Politik som kulturmarkör

Folkpartiets toppnamn på riksdagslistan i Göteborg, Adam Cwejman, har ägnat en serie dräpande kommentarer på Twitter åt innehållslösheten i Feministiskt initiativs partiprogram. Det gör han, menar jag, alldeles rätt i.

Feministiskt initiativ är såklart inget politiskt parti i vedertagen mening. Det är en rörelse som samlas bakom Gudrun Schyman. Hon är partiet.

Men frågan är om innehållslösheten blivit dagens politik…

Politik brukade handla om frågor rörande jobb, ekonomi, utrikespolitik etc. Dvs frågeområden där man med viss rimlighet kan skapa en bild av olika politiska besluts effekter i verkligheten.

New York Times rapporterar om hur det nu ser ut i USA detta valår. Ekonomin är såklart inte en stark fråga för demokraterna, men det tycks inte spela så stor roll:

“Acid, amnesty and abortion” was the epithet hurled at the 1972 Democratic presidential candidate, George McGovern. Republicans seized on concerns about welfare, school busing and crime — memorably with a black convict named Willie Horton in 1988 — to cement their grip on white voters. As recently as 2004, Republicans used a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage to rally tradition-minded “values voters” behind President George W. Bush’s re-election.

Now the values wedge cuts for Democrats. Demographic change keeps shrinking Nixon’s “Silent Majority.” President Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress overhauled welfare. Fear of crime has receded enough that members of both parties propose more lenient sentencing.

American households have changed significantly. Nearly half of adults are unmarried. Fully 10 percent of opposite-sex married couples are interracial or interethnic. Acceptance of same-sex marriage has expanded with astonishing speed.

Legalization of medical marijuana has moved, in two states, Colorado and Washington, to legalization of recreational marijuana. College students from the Summer of Love are pushing 70, the elders who disapproved of their behavior are largely gone and young adults are wondering what the turmoil was ever about.

Democrats profit politically — among young voters, college graduates, single women, blacks and Latinos — from the sense that they welcome these cultural shifts while Republicans resist them.

“That’s why people are voting for us these days — not for our economic prowess,” said Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster. “They all reflect an underlying attitude. It’s openness, it’s tolerance, it’s respect for others and who they are.”