AMERICA AFTER THE MIDTERMS: Blue Twilight and Red Dawn?

This election in particular, in which Republicans did exceptionally well at the state level suggests that while the Democratic Party may well innovate and adjust, the core tenets of the blue model as a basic governing philosophy are in much deeper trouble than many of the operatives and thinkers of the Democratic Party are prepared to admit.

The survival of Sam Brownback in Kansas and Scott Walker in Wisconsin, and the equally striking election of Tom Tiflis in North Carolina tell us that in some states at least relatively radical “Red Dawn” governance, even when it runs into serious policy and political trouble, doesn’t necessarily translate into political defeat. At the same time, the stunning losses of Democratic gubernatorial candidates in states like Massachusetts, Illinois and Maryland tells us that blue model governance as usual is no longer good enough to keep voters loyal.

Election results in New York underline this point. In one of the bluest states in the country, Republicans gained control of the state Senate, a clear message that even New Yorkers don’t want to give leftie Democrats the keys to the car. New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio, a self-avowed ‘progressive’ who rejects what he considers the soulless centrism of Democrats like (re-elected) Andrew Cuomo is not the wave of the future in New York State politics.

The United States overall remains in its unhappy equilibrium. Voters like and even pine for the stability and general prosperity of the far away times when the blue model worked. But they are increasingly losing confidence that it still works, and the economic decline of states like Illinois, the decline of the middle class in states like New York and California, and the inability of blue model economies to generate the revenue that blue model government requires continue to erode voter faith.

And with good reason.