THE RACIAL DIVIDE – AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  It's no secret that we're a divided nation politically, and in other respects.  But the racial divide in politics is severe.  It is joined by a class, gender and education divide.

There's been, in effect, a role reversal in American politics.   Working-class whites, once the backbone of the Democratic Party, are moving right, in line with their values and hard-work ethic.  More educated white women, but not educated white men, are for Obama.  In a way, this follows what we've seen in American society:  The colleges propagandize their students, and especially white women, to reject traditional American values.  From National Journal:

Obama's best group in the white electorate remains well-educated women, who tend toward more liberal positions on social issues as well as greater receptivity to government activism. In the new poll, 56 percent of college-educated white women said they approved of Obama's performance. That's a slight improvement from the 52 percent of such women who voted for him in 2008, according to the Edison Research exit poll. It's also a big improvement from the 43 percent of college-plus white women who backed Democratic House candidates in 2010. (Well-educated white women provided substantially more support for Democrats in some key 2010 Senate races, including contests in Colorado, California and Wisconsin.)

The rest of the white electorate remains deeply cool to Obama, the Pew survey found. Just 38 percent of college-educated white men said they approve of the president. That's down from the 42 percent of the vote he won from those men in 2008, and only a slight improvement from the miniscule 35 percent House Democrats won with them in 2010.

Obama's approval rating in the Pew survey stood at just 34 percent among white women without a college education-the so-called waitress moms. Democrats have often had high hopes for capturing those economically-strained, culturally-conservative women, but the new result only underscores their consistent Republican tilt: Obama won just 41 percent of them in 2008, and House Democrats just 34 percent of them in 2010.

The toughest group for Obama remains white men without a college-education-the blue-collar workers who constituted the foundation of the Democratic electoral coalition from 1932 to 1968. Just 35 percent of them said they approve of his performance in the Pew poll. That's below even the 39 percent of them Obama carried in 2008, though slightly above the Democrats' microscopic 32 percent showing with them in 2010, according to the exit poll. All of these results suggest that the gap between Obama's support among college-educated white women and non-college white men-which stood at a formidable 13 percentage points in 2008-might easily widen even further in 2012.

COMMENT:  It's very sad to see what we're seeing.  It is, of course, a dream of the left to divide America along racial and ethnic grounds, and even gender grounds.  "Race, gender and ethnicity" is the mantra of the left. 

But I wonder how the "progressives" explain the loss of the working class.  Why, isn't this what "progressivism" is all about?  I always thought it was.  Maybe, like Rick in "Casablanca," I was misinformed.

April 8, 2011