Democrats are the party of the university-educated. As university-generated high technology moved to the center of the American economy, Democrats qu… - Christopher Caldwell

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Democrats are the party of the university-educated. As university-generated high technology moved to the center of the American economy, Democrats quite naturally consolidated their position as the party of the country’s business and financial elite. But Democrats are also dependent on black voters, who are, on the whole, disproportionately dependent upon government programs. The alliance between university know-it-alls and hard-pressed minorities can be an effective one, but only so long as government spending is rising. And it was not. Clinton was able to keep the alliance alive in an era of cuts by making adroit use of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the regulations, executive orders, and court-ordered expansions stemming from it. He shunted the cost of black advancement into the private sector through affirmative action and housing finance subsidies. He opened civil rights to other groups, particularly women and gays. And—the first president to do so—he made an almost religious appeal to diversity as an American calling, casting as unpatriotic any allegiance to the traditions and cultures of the majority.