Abstract

Free Higher Ed!

The author argues that the U.S. Democrats should take clearly defined stands on issues during the current presidential campaign, and explains how calling for free higher education at all public institutions could motivate voters to elect a Democrat. It's not just their greater combativeness that has given Republicans an electoral edge. They have been much more adept than Democrats at articulating neat, clean positions and yoking them to a larger social vision that speaks to people's hopes and anxieties and that contrasts sharply with the worldviews attributed to their opponents. A key part of this strategy is defining wedge issues that divide the electorate in ways that will deliver a voting majority. For decades now, Democrats have generally confined their use of wedge issues in defense of the remnants of the New Deal social contract and the more recent advances of the civil rights and women's movements. This campaign season offers a real wedge issue that has the potential to reverse this trend for any politician bold enough to see its significance: free higher education. Make every public institution of higher education free for all who meet the admissions standards. The Democratic candidates, astute politicians that they are, realize that this is an important issue to the American people. But nearly all succumb to overly complicating the issue.