Thousands of words have been written and spoken about how the white blue-collar class abandoned the Democratic Party decades ago. All of that blah-blah-blah is substantially wrong. A more honest and truthful view is that it was the Democratic Party that abandoned the white working-class.
The modern Democratic Party “brand”, to use an overused term, began at the 1932 Democratic Convention with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s bid to become the party’s presidential candidate. He came up with what’s known these days as a soundbite phrase which has endured to this day:
“I pledge myself to a New Deal for the American people.”
After years of exploitation of working Americans by the Robber Barons of the Industrial Age, Roosevelt was pledging to fight for a slice of the pie for the factory worker and the farm hand—for the little guy. The pledge of a New Deal for the Middle Class and the Working Class powered the Democratic Party to election success for decades.
For years the Democrats were the champions of the guy in work clothes carrying a lunch bucket. Bread and butter issues for the Working Class were issues for the Democrats. And for years organized labor unions were the bedrock foundation of the Democratic Party.
The 1960s, brought upheaval. The nation was clearly changing and the Democrats put the New Deal on the back burner.
From the birth control pill to rock ‘n’ roll and movies that questioned the status quo, the culture and the nation were headed down a new road without a map.
Earth-shaking change occurred in 1964-1965 with the new civil rights laws. Civil Rights issues suddenly became all-consuming issues for the Democratic Party as many party leaders did the numbers and saw a new voting bloc.
Civil Rights and the potential voting power that went with them made blue collar economic rights and concerns a second-string issue for the Democrats. The Dems proved they could not walk and chew gum at the same time. They could not champion two important issues simultaneously.
“Civil Rights” became part of the political vocabulary. Terms like entitlements, hiring quotas and minority set-asides angered the traditional, mostly-white blue-collar Democratic base. Many felt they were losing their piece of the American economic pie to minorities who were suddenly being given what once belonged to working-class whites.
In the 1950s, hetero white males dominated the nation’s politics, the culture and the economy. When the 1960s arrived White America, which loved the white supremacy 1950s, was jolted to its core. White dominance of the culture and political power was fading. Sharing power and economic opportunity with non-whites and women was seen as the nation going to hell.
The realization of the loss of white power and dominance led to the Republican presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater, a war hawk who opposed the new civil rights laws. Goldwater lost and lost big.
Next, Republicans chose Richard Nixon while flirting with avowed racist George Wallace, the governor of Alabama who famously said segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. Wallace was paralyzed in an assassination attempt. Nixon won two terms but left the White House in disgrace.
He was replaced by Gerald Ford who was replaced by Jimmy Carter. Both were one-term presidents.
White conservatives regrouped and elected Ronald Reagan, regarded by many as Saint Ronnie. The onetime Hollywood actor bemoaned welfare queens, meaning black women, even though most welfare recipients are white.
Reagan won with help from so-called Reagan Democrats like those in the blue-collar suburbs of Macomb County, Michigan. Reagan won 66% of the vote in Macomb County in his 1984 re-election campaign. The Democratic Party was losing the working class by the tens of thousands. The Party leadership did nothing to stop it.
Reagan was followed by George H.W. Bush, who played the race card by citing the case of Willie Horton, a black criminal serving a life sentence in Massachusetts for murder. Horton was allowed out of prison on a weekend pass, and immediately went on an assault, armed robbery and rape spree. Bush’s Democratic opponent was Michael Dukakis, who was the governor of Massachusetts when Willie Horton went on his weekend-pass crime binge. Dukakis was clobbered in the election.
Then along came an aw-shucks master politician from Arkansas. Bill Clinton seemed to be just what the Democrats needed. What most liberals didn’t realize—until years later—is that Clinton aided and abetted Republican sabotage of the party in some key areas.
NAFTA—the North American Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, was hailed as a step toward a global economy, which liberals hailed for its kumbayaya, lovey-dovey, all-one-world mentality. In time, NAFTA came to be seen as a wrecking ball deployed against the jobs and futures of American blue-collar workers.
In a moment of candor in 2008, Bill Clinton inadvertently described—oh-so-accurately—how the Democratic Party viewed the working class as beneath them. Clinton said:
“The great divide in this country is not by race or even income, it’s by those who think they are better than everyone else and think they should play by a different set of rules.”
Bill Clinton could have been describing the progressives of Silicon Valley or the liberal-but-greedy hedge-fund hustlers of Wall Street.
Clinton was replaced in the Oval Office by George W. Bush who gave us 9/11, seemingly endless war in the Middle East and the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression. Dubya, as he was called, was followed by Democrat Barack Obama, the nation’s first black President.
Obama campaigned on a slogan of Hope and Change. Obama’s overriding goal seem to be proving that he wasn’t an angry black man. Aside from a healthcare plan named after him, Obama’s slogan of Hope and Change turned in to Same Old Same Old.
After Obama, White voters were so frustrated and fearful of the loss of White Supremacy, that they elected a career white collar criminal, a world-class liar and flim-flam man.
Donald Trump did everything he could to destroy democracy in America as he dreamed of becoming the nation’s first emperor.
Joe Biden defeated him and it remains to be seen how his Presidency will turns out.
Thomas Frank, a reporter and the author of a wake-up book entitled “Listen, Liberal!” argued on the PBS NewsHour that the Democrats now practice liberalism for the rich:
“The leadership of the Democratic Party is not who we think they are. It’s a different group of people serving a different agenda than what we, what their brand identity tells us they are.”
“Today they are about the professional, managerial, highly educated, white-collar, affluent suburban class.”
“The Democrats basically are a party that identifies itself with Wall Street and identifies itself with Silicon Valley and identifies itself with Big Pharma.”
“I think the party has really abandoned its dedication to working-class Americans, beginning in the 1970s and has progressively abandoned it more and more and more.”
Do you think Thomas Frank is wrong? Do you think it was the working class that abandoned the Democratic Party? Do you think the Democrats are still dedicated to lunch-bucket Americans? Another Clinton (Hillary) summed it up famously:
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”
The key to political power in America is easy to say and hard to do.
The party that restores the American dream of a shot at prosperity and financial security to the tens of millions in the middle, is the party that’s going to win and hold power for a long time.
But that means fighting the 1% with their obscene wealth and the corporate interests with their obscene wealth. They’re the ones who really run this country.
As I said, easy to say, hard to do.
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