Katrina vanden Heuvel: President Obama and the Rising American Electorate

Katrina vanden Heuvel: President Obama and the Rising American Electorate

Katrina vanden Heuvel: President Obama and the Rising American Electorate

A record turnout for non–white male voters gave the president a mandate to champion.

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Riding on the votes of a rising American electorate—composed of African-Americans, Latinos, youth and blue-collar workers—Obama won a larger Electoral College victory than many expected. On WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show, Nation editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel says this coalition of voters “saw a different vision of America.” Their record turnout at the polls gave the president a mandate to champion.

Steven Hsieh

For more on the "rising American electorate," read the lead editorial in the latest issue of The Nation.

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With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.

As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation,” millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-“d” populist ideas—not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Nation elevates progressive ideas, movements, and elected officials achieving real change across the country into the national conversation. At the same time, our journalists are exposing how crypto and AI-funded super PACs are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to knock out candidates they oppose, reporting on the devastating impact of the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, and sounding the alarm on attempts by red states to quickly redraw electoral maps, disenfranchising Southern Black voters.

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Onward,

Katrina vanden Huevel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation

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