New Feminized Majority by Katherine Adam Charles Derber

Author:Katherine Adam, Charles Derber [Katherine Adam, Charles Derber]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781317255451
Google: ZGIeCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-12-03T06:00:17+00:00

Toward Feminized Populism

The triangulation approach that worked so well for Democrats in the 1990s is not a viable long-term strategy for the party. Voters need to feel that their political party is in line with their values. Triangulation requires that candidates confuse voters about where they stand on the issues. As a consequence, voters become confused about what the party itself represents.

Evangelicals know where the Bush administration stands. President Bush assures Christians again and again that he shares their values and that he will not let them down. Evangelical voters feel they can trust him, that his motives are good, and that he means what he says. Few Democrats have this wholehearted trust in their candidates. The only thing the Democratic base knows for sure is that a Democrat in office—any Democrat—will be better than George W. Bush. But the Democratic Party needs more than to be seen as “the lesser evil.” The party needs a revival, a way for people to vote Democratic with their hearts as well as their heads. Progressives need to fall in love with the Democratic Party again.

Values are the key to communicating with voters, and Democrats would be best served by adopting the values of the feminized majority. To motivate this growing base, Democrats should understand the roots of feminized values and push for policies reflecting these values. The feminized majority supports a feminized populism: a strong social welfare state; vigorous support for workers and working families; equal rights to redress the historical inequalities suffered by groups such as African Americans, Latinos, women, and GLBT Americans; a foreign policy based on cooperation and diplomacy; an environmental policy based on sustainability; and a democracy that is accountable to ordinary workers and citizens rather than to corporate and national security elites. But it’s not enough to pursue these policies as progressives have in the past. Democrats also need to show a clear connection between their political positions and the values at the heart of these positions, making clear that this is a politics that is not just a collection of self-serving needs of various Democratic interest groups. A feminized populism is the policy agenda based on a feminized morality serving the entire society, weaving together universal feminized values of equality, cooperation, empathy, nonaggression, and community. It highlights the moral vision of a feminized world based on interdependence and caretaking. When crafting policy, Democrats should always ask themselves: Does this plan reflect a Together We Can attitude?

Moving away from the current Democratic Party paradigm involves more than a change in message. It also requires a new relationship with the corporate interests that have played a huge role in the party for the last twenty-five years. This is the best way to show ordinary voters that Democrats are on their side. In the next chapter, we will outline how it is possible to run a campaign in a feminized way, relying more on average citizens than on corporate backers. Just as Republicans motivated evangelicals by running evangelical candidates,

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