governor’s race also showed lower-income and minority voters played a pivotal role in the Fairfax County precincts that became more Republican in 2021.
We analyzed the precincts that shifted more toward GOP newcomer Glenn Youngkin compared to 2017 GOP candidate Ed Gillespie and showed precincts that shifted have significantly higher Hispanic and Asian populations, as well as an average annual income nearly 50% lower than precincts that shifted more Democrat.
As Market Research Foundation pointed out last week, confidence in mainstream institutions is plummeting and a majority of Americans say they have little to no confidence in mainstream news. What’s more, the radical left is losing the gender war with younger Americans, including Democrats.
The modern Democratic party is alienating middle-class whites and failing to secure minority voters largely because they are ignoring glaring economic issues and pushing a radical social agenda that does not resonate with most Americans.