In retrospect, gun control and environmental issues were the harbingers of one of the major themes of post-industrial politics: working-class white voters were slowly pushed aside by the political demands of secular, diverse voters. and postindustrials who were supposed to lead a new Democratic majority.
The book is virtually silent on issues that fall into this category, such as same-sex marriage, immigration, climate change, inequality, or racial justice. In all fairness, the book was written before many of these issues came to prominence. It was written towards the “end of history”. The 2000 election campaign was a relatively boring affair, with low turnout and few marked differences between candidates. No one could have predicted the next 20 years of wars, economic crisis, cultural change and social unrest.
Yet despite all the events of the past two decades, the book achieved something very important: America was entering a new era of post-industrial politics.
As Mr. Judis noted in an email, the professionals have “become, at least, more democratic” than the book predicted. Perhaps the book didn’t predict a blue Virginia or a blue Colorado – but in some sense these changes proved that the book’s thesis was more powerful than its authors imagined. The industrial age of political conflict was coming to an end.
While the authors argued that Democrats would follow in the footsteps of Progressive-era Republicans, who ran as reformers and won landslide election victories, the next 20 years proved more evocative of the age of gold – the decades of political division, resurgent populism, political reaction and growth. the inequality that ultimately paved the way for the rise of progressives.
This is perhaps the book’s biggest flaw. He assumed that the transition to a new, post-industrial, multi-racial society would occur without anything like the strife, turmoil, and backlash that accompanied industrialization. Indeed, the book didn’t imagine the basic contours of political conflict in the post-industrial era — let alone why Democrats would be well-placed to guide the nation through these challenges. Instead, he assumed a peaceful, prosperous, and contented nation, a nation where centrist Democrats offering small solutions to small problems could fend off unflappable Reagan-era Republicans in perpetuity.