A Tale Of Two Suburbs
April 9, 2019 3:46 AM Subscribe
An article by Claire Malone of FiveThirtyEight about two suburbs of Cleveland, OH, Parma and Shaker Heights, both traditionally Democratic. In 2016, Shaker Heights turned bluer and Parma voted narrowly for Trump. (Malone grew up in Shaker.)
...there is an alliance forming in the Democratic Party between minorities — who are estimated to become the majority in the U.S. by 2045 — and another group of college-educated white people, those who say they share a race-conscious worldview but who don’t live in the same cities as minorities or send their children to the same schools.Yeah. It's kind of a weird situation.
posted by clawsoon at 6:01 AM on April 9, 2019 [8 favorites]
My cousin from Parma visited this weekend and MY GAWD his politics suck. Such opinionated ignorance. We agreed not to discuss politics for family's sake but he kept bringing it up. You just cannot discuss things with people who have different facts. I decided yesterday to keep them at arm's length from now on.
posted by M-x shell at 6:39 AM on April 9, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by M-x shell at 6:39 AM on April 9, 2019 [6 favorites]
I'm shocked that Parma ever went for the Dems. It's not exactly known as a liberal stronghold.
source: Cleveland resident
posted by SystematicAbuse at 7:08 AM on April 9, 2019
source: Cleveland resident
posted by SystematicAbuse at 7:08 AM on April 9, 2019
Given the GM plant in town lots of Parma residents are UAW members, and the union has historically been closely aligned with Dems.
posted by plastic_animals at 7:29 AM on April 9, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by plastic_animals at 7:29 AM on April 9, 2019 [6 favorites]
I grew up in Parma and I don't think it has ever had a Republican mayor. That's partly due to the strength of the Cuyahoga County Democratic machine. I thought the article gave an accurate depiction, especially coming from an Eastsider.* Two points though:
First, the article makes no mention of Bush. I left for college just before the 2004 election but I remember pretty strong support for Bush in Parma. There were a lot of Kerry yardsigns as well but the idea that Parma was solid Democrat country-- at least in national elections-- doesn't seem true, although I can't find 2004 election data. I wouldn't be surprised if Kerry won Parma but if he did, it wasn't by much. This shift has been decades in the making.
Second, Parma Democats dismiss progressive programs like Medicare for All by saying Parma voters will ask "who will pay?" There may be some truth to that but I also suspect that those Democratic officials have their own reasons for depicting things in this way. I say this because Dennis Kucinich was always enormously popular in Parma.
Of course there are reasons Parma residents may be more receptive to progressive policies when a man from Cleveland's West Side with an Eastern European last name is talking about it, and I'm not saying that Democrats need to "reach out" to the white working class more (that notion exasperates me). But the idea that fiscal conservatism is deeply ingrained in these voter's preferences is not true.
*That's a Cleveland joke. When east siders trek to the west side someone will say "don't forget your passport" (and vice versa).
posted by mcmile at 7:39 AM on April 9, 2019 [12 favorites]
First, the article makes no mention of Bush. I left for college just before the 2004 election but I remember pretty strong support for Bush in Parma. There were a lot of Kerry yardsigns as well but the idea that Parma was solid Democrat country-- at least in national elections-- doesn't seem true, although I can't find 2004 election data. I wouldn't be surprised if Kerry won Parma but if he did, it wasn't by much. This shift has been decades in the making.
Second, Parma Democats dismiss progressive programs like Medicare for All by saying Parma voters will ask "who will pay?" There may be some truth to that but I also suspect that those Democratic officials have their own reasons for depicting things in this way. I say this because Dennis Kucinich was always enormously popular in Parma.
Of course there are reasons Parma residents may be more receptive to progressive policies when a man from Cleveland's West Side with an Eastern European last name is talking about it, and I'm not saying that Democrats need to "reach out" to the white working class more (that notion exasperates me). But the idea that fiscal conservatism is deeply ingrained in these voter's preferences is not true.
*That's a Cleveland joke. When east siders trek to the west side someone will say "don't forget your passport" (and vice versa).
posted by mcmile at 7:39 AM on April 9, 2019 [12 favorites]
I'm shocked that Parma ever went for the Dems. It's not exactly known as a liberal stronghold.
Being from Pittsburgh, I'm none surprised. Lots of people here "culturally" identify as Democrats because unions and their daddy and daddy's daddy were Democrats and there are political machines that have been in place for decades that mean that if you want to get into local politics, you must be a Democrat. In my district (city neighborhoods + some suburbs, mostly white, until recently mostly older and working class, lots of city workers/first-responders, with the core of the district being a heavily ethnic-identified Italian neighborhood) we recently primaried the Democratic State Assemblyman who was anti-choice, pro-gun, pro-police (and in fact the former Chief of Police), and anti-immigrant. The only way that was possible was a demographic shift in the district towards younger and more educated. He had previously run unopposed in both primary and general.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:56 AM on April 9, 2019 [11 favorites]
Being from Pittsburgh, I'm none surprised. Lots of people here "culturally" identify as Democrats because unions and their daddy and daddy's daddy were Democrats and there are political machines that have been in place for decades that mean that if you want to get into local politics, you must be a Democrat. In my district (city neighborhoods + some suburbs, mostly white, until recently mostly older and working class, lots of city workers/first-responders, with the core of the district being a heavily ethnic-identified Italian neighborhood) we recently primaried the Democratic State Assemblyman who was anti-choice, pro-gun, pro-police (and in fact the former Chief of Police), and anti-immigrant. The only way that was possible was a demographic shift in the district towards younger and more educated. He had previously run unopposed in both primary and general.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:56 AM on April 9, 2019 [11 favorites]
Second, Parma Democats dismiss progressive programs like Medicare for All by saying Parma voters will ask "who will pay?" There may be some truth to that but I also suspect that those Democratic officials have their own reasons for depicting things in this way. I say this because Dennis Kucinich was always enormously popular in Parma.
Dennis Kucinich has always been an odd exemplar of the left wing, though. He had a pretty consistently anti-choice record for most of his career until it was no longer politically expedient, for example. That doesn't obviate what you're saying, but in the '80s and '90s he cashed in pretty liberally (heh) on an Eastern European anti-choice Catholic identity which coexisted with his anti-imperialist, anti-privatization, pro-union progressivism. There are multiple reasons he might've remained broadly popular in Parma over the years.
posted by duffell at 8:04 AM on April 9, 2019 [2 favorites]
Dennis Kucinich has always been an odd exemplar of the left wing, though. He had a pretty consistently anti-choice record for most of his career until it was no longer politically expedient, for example. That doesn't obviate what you're saying, but in the '80s and '90s he cashed in pretty liberally (heh) on an Eastern European anti-choice Catholic identity which coexisted with his anti-imperialist, anti-privatization, pro-union progressivism. There are multiple reasons he might've remained broadly popular in Parma over the years.
posted by duffell at 8:04 AM on April 9, 2019 [2 favorites]
but who don’t live in the same cities as minorities
There are cities without minorities?
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:42 AM on April 9, 2019
There are cities without minorities?
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:42 AM on April 9, 2019
but who don’t live in the same cities as minorities
> There are cities without minorities?
I take this as meaning 'most college-educated white Democrats live in places where there are few people who aren't white'. A bit of clarification (and a link) from the article itself: "White people are the majority in 90 percent of America’s suburban counties." I think it's pretty clear what she means given this context. Claire Malone also makes it clear that Shaker Heights is atypical because it's an affluent, racially mixed suburb. There aren't that many of those.
posted by nangar at 12:54 PM on April 9, 2019 [3 favorites]
> There are cities without minorities?
I take this as meaning 'most college-educated white Democrats live in places where there are few people who aren't white'. A bit of clarification (and a link) from the article itself: "White people are the majority in 90 percent of America’s suburban counties." I think it's pretty clear what she means given this context. Claire Malone also makes it clear that Shaker Heights is atypical because it's an affluent, racially mixed suburb. There aren't that many of those.
posted by nangar at 12:54 PM on April 9, 2019 [3 favorites]
Perhaps most notable about Shaker Heights that distinguishes it from Parma is that some 30% to 40% of the residents are Jewish.
posted by JackFlash at 3:39 PM on April 9, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by JackFlash at 3:39 PM on April 9, 2019 [2 favorites]
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