R-E-S-P-E-C-T. I'll second Steven White's sentiments below. There's an odd subtext in liberal conversations about Southern voting patterns that seems to suggest economics are the only political concern worth casting a ballot on. But if you really do believe that abortion is creating an incalculable human genocide, is it so crazy that you'd vote on that rather than vague economic promises? And what, exactly, are these economic policies that Democrats support and are sure make such an intense difference in the lives of middle class voters? Poor voters already do cast ballots for the Democrats -- it's those a bit higher up the income ladder who shift to the right. And why not? Save for universal health care, which Democrats have proven pretty incapable of passing, there's not much in the Democratic agenda that would amount to a huge economic benefit for these folks. There are portions of it that would be significantly better indirectly -- no crazy wars would mean less in taxes down the road, no unfunded tax cuts would mean our infrastructure wouldn't be crumbling, retaining the estate tax would be directly beneficial, etc -- but the degree to which some Democrats appear to believe that their ascension into the executive branch results in huge piles of money appearing before everyone who makes less than $65,000 a year is actually quite odd. And so long as I'm speaking in praise of sincere disagreement, the occasional advice from reverse-elitists to "respect" conservative ideas, norms, and so forth is unbelievably condescending. To imagine that the political beliefs of these voters are so weakly held as to be disarmed by some affirmation and attentive listening is utterly absurd. These are serious arguments, and they deserve to be taken seriously. What's required is persuasion, not "respect." --Ezra Klein
