'the realm of personality politics'

I much agree with your post. The problem for the Democrats and for the Labour Party pre-Corbyn was: that identity politics have been our compensation for going along with the general thrust of neoliberalism and the inhumanity of the capitalist system. The basket of various individual anti-discrimination rights has proven to not be enough for working class people to vote Democrat in sufficient numbers.

The various claims of identity politics do need to be balanced and catered for but unless the Democratic Party make a pitch on socio-economic matters, then working class voters are easily picked-off by right-wing populism.

I watched the first debate, Trump hammered NAFTA, hammered the decline of manufacturing, he spoke directly to the 'Rust Belt' states and Pennsylvania. The media said that Clinton hammered him but I think he was smarter than what we gave him credit for. The thing is I don't believe Trump will do anything to help these people but his messaging was better and it may have appeared that the Democrats were not offering anything to those people with a protectionist-industrial outlook.

I don't believe for a second that suddenly the USA is more racist than it was in 2012 or 2008. Racist? Yes, but not more racist than before. Many of those who voted for Trump probably voted for Obama twice.

What I hope is that some Democrats do not get the wrong message and ape the GOP's anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric. I think the Party definitely does need to offer something, be it a New Deal or Great Society, enough to make Wall Street quake and the Mid-West sit-up and notice. This should be taken alongside opposition to Trump's divisive social agenda, with a particular emphasis on state-level organisation to win back Governors' Mansions.

Scots give Trump the finger

I don't think the UK were particularly close to recognising the CSA

The CSA had a great deal of sympathy from the monarchy, the aristocracy, the House of Lords and sections of the Tory Party. But the working and middle classes were overwhelmingly pro-Union (save for the odd cotton town). It could have toppled any government which attempted it.

British military intervention would have been costly and for little reward. As much as Britain liked the South's cotton and its purchases of shipping, the North was a massive consumer of British exports, more so than the South.

By 1862 British investment had centered on cotton production in India which quickly replaced the trade with the South.

I would argue that the Emancipation Proclamation was crucial for an earlier victory in the sense that it would undermine the basis of the South's agrarian slave-holding economy, thus destroying the South's ability to wage war.

This is how it works

Romney +2 "Commanding lead for Romney"
Romney +1 "Romney nudges ahead"
Tied "Trouble for Obama"
Obama +1 "Obama and Romney in tie"
Obama +2 "Obama and Romney in dead-heat"
Obama +3 "Obama and Romney in statistical dead-heat"
Obama +4 or over "outlier"