Forgive my reply to myself, but I have been thinking about this all day. Here are some random thoughts, partly for my own edification, but partly because the conversation seems to be lingering:
I actually think the "core" of the democratic part / left is the marginalized on one hand, and those that minister to them on the other. The white working class aren't really marginalized like they were in the depression and earlier, so don't fit in anymore -- but the super poor are marginalized, so they fit. Non-whites are interesting -- 40 years ago, blacks and latinos were marginalized as weirdos, except they were poor too (double whammy -- like being gay AND broke all the time). Now that we are actually becoming a less racist and homophobic society (slowly and imperfectly, but definitely) these folks lose their marginalization and drift away from the core since social conservativism and personal character ideologies become more appropriate, unless they go to college and become social workers and join the ministering class rather than the ministered-to class. The Republicans see this with latinos and keep trying to bring them in; they haven't succeeded yet, but they will, just like they did with Italians and Catholics.
The other, maybe dominant group now, in the democratic party are those folks who would have been "Rockefeller Republicans" back before Reagan and Goldwater redefined the party. My family is in this camp, and so are, I think, all the smart capitalists who run/ own businesses that require lots of infrastructure and educated employees -- the Hewletts and the Packards, Bill Gates, Hollywood, Google, the rest of the educated "blue" USA. These guys rightly understand that simplistic market bullshit and simplistic christian bullshit are not appropriate to a complex industrial economy. Remember, Carnegie ordered the slaughter of unionizing steelworkers, but he also understood his world was completely fucked without universities and libraries to make his engineers and managers. He could have been a Clinton democrat today.
A couple of replies to people:
Yeah, Eric Hoffer is great -- I only read the true believer, but it made a huge impression on me; I am sure I repeat him without knowing it.
To the guy who asks why the Joe Sixpack world doesn't evolve its own leaders (forgive me if I paraphrase too brutally): because they lack the training or they wouldn't be joe sixpacks in the first place... It is mostly the managerial class (myself) or the owning class (my friends at prep-school) who have the know-how to organize people into social systems like political parties, churches, businesses, and the like. The working class have great hand-eye coordination, but pretty crappy social and language skills (sorry for the gross generalization, but I think you understand what I am trying to say); those that do have these skills tend to drift upward into the managerial class. When there is no room for these smart organizers to promote, they get involved in union politics or communist cells (or avoid the question altogether by getting involved in the arts/ drugs/ weird religious things / whatever.)
So here is my parting thought: There is a vacuum organizing the working class today, and if someone put their finger on the cultural stuff like the Republicans do, but also fought for working people's actual interests, it could be a WILD ride. Just saying.