My own view is that housing costs are the real sleeper issue right now. The problem is housing costs are also the issue that shall never be named. The real story of housing is while it has always been an issue in the larger deeply blue metropolitan areas like Boston, New York, and the SF Bay Area it has now become a nationwide problem. Places like Florida that used to be known for relatively low housing costs now have extremely high ones while at the same time not having particularly high wages locally. I think one reason a lot of coastal Democrats are somewhat out of touch on this issue is that in the aforementioned deeply blue metro areas like Boston and SF the housing issue over the past few years has ironically probably gotten no worse or perhaps even slightly better.
Housing by it's nature also splits the old against the young and is also seen as issue that is deeply within the purview of local and state government by people heavily involved in national politics. Nor are the ideological divides between the parties particularly strong on this area. Are the GOP really going to enact policies that hurt homeowners and help non-homeowners?
Also want to add that housing is now THE issue in both British and Canadian politics.
I absolutely agree with this. Democrats might say "home prices are going down", but they shot up so rapidly in the first place that any decrease now still makes a younger person's dream of owing one unobtainable. And in Florida, you can add the homeowner's insurance as well. But, again, Democrats don't want to admit that something is wrong.
There is also a bigger problem that the Economic populist/left wing of the Democratic Party doesn't really even know what it is for anymore. And this is not just about whether "Gaza" is more important than any economic issue. It is also about things like is it good that Biden is putting tariffs on Chinese EV's for example? Some traditional economic populists close to the industrial unions in the Midwest say yes way to go but others aligned more to college campuses are totally against the move. Look at the internal fights in the UAW between the adjunct professor wing of the UAW vs the more traditional autoworker wing of the UAW. Or the estrangement of John Fetterman from many of his original supporters.
I will say in my personal friend circle I am seeing an increasing number of young people moving to the Chicago area from the coasts in particular due to lower housing costs. Now to be fair these people I know are still very much in the college educated professional class and are NOT people I would call "working class" but still you are seeing a real migration from places like NY and SF to Chicago because of housing prices.
My own view is that housing costs are the real sleeper issue right now. The problem is housing costs are also the issue that shall never be named. The real story of housing is while it has always been an issue in the larger deeply blue metropolitan areas like Boston, New York, and the SF Bay Area it has now become a nationwide problem. Places like Florida that used to be known for relatively low housing costs now have extremely high ones while at the same time not having particularly high wages locally. I think one reason a lot of coastal Democrats are somewhat out of touch on this issue is that in the aforementioned deeply blue metro areas like Boston and SF the housing issue over the past few years has ironically probably gotten no worse or perhaps even slightly better.
Housing by it's nature also splits the old against the young and is also seen as issue that is deeply within the purview of local and state government by people heavily involved in national politics. Nor are the ideological divides between the parties particularly strong on this area. Are the GOP really going to enact policies that hurt homeowners and help non-homeowners?
Also want to add that housing is now THE issue in both British and Canadian politics.
I absolutely agree with this. Democrats might say "home prices are going down", but they shot up so rapidly in the first place that any decrease now still makes a younger person's dream of owing one unobtainable. And in Florida, you can add the homeowner's insurance as well. But, again, Democrats don't want to admit that something is wrong.
There is also a bigger problem that the Economic populist/left wing of the Democratic Party doesn't really even know what it is for anymore. And this is not just about whether "Gaza" is more important than any economic issue. It is also about things like is it good that Biden is putting tariffs on Chinese EV's for example? Some traditional economic populists close to the industrial unions in the Midwest say yes way to go but others aligned more to college campuses are totally against the move. Look at the internal fights in the UAW between the adjunct professor wing of the UAW vs the more traditional autoworker wing of the UAW. Or the estrangement of John Fetterman from many of his original supporters.
I will say in my personal friend circle I am seeing an increasing number of young people moving to the Chicago area from the coasts in particular due to lower housing costs. Now to be fair these people I know are still very much in the college educated professional class and are NOT people I would call "working class" but still you are seeing a real migration from places like NY and SF to Chicago because of housing prices.