USA 2024: 'My gut instinct was that Harris was in a stronger position than she was a week ago', says political scientist

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00:00First of all, what was your gut instinct when your alarm clock rang this morning, or did

00:07you not need one?

00:09Well, my gut instinct was that the past week has been a pretty good week for Kamala Harris

00:17and a pretty bad week for Donald Trump.

00:20So my gut instinct was that Harris was in a stronger position than she was a week ago.

00:25Whether that will be strong enough, I can't tell you.

00:28But gut instincts change throughout the day, I've noticed.

00:32Yeah, mine hasn't changed today, but that's probably because I've just been looking at

00:36the same numbers I was looking at last night.

00:40What's going on with democracy in America?

00:43Well, I can describe it very simply.

00:47Through a period of historical evolution now that's gone on for a full generation, the

00:52United States is both closely divided and deeply divided.

00:58And it turns out that that is a very bad combination for trying to govern effectively

01:03in a system of checks and balances, not a parliamentary system where if you win, you

01:08win everything.

01:09What is that about?

01:10Is that just sheer luck that you have people on the divide, if you will, on both sides

01:16that are roughly even?

01:18Is it an institutional problem with this constitution that's sometimes difficult to explain, drawn

01:24up in the 18th century?

01:26What's it about?

01:27Well, in part, it's about deep cleavages on issues ranging from economics to culture that

01:37have developed and widened over the period of generation.

01:42It's also the case that both parties have gotten increasingly good at slicing and dicing

01:48the electorate, so...

01:50They call it micro-targeting?

01:51Exactly.

01:52To get as close to a majority as possible.

01:57And so the technology of politics has helped contribute to the narrowing of the gap between

02:03the two parties.

02:05But in part, it's because of our system that has divided the country into states whose

02:12total electoral votes are pretty evenly balanced.

02:16I can remember, in a close election that I remember, the first one that I remember

02:21of 1960, 35 states were swing states.

02:27Most of the country was within a very narrow margin.

02:30Now we have some states that are very Republican, some states that are very Democratic, and

02:35just a handful that are truly contested.

02:38And that's one of the things that's made the elections so close.

02:41And those political parties are changing.

02:44You mentioned the 1960s.

02:45It was a time when the Democratic Party had a stronghold in the South.

02:52And there was a sort of a generational change, perhaps even a change of more than a century,

02:59where the allegiances flipped a half century later.

03:05I ask, could allegiances flip again?

03:08Are we seeing some kind of redrawing of the political map, or did it already happen in

03:132016?

03:14Well, it started to happen—it didn't start to happen in 2016.

03:20It was accelerated in 2016, but it hasn't stopped.

03:24And previously, you could talk about this in regional terms.

03:28Now you need to talk about it in class terms.

03:31Increasingly, highly educated people are gravitating towards the Democratic Party.

03:36People without college educations are heading quickly towards the Republican Party.

03:41And as we've learned from politics, not just in the United States, but all over the Democratic

03:45West, a college education comes with a particular set of outlooks, willingness to deal with

03:53diversity, willingness to deal with change, a preference for urban life.

04:00And increasingly, people without college educations are less comfortable with diversity, less

04:06comfortable with change, and less comfortable with urban life.

04:10You see an urban-rural split, you see an education split, and you see an occupational split.

04:15The United States is not distinctive in this respect.

04:18Not distinctive in this respect.

04:19One of the questions you asked—and it'll be my last one to you—you're wondering,

04:23Donald Trump, people thought, oh, he's finished after 2020.

04:27Now you're wondering, can he create a multi-ethnic working class party?

04:32This is the great question.

04:34Because the Republicans shifted from being a party of educated white people to a party

04:43of less educated white people.

04:46But white working class voters are not a majority in the country, and they keep on shrinking

04:51as a share of the population.

04:52What Donald Trump is trying to do is to create within the Republican Party a working class

04:58coalition across ethnic and racial lines.

05:02If he succeeds in doing that—and this election will be a test of that, though maybe not the

05:06last test—then he will have completely reconfigured American politics.

05:12And this will be the new axis of division for the next generation.

05:16And like you say, perhaps something that will influence as well the politics of Europe and

05:20beyond.

05:21William Galston, thank you so much.

05:23It's been my pleasure.

05:24And we're going to be—

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