> What I mean is that you have to divide working class cultural
conservatives
> into two groups. One values cultural issues like abortion so highly that
> they vote solely on those issues, and no appeal will move them. That
group
> progressive coalitions have to write off.
>
> But there is another group that will support a progressive coalition, even
> one that largely supports abortions rights and so on, because they value
> progressive economic issues more than the cultural ones. But for them to
> support progressives, they need to hear the economic issues front and
> center. Otherwise, if they don't think voting progressive will get
> economically progressive change, they'll vote conservative to get their
> second-choice cultural conservative preferences.
I basically follow your drift, albeit I would say that divisions are more complicated and not as easily addressed: e.g. crime that disproportionally affects the working class but intersects with racial and ethnic tensions, environment/land use which again disproportionally affects the working class economically, but stands at odds with other economic interests such as employment or affordable housing, health care which divides working class interests between those of their employers, their unions, and their families, geographic divisions of the working class, not to mention the well known cultural issues: gun ownership, abortion, women's, ethnic minority and gay rights, anti-intellectualism, etc.
These are all serious issues, but I think they tend to obscure a far greater problem - building a coalition from below rather than from above. It is much easier to attract various and diverse interest to an already existing institutions, such as a political party, than build a coalition of those interest by cobbling it from below. There are many reasons for that discussed in social movement and organizational literature, chief of them being that existing institutions are much better at overcoming the free rider effect by offering tangible benefit to participants as an incentive to join and stay. There is also the legitimacy issue, which the established institutions are better equipped to address.
In short, you need to start from the existing institutions, such as the Democratic Party, and branch out by attracting various and diverse interests that normally would not even thing of joining forces. Thus far, this is water under the bridge, this is how Democrats used to operate. The problem is, however, that they are less and less willing or able to pursue that strategy and basically chase after the republican votes.
In organizational theory this is called organizational isomorphism i.e. different organizations becoming more alike as a result of intensive interaction with each other. However, a more interesting empirical question is what causes that isomorphism in the US politics. Is it the homogenization of popular opinions, e.g. through media indoctrination? Or is the influence of the paymasters as Doug suggested? Or is the so-called "garbage can effect" i.e. redux to the lowest common denominator acceptable to different interest groups?
As you know, I am far from being in the fuck-the-Democrats-let's-start-a-revolution camp, and I always understood the necessity of a compromise in politics. But the current meltdown of the Democratic Party goes well beyond that - it appears that "bipartisanship" shows more unity than the monied interests themselves, which suggests that something else than the length of the paymaster's leash is at work. I cannot quite figure out what it is - but the phenomenon is certainly not limited to the US - you see similar tendencies in EU and Latin America.
Wojtek